For example, it’s very difficult for parents to make the transition to realize that if you have a depressed child in front of you and they’re going into a rage attack, that they’re being pushed into this rage attack by their illness.
The first thing for most of us as parents is ‘Whoa, wait a minute, I’m the adult here, I’m in charge, you can’t do this’.
And so we would try to ... take control, so to speak, in that kind of situation. That’s going to just make that teen spiral higher and higher into that out of control behavior.
So, you literally have to teach the parents, ‘Look, when you see something like that happen, you have to back off, and give the child every opportunity to regain control of their own selves, to calm down, and then you can deal with whatever the situation is after that’.
Gary Nelson
Surviving Teen Depression
Pastor, Pastoral Counselor
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