Do your teens frequently or always seem to be in a bad mood?And do you feel like almost anything you say might cause your teens to react badly? Now, I’m not saying it’s okay for your teens to disrespectful.But it’s important to understand what’s going on behind the scenes, which is causing your teens to be moody.This understanding will help you bridge the gap between you and your teens. In this blog , I’ll explain the four major reasons why teens have mood swings. Here’s reason number one.
Reason 1: Your teen’s brain is developing rapidly.
You might think that your teens are just immature and that their brains are underdeveloped.vBut recent research shows that teenagers’ brains are changing at an extremely fast pace. This is a good thing, but it can affect their mood. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or FMRI, scientists can see inside the brains of teenagers. Scientists have discovered that there are different rates of development for different parts of a teenager’s brain. The limbic system is the part of the brain that deals with emotional responses.
It matures much earlier than the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for things like complex decision-making, impulse control, and judgment. But this part of the brain takes a lot longer to fully develop. This explains why teens don’t always make good decisions and why they have trouble keeping their emotions in check.
All this might sound a bit complicated, and you probably didn’t click on this blog to learn all about neuroscience. But it’s important to know that there’s an imbalance in the developmental rates of these two parts of teenagers’ brains. This causes them to experience some emotional fluctuations.
Reason 2: Your teen is going through many hormonal changes.
You probably already know that hormones are responsible for physical and sexual development. But hormones also affect your emotions. If your teen is frequently moody, hormones have a significant part to play. For teenage girls, a drop in the hormone estrogen at the end of the menstrual cycle can lead to lower serotonin levels. This can cause irritability, sadness, or anxiety.
On the other hand, teenage boys can experience mood swings when there’s a fluctuation in testosterone levels. Another hormone that you might not have heard of before is called allopregnanolone. This hormone is released during moments of stress. For adults, it helps to calm the mind. But this isn’t the case for teens. Allopregnanolone causes teens to be anxious. And if you’ve been around an anxious teenager before,
you’ll understand when I say that anxiety increases irritability and moodiness.
Quick question: What frustrating things do your teens do when they’re moody? Leave a comment below to let me know your answer.
Reason 3: Your teen is feeling confused.
The teenage years are a time of big changes. This often involves confusionvsurrounding their identity. Teens are no longer children,
but they aren’t adults yet either. Their identity is unclear and they feel like they’re neither here nor there. The confusion your teens face is real, even if they don’t talk about it. What’s the effect of this confusion? You guessed it: Mood swings. It’s healthy for teenagers to seek independence and develop their own beliefs and goals, which are different from their parents. But this process can be complicated and frustrating, which can also lead to moodiness.
Reason 4: Your teen is feeling stressed.
You may have forgotten how stressful it was being a teenager. Peer pressure, worrying about what other people think of you, academic challenges, feeling insecure about your looks,the list goes on. And nowadays, there’s social media too. For teens, this can be a bad thing, even if they don’t realize it. This is because teens often allow social media to take charge of their lives. What other people post online can affect their confidence and self-image.
Trends on social media influence your teenager’s choices and their outlook on life. In many situations, this leads to more stress and worse mental health. And of course, it also leads to teenagers who are moody more often.
So if your teens are moody, don’t take it personally. Give them some space if they need it, and do your best to empathize with them. When they’re calm, you can have a discussion with them about how all feelings and moods are acceptable, but not all behaviors are acceptable.
For example, you might decide together with your teens that the following behaviors are unacceptable; physical aggression, throwing or breaking things, s mmwearing, taunting, name-calling. Of course, these rules would apply to you too if you are in a bad mood. Now you understand what’s going on when your teen is moody and how to handle the situation.
Conclusion
I hope you found this blog helpful and to some length you have understood your son or daughter and reasons as to why he or she might be moody at times.Comment down on the comment section and give us your opinion. Also suggest on more topics that you might want covered. Thank you for reading