As the parent of a teen with big emotions, it can feel like you’re constantly trying to either resolve or prevent a situation from escalating into a crisis.
When you are overwhelmed by the number of conflicts and situations you have to manage on a daily basis, it can be difficult to know which battles are not worth fighting, which ones can be set aside for the moment, and which ones need immediate attention.
The last thing you want to do is ignore a situation that needs immediate attention, but you also don’t want to further overwhelm yourself by turning even the smallest of problem behaviors into a full-blown crisis.
The easiest way to determine which problems you should tackle right away is to know which ones actually qualify as a crisis. When you have a crisis on your hands, you need to make sure your teen gets support immediately because the consequences are often life-threatening.
What is a crisis?
While there may be many situations that you don’t like or that feel intense, a true crisis occurs when your teen's behaviors put them at imminent risk of hurting themselves or others and/or prevent them from being able to care for themselves safely in the community.
Here are some examples of situations that would be considered a crisis as well as situations that would be considered a non-crisis :
Crisis: suicidal ideation and acts
If your teen has intrusive or passive suicidal ideation with the clear intent to die by an act of suicide, makes a plan to die by suicide, or commits an actual suicidal act, you should consider these to be crisis behaviors.
For example:
Your teen shares a plan to take several prescribed (or non prescribed) pills
Your teen places deep cuts on themselves that require medical attention
Your teen attempts to take several pills, hang themselves, use a weapon to kill themselves, or otherwise attempts to take their own life
Your teen gains access to a weapon that they can use to take their own life
Your teen talks about or tries to jump off of something or somewhere high where the resulting fall could cost their life
Any of these behaviors would constitute a crisis.
Non-crisis: big emotions that are not life-threatening
When it comes to determining a crisis situation, context matters. When your teen slips on a patch of ice in front of the whole family and says, “I want to die” in embarrassment, for example, this is likely not a crisis.
Just because your kid mentions killing themselves or wanting to die does not automatically make the situation a crisis. It’s important that you consider the following factors:
Have they ever tried to kill themselves in the past?
Are there any other behaviors they are exhibiting that you feel place them at risk of suicide?
Sometimes teens experience strong emotions and yell things like “I just want to kill myself!” If they have no history of trying to kill themselves and they don’t exhibit any other signs or behaviors that would indicate that they have the intent to kill themselves, or they say things like this often out of frustration or embarrassment, this may just be the way they choose to release their strong emotions.
While this might be disheartening to hear as a parent, if your teen is not suicidal or engaging in life-threatening behavior, this display of big emotions is not necessarily a crisis.
Crisis: Self-harm that requires medical attention
If your teen places deep cuts on their body that require them to go to the hospital or to otherwise need medical attention, this is a crisis.
Self-harm with the intent to die is a life-threatening behavior, and it should always be treated as a crisis.
Non-crisis: Self-harm without the intent to kill themselves
Although this is understandably very upsetting as a parent to discover, if your teen shows you that they have superficially cut themselves or burned themselves in a manner that doesn’t require medical attention and without the intent to kill themselves, this is not a crisis.
Teens may inflict self-harm for a multitude of reasons that are not necessarily suicidal and life-threatening.
Crisis: Running away to engage in risky or life-threatening behaviors
We’ve probably all had moments growing up where we wanted, whether for superficial reasons or serious reasons, to run away from home.
Wanting to run away from home or actively running away from home is not a crisis unless you have reason to believe that in doing so, your teen is going to engage in risky or life-threatening behaviors.
It would be considered a crisis if your teen runs away from home if you believe they are:
Couch-hopping or placing themselves by staying the night at people’s homes they don’t know
Spending time with people who engage in risky behaviors like drug dealers, gang members, pimps/traffickers, and friends who have been known to associate with this “high-risk crowd”
Abusing hard or mind-altering drugs
At risk for dying by suicide
Any of these risk factors above would cause running away from home to be considered a crisis.
Non-crisis: Running away from home without evidence of risky or life-threatening behaviors
While it might be incredibly frustrating if your teen runs away from home or leaves your home without permission, it does not necessarily mean that this behavior constitutes a crisis.
For instance, if your teen asks if they can go to the movies with their friends, and you say no because it is a school night, but they storm off anyway, chances are they are heading to the movies where they will be in a safe environment with people they know. This isn’t a crisis.
If you get into a fight with your teen about curfew, and they leave the house without permission and spend the night at a friend’s house, and you are able to touch base with this friend’s parent, this isn’t a crisis.
Although these are behaviors you might not like, they are not risky or life-threatening, so they aren’t crisis behaviors.
Crisis: Verbally or physically threatening to harm you or others
If your teen is verbally threatening to do harm to you and/or others, is gesturing or engaging in physical aggression towards you or others, or is engaging in object aggression that could potentially harm you, others, or themselves, this is a crisis.
For example, if you take your teen's phone away as punishment and they attempt to physically attack you, this is a crisis. If you tell your teen they can’t go out with friends until they clean their room and they threaten to harm you and have the means to carry out their threat, this is a crisis.
When your teen is actively endangering or threatening to endanger your life or the lives of others, you cannot wait to seek help.
Non-crisis: Non-threatening verbal or physical outbursts
While it may make you feel uncomfortable or upset, it is not a crisis if your teen engages in non-threatening verbal or physical outbursts when they experience big emotions.
For instance, if you take your teen’s phone away and they yell at you without getting in your face or threatening you, this is not a crisis. If you tell them they can’t go to the movies with their friends and they storm up to their room and slam their door but no longer escalate the situation, this is not a crisis.
Crisis: Potentially life-threatening emotions and behaviors that cause them to lose control
If your teen is experiencing loss of touch with reality, paranoia, and rapid mood swings this may be a crisis. When your teen loses control of their behavior and their environment, the situation can quickly escalate to the point that it becomes life-threatening.
Consider whether or not they have a history of engaging in high-risk behaviors and see if their current behaviors resemble these past actions to determine whether or not these behaviors constitute a crisis.
Non-crisis: Strong emotions and low-risk problem behaviors
Sometimes your teen will experience strong emotions or exhibit problem behaviors that are low-risk and not life-threatening to themselves or others. Engaging in these behaviors would not be considered a crisis.
For instance, if your teen is feeling very anxious or they have a panic attack, this does not require immediate crisis intervention. If your teen seems withdrawn or is starting to isolate themselves from others, this behavior is not a crisis.
While you still will want to seek professional help to support your teen when they wrestle with these emotions and behaviors, as a rule of thumb, if your teen’s behaviors can wait to be professionally addressed hours or days after the behavior occurs, it is not a crisis.
Next steps
When you know the difference between a crisis and a non-crisis behavior, it will help you determine the best course of action to take in order to help your teen.
If your teen is in crisis, they need immediate intervention from a trained professional who can help them stay alive and keep them from being a danger to themselves and others.
If your teen is not in crisis, you will have time to have a conversation with your teen, practice active listening and validation, and see whether you should pursue DBT or another form of mental health treatment to help reduce their problem behaviors and help them manage their big emotions in a healthy way.