What it is:
It’s normal for children and adolescents to have strong emotions, including big emotional outbursts at times. In addition, they have fewer skills to cope with their emotions, relying heavily on the world around them to teach effective emotion regulation strategies. As they get older, some of these outbursts can become quite intense and worrisome, and it’s often hard for parents or caregivers to tell what’s developmentally normal and when mood swings cross into being a problem.
Mood concerns in teens often involve patterns of intense and fluctuating emotions combined with the tendency to respond impulsively when emotions are present. Though not a formal diagnosis, psychologists often refer to this as “emotion dysregulation”. Emotion dysregulation can be pervasive, meaning that the adolescent struggles with multiple emotions (e.g., anger, shame, anxiety). Or, emotion dysregulation can be more specific, meaning that the teen struggles intensely with one emotion (e.g., panic or anger) more than others.
Teens who struggle with these kinds of mood swings experience emotions that fire quickly (we call this emotion sensitivity) and are quite intense (we call this emotion reactivity). For some teens, it takes a long time for their emotions to return to baseline, and they are vulnerable to additional emotional stimuli during this time as well. These difficulties with emotions can lead to moods that last for hours or days, sometimes seeming to be set off for no observable reason.
Not surprisingly, dysregulated teens often act impulsively in response to intense emotions. While it may not seem like it in the moment, these behaviors are typically an attempt to stop the emotion or the situation that caused it. Here are some examples of common impulsive behaviors we hear about from teens and their families:
- Taking their emotions out on others (e.g., saying things they don’t mean, threatening, yelling)
- Using substances
- Engaging in impulsive sexual behavior
- Stealing, spending money impulsively
- Breaking things, punching walls, or becoming oppositional, defiant, or aggressive towards others
- Engaging in sensation-seeking behaviors (e.g., reckless driving, cliff jumping)
- Engaging in self-harm (cutting, burning) or suicidal behavior
The combination of intense emotions and impulsive behaviors can create difficulties in several areas of the teen’s life, including problems with school, work, relationships, and/or a sense of self.
Emotional regulation difficulties occur on a spectrum for all teens. Lower-level concerns with emotion dysregulation may look like a teen who can function fairly well in day-to-day life (e.g., attending school, spending time with peers), but are often distressed or exhausted by doing so. Moderate level concerns with dysregulation may involve greater impairments in functioning, such as a teen with more regular interpersonal conflict with friends and family. Adolescents with severe difficulty with emotion dysregulation may struggle substantially with engaging in school, keeping friends, and getting along with family. Teens with significant emotion dysregulation typically develop high risk coping mechanisms (e.g., suicidality, self-injury, aggression).
Does This Sound Familiar?
- Your teen is pervasively moody
- Your adolescent has angry outbursts that may involve yelling, crying, threatening, storming off or breaking things
- It seems to take very little to set your teen off
- Your teen frequently communicates extreme thinking hallmarked with phrases such as “always,” “never,” “the worst,” and “forever.”
- Your youth may move quickly from feeling excited, anxious, devastated, furious, and seem to spend very little time feeling neutral
- Your teen is bothered by things that other adolescents seem to be able to handle much more easily
- Caregivers have the urge to walk on eggshells to avoid setting off their teen’s explosiveness
- Your adolescent engages in impulsive or risky behaviors in the heat of high emotions, including: self-harm, suicidal behaviors, substance abuse, risky sexual behaviors, aggression.
Associated Concerns:
- Dysregulated teens frequently struggle with suicidality and self-harm. Our providers are highly-experienced in the assessment and management of high-risk behaviors.
- Anger can lead to highly problematic behaviors in adolescents with dysregulation or mood concerns. This may include defiance, physical or verbal aggression, or interpersonal hostility.
- Teens with dysregulation and mood concerns often struggle with chronic anxiety or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This underlying distress may often be harder to see as teens may feel more comfortable communicating anger.
- Dysregulated teens are also at high-risk for depression due to their emotional sensitivity and tendency towards negative thinking.
- Neurodivergent adolescents often struggle with regulating emotions due to broader challenges with executive functioning. Additionally, higher sensitivity to sensory inputs, social challenges, and a greater need for predictability and control all increase the frequency of mood challenges.
Specialty Services at TAP:
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