3 Things to Remember With Your Drama Queen Daughter

Listening to her feelings will lessen them. Avoiding or diminishing her feelings will make them worse. 

Here’s the crux of diminishing the drama: in my research, I’ve found that teenagers’ feelings only get more and more complex and intense if they couldn’t be shared and heard.

Believe it or not, this mattered equally to both boys and girls! Teens and younger kids are often a jumble of emotions, and when those situations occur both boys and girls desperately need to be able to share those emotions, get them out, and (most importantly) know that you have heard them. Not just that the issue had been heard, but that their feelings had been heard.

What we discovered is that as the teenager had a chance to talk through all their jangling emotions, and get them all out, they would find their emotions calming down a bit. The issue was still there, but the feelings were more manageable. And thus the “drama” would be more manageable and would (often) go away much more quickly.

Since you truly do care about your daughter, learn how to listen to her feelings instead of dismissing them. Draw out her emotions about the events that seem to be tying her in knots and ask questions about them and dig deeper into how she’s feeling. (“Oh honey, that must have been so embarrassing.  I’m so sorry.  What did they say when you came inside the house?  And then what?  Then how did you feel?”) You may recoil and think that pulling out more feelings is like throwing gasoline on an open flame and will make the “drama” worse, but just try it. Instead, you’ll see that it is more like drawing poison out of a wound.  The tears will flow, but you’ll see the tenseness leave, and the drama diminishing much more quickly than you would otherwise. And most importantly, your daughter will feel cared for.

So, try it. Next time you see an attitude or a degree of tears that seems out of all proportion, dig deeper instead of trying to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. Remember what it feels like to be in her shoes. Sure, there’s always the possibility it is purely hormonal or purely an attempt to play you for a fool. But unless you know for a fact that the latter is what is happening, err on the side of proving to your daughter, as often as you need to, that while the whole world may seem against her at times, that you are firmly on her side.

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Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her newest book, The Kindness Challenge demonstrates that kindness is the answer to pretty much every life problem, and is sparking a much-needed movement of kindness across the country. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.