During the hostage assessment, it is important to stay calm, listen, be cognizant of negative body language and have a gentle smile. This will help prevent the teenager from taking on additional hostages or escalating the situation. If you need to ask the teenager a question to gauge how many hostages they are holding, it is important to start the questions with "how" or "what." Questions that start with these two words give the teenager an opportunity to share information. If the teenager gives a one word response to the questions, it may be a sign that they are holding more than a few hostages.
We have created a hostage scale to help guide parents as to how many hostages the teenager may be holding.
The most important tactic is mirroring. This means that once your child says something, you take the last few words and repeat them. After you repeat the words, then employ tactical silence. For instance, if your teenager says my life is over, you repeat your life is over? This will allow the parent to absorb useful information about why the teenager is mad. This is because as humans we fear or do not like what is different, but find comfort in similarity. Using mirroring encourages the teenager to talk, empathize and bond with you. During this time, the teenager should start talking, calming down and this will buy you some time keep people talking, buy the hostages some time.
Labeling a teenagers emotions can be tricky but very beneficial. Studies suggest that by labeling an emotion it may diminish or diffuse the teenagers emotional reaction. Labeling can also give the teenager a sense that the parent understands them and is empathetic. It can be a very powerful tactic as the emotion can be driving how the teenager is thinking and acting.
To label the teenagers emotion start the question with "it seems like"... For instance, if they get home from school and have hostages, say "It seems like you are upset with something that happened at school." Do not be concerned about mislabeling an emotion. Just trying to label the emotion will often times lead you to the reason why your teen is angry and the correct label will then be obvious.
Copyright © 2021 Brteen - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder