Crying Spells in Teens: Emotional Outbursts and Coping Techniques
Adolescence is a stressful time, full of new responsibilities, an evolving identity, and hormonal changes. During this time, you might notice your teen becoming more emotional.
Expressing their emotions in a healthy way is important, and sometimes that means crying. Crying is a normal behavior. We all have episodes of becoming tearful when difficult situations arise – it’s one of the things that makes us human.
However, when crying and emotional outbursts dominate the day or affect a teen’s everyday life, it’s a sign that there may be a bigger problem. As parents, we want the best for our children and we don’t want to see them suffering. As such, catching that problem as early as possible and getting a teen the help they need is vital.
If you’ve noticed that your teenager is crying more than usual, this page is for you. The goal of this page is to provide the information you need to understand crying spells in teens and how you can help. We will cover the following topics:
- What adolescent crying spells are
- Causes of crying in teens
- Signs of underlying mental health issues
- Emotional support for teenagers with mental health problems
- Parental support for teen emotional issues
What Are Adolescent Crying Spells?
It’s expected that teenagers will have times when they cry. As we mentioned earlier, crying isn’t necessarily a bad or unhealthy thing – in fact, crying is a healthy way to release emotions. However, some teenagers have a harder time coping with negative emotions than others, which could lead to uncontrollable crying or frequent crying spells. In these instances, crying can communicate more than just sadness – it may also show underlying anger or a mental health difficulty.1
Research shows that boys and girls express sadness and anger differently, which also means their adolescent crying spells present differently.1,2 Knowing what is typical and what is abnormal behavior for your teen can help you identify problem crying episodes.
Because persistent crying can be tied to mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders, we need to acknowledge when it is helpful and when it is more harmful.3 But first, what are the possible causes of crying in teens?
Causes of Crying in Teens
There are a variety of reasons teens cry, and a growing body of research to support the main causes. For example, studies show that causes of crying in teens can be separated into five categories:2
- Loss and separation: This can include grief, separation anxiety, and feeling homesick when separated from loved ones.
- Helplessness and feeling powerless: Oftentimes, this is coupled with feelings of sadness, fear, anger, frustration, shame, regret.
- Physical pain and discomfort: This is more apparent in younger children and tends to decrease in adolescence for typical teens.
- Empathy for others: Teens with higher levels of empathy tend to cry more, especially as they get older.
- Very positive or moving experiences: As we said, crying can also be a way of communicating positive emotions like joy and love.
As we can see, the causes of crying in teens can vary. It’s important to consider any and all of these causes when determining if adolescent crying spells are problematic.
Signs of Underlying Mental Health Issues
Increased crying during adolescence can be an early warning sign of underlying mental health issues. Researchers looked at how crying behavior is related to a variety of psychiatric conditions, like depression, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and borderline personality disorder (BPD).2
Let’s take a closer look at how crying is linked to some of these mental health issues.
Teen Depression and Crying
Even though crying isn’t part of the diagnostic criteria for depression, stress and crying in teens has been linked to depressive symptoms. Teens diagnosed with depression tend to have higher rates of crying than teens without depression.2 On the flip side, depression can also sometimes be linked to an inability to cry in negative situations.
It’s important to note that there isn’t a clear linear relationship between crying and the severity of depression, meaning that two teens can be equally depressed and still show different levels of crying. The main thing to look for is either an increase in crying from your teen’s norm or a complete inability to cry.
Interestingly, when nondepressed teens cry, they tend to report that they feel better after the episode. This often isn’t the case for teens with depression. Research shows that when adolescents are living with major depressive disorder, they feel worse after crying and their body physically reacts to the crying differently than nondepressed teens.2
Increased Crying in Teens With Eating Disorders
At their core, eating disorders are often about control. Teens who develop eating disorders tend to feel that the rest of their life is out of control, while food and weight are things within their control. Because they are dealing with a lot of negative feelings, teens with eating disorders have reported increased crying episodes. The crying spells are also distressing to those coping with eating disorders because it is another element out of their control.2
Borderline Personality Disorder and Crying in Teens
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is associated with crying much more frequently than the average person. For the most part, this is due to their emotional instability and being in situations that cause more intense negative emotions.2
Additionally, a symptom of BPD is a fear of abandonment, which leads to more crying spells when they are having problems with interpersonal relationships. BPD is a complicated disorder to understand, and seeking help from a trained mental health professional is strongly advised.
Emotional Support for Teenagers With Mental Health Problems
If your teenager is frequently crying and you believe that this is getting in the way of their daily activities, it’s time to start looking for extra support. Luckily, there are tons of options available for emotional support for teenagers.
The major focus of the support will center on developing better emotion regulation skills.4 Different therapeutic styles can be used to build up these skills, so finding the right fit for your teen is important.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Emotion Regulation
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a type of therapy for emotional regulation that has become more popular over the past decade. It consists of four modules for promoting mental health:
- Mindfulness
- Emotion regulation
- Distress tolerance
- Interpersonal effectiveness.
Mindfulness Therapeutic Techniques
Mindfulness-based training is also helpful for managing teenage emotions because research shows that it reduces distress in teens with mental health problems like depression and anxiety.4 Mindfulness training can involve meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and other activities that encourage teens to become aware of the present moment.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Positive Thinking
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is another effective treatment option for stress and crying in teens.5 CBT can include individual therapy sessions, as well as group sessions with other teens and family sessions to get additional support from parents. The main goal of CBT is to challenge negative thinking patterns, so some of the techniques therapists use are cognitive restructuring and problem solving.5 Finding the right therapy for emotion regulation is the key to helping your child develop more positive coping skills. By building up their toolbox with effective skills, they are empowered to deal with negative emotions and distressing situations in a healthy way.Parental Support for Teen Emotional Issues
Although crying spells in teens are undoubtedly hard for your child, we recognize that this also takes a toll on parents. There are a variety of ways to cope with teen emotional outbursts, but sometimes you need to seek the help of a mental health professional to get the right support.
Family Therapy for Teen Depression and Crying
Working with your child’s therapist–whether that’s CBT or DBT–can help you better understand what to do during adolescent crying spells. Family therapy sessions can focus on effective communication strategies for parents. Research shows that better communication between teens and their parents provides significant mental health benefits.6
There are several therapy styles that specifically work on effective communication strategies for parents, including Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT) and Family-Enhanced Non-Directive Supportive Therapy (FE-NST).6 Both types of therapies incorporate individual sessions for your child as well as group sessions, so you can work through issues together and model appropriate behavior.
Learning the ins and outs of recognizing emotional distress in teens is crucial for getting the right treatment, both for parents and their children. Parental support during crying spells in teens complements the individual therapy your child is receiving to ultimately promote better mental health outcomes.
Mission Prep: Providing Mental Health Support for Teens and Families
At Mission Prep, we strive to provide the most effective therapeutic interventions for adolescents and their families struggling with mental health problems. Our goal is to encourage early intervention for emotional issues in teens. Whether your child is living with depression, anxiety, or another mood disorder–we offer a variety of treatment options that can help.
If you feel that your child is struggling with emotional issues, reach out to our team today to find out how we can best support you during this time. Our trained mental health professionals are here to provide you with the resources you need to get your child on the path to mental wellness and stability.
References
- Santiago-Menendez, M., & Campbell, A. (2013). Sadness and anger: Boys, girls, and crying in adolescence. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14(4), 400–410. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030661
- Bylsma, L. M., Gračanin, A., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2020). A clinical practice review of crying research. Psychotherapy, 58(1), 133–149. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000342
- Van Tilburg, M. a. L., Unterberg, M. L., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2002). Crying during adolescence: The role of gender, menarche, and empathy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20(1), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151002166334
- Mulyati, H., LN, S. Y., & Supriatna, M. (2020, February). Emotion regulation in adolescents. In International Conference on Educational Psychology and Pedagogy-” Diversity in Education”(ICEPP 2019) (pp. 129-132). Atlantis Press.
- Spirito, A., Esposito-Smythers, C., Wolff, J., & Uhl, K. (2011). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for adolescent depression and suicidality. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics, 20(2), 191-204.
- Zisk, A., Abbott, C. H., Bounoua, N., Diamond, G. S., & Kobak, R. (2019). Parent–teen communication predicts treatment benefit for depressed and suicidal adolescents. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 87(12), 1137.
