Teen Girl Anger | Beyond Bad Behaviour

0:00 Her anger terrified me. Not because she was angry per se, but because I had absolutely no idea where it was coming from. One minute everything seemed okay. And then suddenly she was shouting, slamming doors, snapping at everyone, and completely losing it. And if I'm honest, I started to wonder what the hell was happening for my daughter. Was this just teenage hormones? Was I just supposed to grit my tooth and smile the whole way through? Was she becoming aggressive? Or was I doing something wrong?

0:37 Or was this just who she is right now? And then I realised something that completely changed the way I look at her anger. The anger was not the beginning of the story. It was the end of it. Hi yeah, and welcome back to this podcast, The Teen Whisperer, the only podcast for mums of girls. I'm Rach Friedley, a mum who's stood exactly where you are right now. This is the podcast where we connect all the dots because behaviour is never just about one thing. Every week we're gonna slow things down together.

1:16 We'll look at what you're seeing, what you're thinking about what you're seeing, what you're thinking is then what you're making your thinking mean, how that's then making you feel, and what you're doing because of those feelings. Then and only then, we're gonna zoom out and ask a different question. What is happening for her? Because when we stop asking what's wrong with her and start asking what's happening for her, everything begins to make a little more sense. My hope is that every time you listen to one of these episodes, you'll leave feeling a little more seen, a little more understood, and a hell of a lot less alone.

1:53 So let's connect the dots. So let's imagine this. Your daughter comes home from school, she disappears upstairs. You ask her how her day was. Fine. You ask her if she'd like a cup of hot chocolate. No. You ask another question and then suddenly, BAM! Can you just leave me alone? Door slams, and you're standing there thinking, what the frigity frig just happened. Now, this is where I want you to slow down because there's actually a whole load happening before you even get anywhere near your daughter's body.

2:33 There's what you see. You see the shouting, the snapping, the door slamming, the anger. Then there's what you think about what you're seeing. She's being horrible to me, she's overreacting, she's got no respect for me, she's becoming aggressive. I can't say anything without her butt kicking off. And then there's a really sneaky bit. What you make those thoughts mean? Maybe you make it mean I'm failing as a mum. I can't handle my own daughter. She doesn't respect me, she doesn't like me. I've lost her.

3:09 What if this gets worse? What if I've just created this? And now look at what's happened. We're no longer just responding to a teenage girl who's angry. We're responding to the meaning we've attached to that anger. And that changes how we feel. Because then we feel rejected, scared, frustrated, guilty, angry ourselves, helpless, like we're getting it all wrong. And then what do we do? We react from that place. We shout back, we lecture, we demand an apology, we try to make her see what she's doing.

3:52 We take the phone, we threaten consequences, we shut down. Or sometimes we do the complete opposite. We tiptoe around her, we stop asking questions, we feel like we're walking on eggshells inside our own homes. We try desperately not to trigger another explosion, and suddenly we're both stuck in that same cycle. Her behavior triggers something in us, and our reaction triggers something in her. And round and round and round we go. This is the bit I want you to notice. Because when we talk about connecting the dots, we're not just talking about connecting the dots in her.

4:35 We're talking about connecting the dots in you two. What did you see? What did you think? What did you make it mean? How did that make you feel? And what did you do because of those feelings? Because sometimes the biggest shift isn't changing what your daughter is doing, it's changing the story you're telling yourself about what she's doing. And then, and only then, once we slow down ourselves, slowed ourselves down enough to see that, we can start looking at her dots. Because what if her anger isn't actually the beginning either?

5:14 What if something happened before that? Maybe she's exhausted, maybe she hasn't slept properly, maybe she hasn't eaten properly, maybe school, college, university, work has been relentless and she has not stopped. Maybe she's had six hours of noise, people, lessons, expectations, and stimulation. Maybe something happened with a friend. Maybe she's worried about something. Maybe she's holding it together all day. Maybe she's somewhere in her cycle where everything feels way more intense. Or maybe she's simply reached the point where her body is saying, enough!

5:55 And suddenly that explosion doesn't quite look so random. I'm not saying it makes the behaviour okay, and this is really important. Understanding what's underneath the behaviour doesn't mean excusing it. We can still have boundaries. We can still say it's okay to be angry, but it's not okay to speak to me like that. But we can do that without making the anger the enemy. Because anger is a feeling, not an emotion. And feelings are information. They're telling us something. So rather than immediately asking, why is she so friggin' angry?

6:40 What if we asked, what happened before the anger? That is a completely different question because it takes us backwards. It zooms us out. We start connecting the dots. What happened today? How does she sleep? Has she eaten? How much pressure has she been under? How much time has she had to herself? What's happening with her friendships? What's happening at school, college, university, at work? Has anything changed? What has she been carrying that she hasn't been able to put into words? And sometimes you just won't know.

7:18 Sometimes she'll have absolutely no idea either, and that's okay. We're not trying to become detectives who can explain every single behavior. We're learning to become curious. Because what's wrong with her takes you in one direction. What's going on for her takes you in a completely different direction. And here's the other thing: when you're on the receiving end of your daughter's anger, your body is reacting too. You feel attacked, you feel rejected, you might feel frightened, you might feel completely out of control.

7:55 And now you've got two systems in the room going, what the friggity frig is going on. So expecting yourself to react perfectly in that moment, not realistic. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop, pause, take a breath deep into your belly, give everyone a bit of space and come back to it later. Because sometimes the conversation you need to have isn't why were you so horrible to me? It's something something seemed really hard earlier. What was going on, or what do you need? And you might get nothing.

8:39 Fine, don't force it. You can leave the door open because the goal is not to get an answer immediately, it's to help her learn that her feelings aren't something she has to hide, fix, or be ashamed of. They're messages, and her body is constantly giving her information. We just haven't necessarily taught her how to listen to it, mainly because we haven't been taught how to listen to our own bodies. And actually, that brings me back to something I realised. Her anger terrified me until I realized it was her body saying, I'm overwhelmed.

9:16 And once we start helping with the overwhelm, the anger naturally settled. Not because we're taught her how to stop being angry, because anger is a feeling and it needs to work through the body, it needs to move out. But because we finally started listening to what her body had been trying to tell us. And that's the bit I want you to take away today. Next time your daughter explodes and your first thought is, Oh my god, what the hell is wrong here? Stop and notice your own dots first. What am I seeing?

9:52 What am I thinking about what I'm seeing? What am I making it mean? How is that making me feel? And what am I about to do because I feel that way? Then and only then, zoom out. Go backwards. Ask yourself what happened before the anger. Because the behavior you're seeing might be the very last dot in a much bigger picture. And once you start connecting those dots, you might finally start seeing what's actually going on for her. And that changes everything.

10:30 And if you're lit sitting there listening to this thinking, oh my god, I can see the dots, but honestly, I need someone to work this way out, to work this stuff out. That's exactly why I created WTF. What's the feeling? But you know, we're mums of girls. We all have those other WTF moments too. It's a community for mums who are tired of feeling like they're constantly trying to decode their daughter's behaviour on their own. It's a place to come and talk about the stuff that's actually going on, to connect the dots, look beyond the behaviour, and start making sense of what might actually be underneath it without feeling like you need to have all the answers.

11:11 You don't need another list of things to do with her. You need somewhere you can come when something's happening and saying, WTF, what's that about? And have someone help you make sense of it. Sometimes that's on one of our calls. Sometimes it's hearing another mum say something that makes you think, oh my god, that's us too. Sometimes it's getting outside together, and sometimes it's simply realizing you're not the only one finding this bit of motherhood really, really hard. You just need other mums who get it.

11:44 A place to breathe, to figure things out, to feel understood, and to remember you're not the only one thinking a WTF is going on with my daughter. If that sounds like something you need, you can find out more about WTF at my website the3w's thirteenwhisperer.co.uk. And remember, behaviour is never just about one thing. And my last little plea on the end of this episode is please leave me a review. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, leave me a review, leave a comment, and let other mums see what this podcast is about.

12:22 Because the best way for us to get this stuff out there for mums to be able to listen to what's actually going on for their daughters is by us as mums leaving reviews. So, yeah, that's it for now. I'll speak to you soon. Take care, bye bye.