If you have a teen with behavioral problems, it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to manage the holidays.
Why?
The December holidays are here.
You’ve probably already been to your share of office parties, neighborhood get-togethers, and school functions. If you’re lucky, you’ve been to an upscale event or two where you got to dress up, leave the kids at home, and enjoy a night of adult conversation and camaraderie.
Now is when the real fun – and the real stress – begins.
You may be getting your house ready for incoming relatives or preparing to travel across the country for your yearly pilgrimage to visit family. Your teenagers are finishing up the semester, taking exams, and looking forward to some time off. Everyone is – or should be – excited about quality family time, because that’s what the seasons is all about. It’s time to slow down, eat great meals, show gratitude, count our blessings, and remind ourselves of what’s most important in life.
However, if you have a teen with behavioral problems or a diagnosed conduct disorder in the house, you know their behavior has the potential to upset the balance. Their behavior may cause stress and conflict, which can undermine the holiday atmosphere and have a negative impact on the feelings of gratitude, connectedness, and peace we prioritize – and you work hard to create – during the holiday season.
So how do you keep that from happening?
We have five important tips that can help you manage a teen with behavioral problems over the holidays, which may keep that from happening. We’ll share our tips below, then review the latest facts and figures on behavioral disorders among adolescents. We’ll close by discussing the impact of mental and behavioral disorders on teens, and share the best options for seeking professional help for teens with behavioral and/or conduct disorders.
Tips to Maintain the Holiday Spirit This Season
The first thing to remember is you’re in charge. You’re in charge of the schedule: You decide who gets to come over. You decide where the family goes, and when. You can plan the activities and set the parameters. This part is essential for having the type of holiday you want.
Your authoritative voice on these topics can determine the scope of your teen’s behavior by creating solid boundaries – ahead of time – defined by your holiday schedule.
That was our warm-up tip – and its important. Remember you have the power in this situation, and have the final say on what can and can’t happen in your home. With that said, here’s the real list.
Five Tips for Managing a Teen With Behavioral Problems
1. Be Realistic.
As you plan your schedule for the holidays, ensure you don’t spread yourself or your family too thin. It’s tempting to create an ambitious, jam-packed schedule filled with fun holiday-themed activities from dawn to dusk. But that can go wrong. If you’re stressed out and rushing to get from one thing to the next, everyone in the family will feel that anxiety, which increases the likelihood emotions will run high and create conflict. Therefore, when you plan the holidays, make sure there’s time to breathe: it’s the quality of the time you spend with your loved ones that matters, rather than the quantity of holiday events you manage to attend.
2. Talk to Your Teen About the Schedule
Before the season starts in earnest, take the time to talk to your teen about everything that’s coming up. Have the chat before school lets out for break. Review what you expect from them during the time off school. Work with them to get on the same page about your behavioral expectations and establish clear outcomes if their behavior doesn’t match your mutually agreed upon expectations. Implement the outcomes consistently. Finally – and this will help – remember to tell them when they need to dress up for company, and when it’s alright to spend the entire day in pajamas.
3. Prioritize/Manage Your Energy
One way to minimize the impact of behavioral problems on your holiday is to select the activities you want your teen to attend mindfully. Of course you want them there for everything. But do you need them there for everything? Think of the core rituals your family engages in: your teen need to be at those, because evidence shows they have a positive impact on teen mental and emotional health. But do they need to come to all the social gatherings you want to attend? Caroling? Maybe yes. Party at boss’s home? Perhaps reconsider that one.
In addition, remember they’ll want unstructured time at home or out with friends. Within reason – and within the parameters of your family rules – give them that time, if appropriate. It’s a dance: some of what they want, some of what you want. Meet in the middle, and everyone has a chance at being happy and satisfied.
4. That One Relative
During the holidays – as we remind you above – you’re the scheduler, the cook, the disciplinarian, the toastmaster, and the delegator. You’re also one more thing: the mediator. When sensitive topics come up during family time or around the table during the important meals – whether you like it or not – you’re in the position to defuse or prevent your family from pursuing topics you know can end in conflict.
We’re really talking about topics your teen might chime in on. And even more specifically, we’re talking about that one relative your teen may have had conflict with in the past. Maybe they disagree on social issues, maybe they differ on political views, or maybe they simply don’t like/can’t get along with one another. In those scenarios, the relative might like to say provocative things or your teen might like to say provocative things.
Either way, you have two jobs here. First, talk to your teen ahead of time, and help them develop strategies to get along with that one relative, and second, keep your eyes and ears open: if you hear a phrase you know is going to trigger someone, or you feel the tension rise, it’s time to step in and change the subject.
5. Manage Yourself
This tip is related to the warm-up tip we led with, above. You’re the one in charge, which means your family looks to you for cues. They follow your lead on the obvious things: schedule, behavior, and the externals. But they also follow your lead on the not-so-obvious things, like your emotions. Children channel the emotional subtext of their parents, and so do teenagers. What we’re getting at here is that if you’re anxious, on edge, and irritable, your teen will pick up on that – and it can increase their chances of acting out.
This means that if you have a daily stress management routine, or things you do during the week to keep you balanced and on track, keep doing those things over the holidays. And if you can, do more. If yoga is your thing, you may have time to get to a couple extra classes over the holidays. Or maybe pickleball is your new passion: if so, schedule some matches with friends and neighbors – they might need the stress relief, too.
We understand the holidays can be a difficult time for many people. Adding a teen with behavioral problems to the mix can increase the levels of stress and tension, but with the tips above, you can manage the situation. You can create fun and enriching holiday season that you’ll look back on with joy. And if your teen does act out, communicate with them to learn what’s happening: there’s likely a reason behind the behavior.
If you learn they experience symptoms of a mental health disorder, it may be time to seek professional support. We’ll close this article by reviewing recent trends in mental and behavioral health diagnoses among teens, and why support is essential.
Prevalence of Mental Health, Behavioral, and Conduct Disorders Among U.S. Teens
If your teen has a mental or behavioral disorder, you’re not alone. The report “Adolescent Mental and Behavioral Health, 2023,” published by the U.S. Census Bureau, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Maternal & Child Health (HRSA), offers that latest facts on the prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders among teens in the U.S.
This report relies on surveys administered to parents of adolescents ages 12-17. When reading these statistics, keep I mind that a teen who needs professional support may not have a formal clinical diagnosis for a mental health disorder.
Here’s what the survey completed by parents/caregivers showed.
Need for Support: Adolescents and Mental/Behavioral Health
- 21% of adolescents needed professional support for mental health or behavioral issues
- Among those: 84% received professional support
- Among those with a clinical diagnosis:
- 86% received support for anxiety
- 87% received support for depression
- 83% received support for behavioral or conduct problems
- Among those, treatment by insurance status:
- Private insurance: 85%
- Public insurance: 82%
- No insurance: 80%
- Among those. 61.0% reported problems finding appropriate support
Those statistics tell us that millions of adolescents have a mental or behavioral disorder. A significant percentage of them receive support, also, which can be life-changing for a teen with symptoms that disrupt daily life.
The Impact of Teen Mental Health and Behavioral Problems
We mention above that if you talk to your teen over the holidays and learn they experience the symptoms of a mental health or behavioral disorder, it’s important to seek professional treatment and support.
Why?
Teens with mental health and behavioral problems experience difficulties in daily life far more often than teens without a diagnosis. Consider these facts about the impact of a mental health or behavioral diagnosis on teens.
School participation:
- With diagnosis: 43% report they’re never engaged at school
- Without diagnosis: 14.9% report they’re never engaged at school
Calls from school about behavior:
- With diagnosis: 32.8%
- Without diagnosis: 7.4%
Absenteeism (missing 11+ days of school for health reasons):
- With diagnosis: 7.7%
- Without diagnosis: 3.5%
Experienced bullying as victim:
- With diagnosis: 60.5%
- Without diagnosis: 27.2%
Social/Friends:
- With diagnosis: 20.4% report having problems making and keeping friends
- Without diagnosis: 2.1% report having problems making and keeping friends
The reason we’re sharing data that shows teens with a diagnosis have more problems at school than teens without a diagnosis is because a teen with behavioral problems – like the teen you need to manage over the holidays – may have behavioral problems caused by overwhelming emotions associated with a clinical mental health disorder.
Teens with mental health disorders may display behavior in ways we don’t expect. A teen with depression may display anger, rather than sadness. A teen with anxiety may skip a class or not study for a test because they fear failure so intensely, they can’t get started. A teen with schizophrenia may act out in response to their symptoms.
In other words, behavioral issues may be the result of a mental health disorder, instead of simple misbehavior. If that’s the case, the first step is to arrange a full psychiatric evaluation. If a licensed and experienced mental health professional arrives at a diagnosis, the next step is to seek professional treatment and support – which can be lifechanging for your teen and your family.
How to Find Support: Online Resources for Families
If you think your teen needs to engage in professional treatment, please call us here at BACA or fill out one of our contact forms, and we’ll reply as soon as possible. In addition, you can use the following online resources to help locate a psychiatrist, therapist, or counselor to meet your family needs.
- The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is a reliable source for finding psychiatrists, therapists, and counselors near you. Their treatment finder is convenient and easy to use.
- The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) maintains a page for youth, adolescent, and family mental health
- The National Alliance on Mental Illness maintains excellent resources for families
Please remember: the sooner a teen with a mental health or behavioral disorder gets the treatment they need, the better the outcome.
