Mood Swings during Puberty

Mood swings during puberty can strain parent and child relationship to a large extent. As parents, you need to mend your ways and help your child cope up with this phase.

We've all been through puberty. It is a phase of life, when your body goes through a lot of changes, making you adapt to it constantly. This causes a lot of irritation and gets us down too. It is difficult to reason out such emotional outbursts with teenagers undergoing puberty.

An emotional roller coaster as such gets difficult to handle and has the capacity to mess relationships forever. Dealing with the changes is an obvious way out of this physiological melodrama. But, not every child can deal with the pressures, which worsens the mood swings.

A mood swing lasts for a couple of hours. They may extend to a day in a few cases. However, if you see your child retreating from social circle, staying aloof, shows constant signs of anger, frustration, irritation and hopelessness, it can be more than a mood swing.

These signs often go unnoticed for the longest time and rob a teenager from beautiful years of growing up. Most of the time, puberty is the catalyst in causing such psychological conditions. As parents you need to intervene, find ways to understand your child's problem and most importantly treat it at the earliest.

Puberty is a phase when kids find it hard to make trustworthy friends. As most of their friends are going through the same, their relationships hang by loosely. Instead of being overtly judgmental of your child's behavior, befriend your child and try to look through his/her perspective.

This will give a chance to get to know your child better and strengthen your bond too. Allow your child to vent out anger, instead of calming him/her down.

The best way of dealing with mood swings during puberty is by diverting attention. Hobby classes, sports activities, dance classes and so forth, help in interacting with more people, which many times brings in the much-needed fresh perspective.

Physical activities help in releasing of beta-endorphin, which is a hormone that controls the stress levels, brings about emotional upliftment and improves mood. Exercising also helps in improving metabolism and keeps the body fit, as many kids are susceptible to weight loss and gain during this phase.

To avoid aggravating any kind of stress for your child, make sure he/she gets enough sleep. With a number of activities and increasing academic pressures, your child may experience disturbed sleep patterns.

However, make a schedule for all the activities, cut down a few if needed, make sure all the homework is done on time and your child gets enough sleep. Inadequate sleep adds to irritability, increases bouts of sadness and makes the child tired very easily.

Mood swings are urges that make you act without thinking. Thus, controlling your urges is the key to preventing regrets in retrospect. Increasing your levels of patience by meditating, diverting your mind from the situation and learning a few tricks of anger management will help you get over this difficult phase.

Mood swings are experienced by both boys and girls during puberty. Recognizing the changes within the body and accepting the changes, is the first step towards dealing with this overwhelming phase of life. A mindset that welcomes these changes will help you and your child to see these years of life with positivity.

Remember that your child is going through a tough time and will need your support all the time. Thus, think of ways in which you can strengthen your bond, instead of telling the child what not to do. Quintessential rules of parenting will fail that this point, if you press them too hard. Make a few amends, to have a bond that only grows stronger from now on.