As a parent, you might notice a lot more irritability, defiance, or meltdowns with your tween, which can be really disruptive. In dealing with that disruption, and everything that triggers for everyone else in your house, it’s hard to remember that those mood swings and that attitude might actually be masking anxiety, depression, or emotional overload for your tween. Let’s break this down.
Between the ages of 9–14 there is a shift toward more independence and peer influence. This can lead to lots of emotions and fluctuating self-esteem since it’s part of forming a sense of identity. In addition to these emotions, kids this age are also experiencing puberty which involves physical changes.
It’s a challenging process for them when their brains are developing the skills they need for emotional regulation. Learning things like how to understand their emotions and the consequences of their actions can be hard, and it’s also happening at a time while they are developing a sense of empathy and a moral compass.
Why Tweens Have Bigger Feelings
Tweens really do feel things more intensely. They can’t help it, it is a biological and psychological response to what is happening in their development.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that handles logic, impulse control, and long-term thinking. The limbic system is the part of the brain that drives emotion, motivation, and reward. The limbic system develops faster than the prefrontal cortex, and because it develops faster, tweens/teens feel big emotions before they’ve figured out how to manage them. They don’t even understand them yet and that’s scary and intense.
Puberty also plays a part because the body, and the brain, is flooded with hormones and that’s new, uncharted territory for kids. These hormones can trigger mood swings, increased sensitivity and intensify stress responses. Every feeling and situation can feel like it is magnified.
“A young person may also be sensitive about how they look and their new body changes. Privacy and personal space may become very important to them. They may alternate between feeling self-conscious about themselves one day, to feeling ‘bullet proof’ the next.” (‘Parenting children through puberty and adolescence.’ Better Health Channel. February 24, 2022. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Parenting-children-through-puberty)
Tweens are also trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in. Social acceptance becomes important and even slight failures can have a negative impact on self-esteem and feeling like they belong.
When Anxiety Looks Like Anger
It’s hard for the body to tell the difference between fear and anger. When a person becomes anxious, the body will release adrenaline and cortisol because it is preparing for a threat. This can cause the heart to race, energy to increase and muscles to tense. This is also what happens when a person gets angry.
A tween will become anxious and the body will start to react with these symptoms, however, they may not realize it’s anxiety they are feeling. Or they don’t know how to express what they are feeling, so it may just come out as irritability or defiance.
“Acting out can be a symptom of anxiety in a child because some anxious children feel an overwhelming need to get out of a situation that’s making them anxious. Their behavior may look like anger or defiance, lashing out, throwing tantrums, seeming distracted, moving around a lot, or arguing with others.” (Miller, Caroline. “How Anxiety Leads to Problem Behavior.” Child Mind Institute. February 4, 2025. https://childmind.org/article/how-anxiety-leads-to-disruptive-behavior/)
The survival responses of fight, flight or freeze are activated during moments of anxiety and if your child responds with the “fight” response you may think they are angry. But really, beneath that outward angry response you are seeing, there may be fear or overwhelm.
How You Can Respond
The emotional stage that tweens are in is new and different for them. They still have child-like thinking and coping skills, but they are becoming a teen who feels very deeply. The emotional overload they are experiencing can trigger outbursts or shutdowns and it’s hard to know how to react as a parent.
Remaining calm and steady can be very helpful to your kid. This can help re-regulate their nervous system faster. Remember they are flooded with emotions and their brains don’t know how to handle it, so it’s best not to match their negative thinking or energy.
In these emotionally charged moments, they don’t understand what they are feeling or why they are feeling it, so it’s helpful to normalize and name their emotions. Help them learn emotional maturity like we discussed in a previous blog here. Naming and normalizing emotions can help them feel less intense.
Also, validating before teaching goes a long way. Teaching your child coping skills is important but first you want to make sure they feel understood and they know that their feelings and emotions are valid. When they are calm and open to it, introduce coping skills like deep breathing, journaling and exercise.
How Therapy Helps
The emotional overwhelm that your tween is experiencing may be best addressed with therapy. Therapy provides a safe space for them to identify feelings and help them develop positive coping skills. Therapists can use guided exercises to help them manage stress and regulate their responses to overwhelming emotions. Also, it helps that the therapist isn’t a family member, they don’t have any alliance or agenda except your tweens emotional and mental health.
Adolescence is a time of identity exploration, and sometimes it’s hard to open up completely with a parent about their feelings or experiences. Therapy offers a non-judgmental space where they can build confidence and a stronger sense of self with a neutral adult. They can process difficult emotions and experiences and this can help build resilience.
A trained therapist can help them understand the connection between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, to help break cycles of negative thinking.
Even though we have all been there when we were an adolescent, understanding emotional overloading in tweens can be hard as a parent. What they need most is calm connections and time for their body to reset. If you need help navigating this stage with your child, contact us, we can help.
