Teen having complete meltdown - how to handle

[Anonymous]

I am so unsure how to help my teen. He is 16 and overwhelmed with school work but also just not doing what he needs to do to keep up. He opened up to me last night and said the stress was a lot more than school, nothing too awful but nothing that can be immediately "fixed" either. He is a junior and literally has a week left in the quarter. His grades are awful and they have never been awful but there is time to salvage them if he can study for the next fe days of tests. He has college goals that he will literally throw away with 1st quarter grades he can't recover from.

Instead of working, he is choosing to writhe around on the couch like a child and do nothing. I am worried, sad for him, and also angry. There is not any time to not study but if this is a true mental health crisis there is not time to wait there either. He refuses therapy and instead insists that odd off label things he finds online will make him feel better. (things like anti depressants, but that are not fda approved). I am trying not to loose my shit bc there is sports practice soon which will help him if I can make him go and 2 tests tomorrow that can't be missed, and he is now asleep. (today was a 1/2 day so home early.) I do not know how to help.

[Anonymous]

You need to ask the school for accommodations for his mental health crisis. You can get extensions and extra time. He will feel a lot better and this is a chance for you to show him the proper way of handling a difficult situation.

Call the school now. Then sit with him and have him do as much work as he can tolerate, with breaks. Try the Pomodoro method.

[Anonymous]

The problem with extensions is that he already has had some. The work doesn’t stop and he just gets more and more overwhelmed because there is now make up work on top of scheduled work. There is never a single test or assignment that is just excused so it never ends. I wish it would.

[Anonymous]

Obviously don't use unproven crap you get on the internet. I'm sure you know it's dangerous, but I would be scared your DS might get it anyways.

My DD has meltdowns, has had them since she was younger. She has diagnosed anxiety and mild depression, so she's on medication (low dose). I don't know how much it's helping, cause she still has meltdowns once in a great while. For DD, the meltdown happens whenever she has too much stress, too much going on. DD is a senior, and she is in the middle of college apps (thank god, almost done).

But yea, junior year, the most important academic year, she had a ton of stuff going on and had a few meltdowns.

I told DD that she needed to drop some things to cut down on the stress, but she refused. Instead, she dropped a hard class, which I was not happy about. I had even told her to not take that hard class. She got a C in that class then dropped it the next semester. I told her that was going to hurt her college app, but she insisted. She says she wants to be able to make her own decisions, well, I let her, and so now she may end up suffering the consequences of her decision.

It's hard to sit by and watch the train wreck, but there's only so much you can do. I do think that I should've pushed harder for DD to drop one of her activities, though. I think that would've helped her reduce her stress.

GL

I am so glad we're almost done with HS. Of course, I will have to worry about DD's grade in college next year, but I at least get some breathing room for the next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to ask the school for accommodations for his mental health crisis. You can get extensions and extra time. He will feel a lot better and this is a chance for you to show him the proper way of handling a difficult situation.

Call the school now. Then sit with him and have him do as much work as he can tolerate, with breaks. Try the Pomodoro method.

He needs a diagnoses to get accommodations. "Stress" and anxiety from too much stress aren't enough reasons, IMO, to get that diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

Can you get him his favorite fast food or treat and then help him do flashcards or something for his upcoming tests? I think he needs help getting unstuck. Don't freak out--he's already doing that.

It takes a while to get into a psychiatrist so make an appointment now, but wait a couple days until the quarter is over to tell DS that he needs to talk to a real doctor about whether medication would help him and you are taking him to the appointment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously don't use unproven crap you get on the internet. I'm sure you know it's dangerous, but I would be scared your DS might get it anyways.

My DD has meltdowns, has had them since she was younger. She has diagnosed anxiety and mild depression, so she's on medication (low dose). I don't know how much it's helping, cause she still has meltdowns once in a great while. For DD, the meltdown happens whenever she has too much stress, too much going on. DD is a senior, and she is in the middle of college apps (thank god, almost done).

But yea, junior year, the most important academic year, she had a ton of stuff going on and had a few meltdowns.

I told DD that she needed to drop some things to cut down on the stress, but she refused. Instead, she dropped a hard class, which I was not happy about. I had even told her to not take that hard class. She got a C in that class then dropped it the next semester. I told her that was going to hurt her college app, but she insisted. She says she wants to be able to make her own decisions, well, I let her, and so now she may end up suffering the consequences of her decision.

It's hard to sit by and watch the train wreck, but there's only so much you can do. I do think that I should've pushed harder for DD to drop one of her activities, though. I think that would've helped her reduce her stress.

GL

I am so glad we're almost done with HS. Of course, I will have to worry about DD's grade in college next year, but I at least get some breathing room for the next year.

Hi there, I’m sorry to hear you ran your DD have gone through this as well. It’s hard with the added pressure of college applications to navigate how to handle these things. Hopefully she will not be hurt by the class grade and drop. I worry about all of this too. Once she is off she will hopefully have the experience and skills to handle any stress that comes her way.

Regarding medication - yes I told my son absolutely no on anything experimental! With some bribery he is up and planning to go to practice. We will see how work goes later. This is not our first meltdown either and I do have some Welbutrin that he was prescribed over the summer. He took it for a few days and was extremely agitated so I stopped it and of course now doesn’t seem like a good time to try again. He has no actual diagnosis and if I were to guess it’s anxiety but he does also seem depressed right now. He told me he always thought people made that up but now he realizes it’s real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so unsure how to help my teen. He is 16 and overwhelmed with school work but also just not doing what he needs to do to keep up. He opened up to me last night and said the stress was a lot more than school, nothing too awful but nothing that can be immediately "fixed" either. He is a junior and literally has a week left in the quarter. His grades are awful and they have never been awful but there is time to salvage them if he can study for the next fe days of tests. He has college goals that he will literally throw away with 1st quarter grades he can't recover from.

Instead of working, he is choosing to writhe around on the couch like a child and do nothing. I am worried, sad for him, and also angry. There is not any time to not study but if this is a true mental health crisis there is not time to wait there either. He refuses therapy and instead insists that odd off label things he finds online will make him feel better. (things like anti depressants, but that are not fda approved). I am trying not to loose my shit bc there is sports practice soon which will help him if I can make him go and 2 tests tomorrow that can't be missed, and he is now asleep. (today was a 1/2 day so home early.) I do not know how to help.

OP, what does “the stress is a lot more than school” mean? Girlfriend problems? Other friend problems? We need to know more about this to help you.

[Anonymous]

He doesn't have a close friend group. His friends all scattered after middle school to different high schools and he just hasn't found his people. At this point he may not, but his middle school friends who were in the same boat for a year or so are all now have good friend groups at their schools and he is still struggling. He has kids there he hangs out with some but no one close and its wearing on his confidence.

[Anonymous]

Glad he went to practice, hope that helps. Wellbutrin can make anxiety worse. Prozac and Zoloft are usually better for anxiety mixed with depression. Hopefully you can get him into a doctor before too long and try one of those or something similar.

[Anonymous]

Ask if he'd like to make a calendar with you for after school breaking down when to do what, and you'll help him through it. Build in snacks and breaks that are physical (run around the block, do 20 pushups), and quiz him while throwing a ball back and forth.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps start by talking to his teachers and ask what they are seeing in the classroom as well as in his school work. The good news is he has sports to help w stress but there may be something underlying and the fact he can talk to you about it is huge and if you say nothing major then perhaps he just needs to understand how he learns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask if he'd like to make a calendar with you for after school breaking down when to do what, and you'll help him through it. Build in snacks and breaks that are physical (run around the block, do 20 pushups), and quiz him while throwing a ball back and forth.

He asks me for things like this when he is not busy but in the moment he does not want me to stop in. Then of course my not stepping in lately leads to nothing being done until late and there is lots of stress. Its a bad cycle that he has been stuck in for almost 2 weeks now after he was out sick and work built up. Several of those days have been meltdowns like today.

[Anonymous]

He needs to be assessed by a doctor.
Also, where is the other parent? - Can they assist? Step in/up?

[Anonymous]

If this is the first time he’s done this (in addition to getting him an eval of course) I would try to tone down the irritation and approach this with more of a warm, positive coaching attitude to help him get through this crunch.

Sometimes that can really help and of course if this were a pattern you’d need to be very mindful about not inadvertently rewarding the behavior but if it’s very out of character I would table those concerns for now, and make sure he knows you are in his corner. Maybe tell him you’ll take the recycling down for him (or whatever chore he might have) while he makes flashcards and offer to quiz him with them later.