Riding through the teen storm

By Dr Sujata Kelkar Shetty

We spend endless hours worrying about our teenagers — their exam stress, their social media habits, their mood swings. However, we rarely turn the spotlight on ourselves, the parents navigating this beautiful yet chaotic phase right alongside them.

Parenting a teen is a high-wire act performed while we ourselves are often juggling midlife challenges: ageing parents, career pressures, and our own changing health. We are expected to be the calm, steady anchor, but who anchors the anchor? This is the heart of resilient parenting: showing up for your teen means you must first learn to show up for yourself.

Understanding the ‘Ferrari Brain’

To parent resiliently, we must first understand what we’re working with. My research has taught me that the adolescent brain is like a high-performance Ferrari — all engine, power, and potential, but with brakes that are still under construction. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for judgement, impulse control, and foreseeing consequences, is the last part to mature fully, not until the mid-20s.

Meanwhile, the amygdala — the emotional and reactive centre of the brain — is in the driver’s seat. This isn’t a design flaw; it’s what fuels their passion, creativity, and courage to eventually leave the nest. But it also explains the exasperating impulsivity, the emotional storms, and the perplexing inability to remember to take out the trash despite a dozen reminders.

When we understand this, our frustration transforms into empathy. Our teen’s distraction isn’t a personal slight against our parenting; it is a neurological reality. Our role shifts from being a disciplinarian to being a co-pilot, helping them navigate until their own internal GPS is fully wired. This knowledge is liberating — it allows us to depersonalise their behaviour and respond with strategic calm instead of reactive panic.

The power of co-regulation

You cannot regulate a dysregulated nervous system from another dysregulated nervous system. This is the science behind the old adage, “calm yourself first.”

Our teens’ brains are highly attuned to our emotional states — a process called co-regulation. When their amygdala is firing, triggering fight-or-flight, our number one job is to ensure our own prefrontal cortex remains online.

This means when your teen slams his door after a frustrating day, your most powerful move isn’t to engage immediately. It is to take a deep breath, perhaps in the kitchen, and activate your own parasympathetic nervous system. Only from that place of calm can you then knock and say, “I’m here when you’re ready to talk.”

By modelling emotional regulation, we literally offer our calm as a template for their developing brains to download. We are not just teaching resilience; we are biologically transmitting it through our presence.

From manager to consultant

Resilient parenting requires a fundamental identity shift: from manager to consultant. In childhood, we manage their schedules, their meals, and their playdates. In adolescence, this management becomes a cage, inciting rebellion and stifling the independence they are hardwired to seek.

Our new role is that of a trusted consultant. We are on call, our expertise is valued, but we are not running the company. This means asking, “What’s your plan for studying for that physics test?” instead of dictating the study schedule. It means letting them fail a small quiz and then helping them analyse what went wrong, rather than preventing the failure altogether. This is how they build self-efficacy — the unshakable belief that they can handle life’s challenges. Our job is not to clear the path for them, but to have faith in their ability to navigate the obstacles, with us safely in their corner.

Parenting my 18-year-old taught me a crucial lesson: adolescence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In our case, his teenage years unfolded against the backdrop of our own midlife challenges. My husband and I were hitting our professional peaks just as we began dealing with the declining health of our parents.

I vividly remember those exhausting days. After navigating work deadlines and frantic calls to geriatric doctors, I would then have to switch gears completely to address the needs of a silent, sullen teenager who had just had a bad day at school.

Sustainable parenting

Megha Sekhsaria Mawandia, a counsellor and founder of Triyoke, perfectly articulated this for me: “The village that shows up when children are young disappears when they become teenagers. And parents are simply exhausted—they just don’t have enough juice to give.”

We are human. We get tired, irritable, and overwhelmed. Acknowledging this is not a sign of failure; it’s the first step toward sustainable parenting. Our teens don’t need perfect parents. They need real ones — parents who can model how to handle stress, admit mistakes, and prioritise well-being.

When my older son was in the thick of his teen years, I often found myself listening to respond, not to understand. I was ready with solutions, advice, and occasionally, dismissals like “You’ll get over it” or “This isn’t a big deal.” It took me time to understand that what he needed most was not a fixer, but a witness.

Active listening is the cornerstone of connection. It means:

1 Putting your phone away: The simple, physical act of giving your teen your undivided attention signals that they matter.

2 Listening for feeling, not just fact: Behind the story about a friend’s betrayal or a teacher’s unfairness is a feeling of hurt, anger, or injustice. Validate that. Try saying, “It sounds like that made you feel really angry. I get that.”

3 Asking open-ended questions: Instead of “How was your day?” (which invites a “fine”), try “What was the most interesting thing you learned today?” or “Tell me about something that made you laugh.”

4 Resisting the urge to solve: Often, our role is to simply hold space. The most powerful question you can ask is, “Would you like my advice, or do you just need me to listen?”

This kind of listening builds a bridge of trust. It tells your teen that their inner world is safe with you, making it more likely they will come to you when the bigger, scarier issues arise.

What to look out for

The key is to watch for changes in baseline behaviour. These are not one-off bad days, but persistent shifts that last weeks. Be alert to:

1 Social withdrawal: Pulling away from friends and family, abandoning hobbies they once loved.

2 Changes in sleep and appetite: Sleeping too much or too little; a significant loss or gain of weight.

3 Academic decline: A sudden, unexplained drop in grades or loss of interest in school.

4 Expressions of hopelessness: Phrases like “I can’t do anything right,” “No one would care if I were gone,” or “I just want to give up.”

5 Increased irritability: Anger and frustration that seem disproportionate to the situation.

These can be triggers for underlying mental health issues like anxiety or depression. Ignoring them, hoping it’s “just a phase,” is a gamble we cannot afford. Half of all serious adult psychiatric conditions begin in the teen years. Early intervention is everything. Your first port of call should be your paediatrician, who can guide you to a qualified therapist or counsellor.

You cannot pour from an empty cup. This is not a cliché; it is a physiological fact. Parenting from a place of exhaustion and depletion helps no one. When we are burned out, we become reactive, short-tempered, and emotionally unavailable — the exact opposite of what our teens need.

Don’t forget to take care of yourself!

Self-care is not selfish; it is strategic. It is how we ensure we have the emotional and physical reserves to be the parents we want to be. This isn’t about lavish spa days (though those are nice!). It’s about consistent, small acts of replenishment:

1 Meet your physical needs: Prioritise 7-8 hours of sleep. Move your body for 30 minutes—a walk in any local park counts. Eat foods that fuel you, not just fill you.

2 Meet your emotional needs: Schedule time with friends who fill your cup. Don’t repress emotions; a good cry can be as cathartic as a deep laugh.

3 Meet your intellectual needs: Keep learning. Read a book outside your field, listen to a podcast, or pick up an old hobby. A stimulated mind is a resilient mind.

I schedule my weekly yoga session as inflexibly as I schedule a doctor’s appointment. It is my sacred time to reset. By prioritising my well-being, I am not taking away from my sons; I am investing in my ability to be present for them.

The author is a clinical research scientist who has been researching, writing and speaking on resilient living for the past 15 years. She has a PhD in Toxicology from the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Her post-doctoral work at the NIH was on the mind-body connection. Her book, Resilience Decoded, was recently published by Penguin.