To Help the Tween/Teen Beside You, Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

On an airplane, you would secure your own oxygen mask before helping your child. Parenting a tween or teen through an emotional storm works the same way. This blog post offers practical ways to care for yourself first, so your calm becomes the steadiness they can lean on. It is not a replacement for therapy. If you are ever worried about your child’s immediate safety, please reach out to your local emergency number or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline right away.

When our kids fall apart, every instinct we have pulls us to rush in, smooth it over, and pour every last drop of ourselves into the rescue. The urge is understandable. However, just as on an airplane, we can only model the calm and emotion regulation those in our care need if we take a few deep breaths of our own first. In this post, I draw on Dr. Andrea Temkin-Yu’s recent book Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health (2025) and Dr. Nancy Cohen and Tracy Kalloway’s course Your Parent Compass to offer some initial recommendations for how to take care of yourself in the midst of a rough moment. The information here is not a replacement for therapy. If these situations have become the norm in your household, you might consider working with a therapist like me. If you are ever worried about your child’s immediate safety, please reach out to your local emergency number or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline right away.

Falling Apart vs. Taking a Moment to Get Ourselves Together

We parents of tweens and teens have all been there. It is Monday morning, and we are under pressure to feed everyone breakfast, get everyone’s lunch packed, and get everyone out the door on time so that we can make it to our first appointment at the office. One moment our child is still asleep in bed; the next, they are up and really upset:

• “Everyone saw what Jayden posted about me last night. I can’t walk into school today, I just can’t.”
• “They all hung out last night and nobody told me. I saw the pictures. I don’t even know if they’re my friends anymore.”
• “I got a C on the math test. I’ve been freaking out all night … what if I can’t pull it back up and it wrecks everything?”
• “Tyler broke up with me over text. I have to see him at school this morning and I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

Their face crumples, their voice cracks and goes thick with tears, and they wrap their arms around themselves as if they’re trying to hold the pieces together. To an adult ear, these reactions can sound outsized, but to our teens, the feeling is real, immediate, and swallowing them whole.

If you are like most other parents, your first instinct in such situations is to problem-solve. However, seasoned therapists and parents like Dr. Andrea Temkin-Yu, Dr. Nancy Cohen, and Tracy Kalloway, LMHC, advise us to take care of ourselves first. Facing a teen or tween who is falling apart is stressful, and, as I have found firsthand, we are in a much better position to help them once we have taken a moment or two to do something about our own stress. As Dr. Temkin-Yu sums it up, “Help yourself, help them.” When we do something that helps us collect ourselves and keep our voice and body calm, we do not mirror our child’s stress, and our own calm becomes their anchor.

Small Resets for the Heat of the Moment

It doesn’t have to be big. Small steps that become a habit in such situations can go a long way:

• Taking a couple of deep breaths
• Having a sip or two of cold water
• Popping a Life Saver into our mouth and focusing on the taste for a few seconds to ground us
• Opening the window to get some fresh air
• Taking a quick trip to the bathroom
• Giving the dog or cat a quick pet
• Repeating a mantra, like “I got this.”

Each one of these puts a short pause between our child’s intensity and our response. This pause makes a real difference in how skillfully we navigate the situation.

Everyday Self-Care, a Little at a Time

Ideally, taking care of yourself would not happen only in a difficult moment; you would also be doing things to contribute to your well-being over time. Here, too, the principle remains “less is more” when done consistently, as part of a routine:

• Going for a walk around the block
• Having a cup of tea before starting dinner
• Taking a five-minute break to watch a video that makes us laugh
• Doing a two-minute yoga stretch
• On the drive home, putting on a favorite song, rolling down the window, and letting the air rush past our face
• Texting a friend who helps us feel connected and understood
• Taking a ten-minute power nap

A Plan for the Hard Moments

For these hard moments, Dr. Temkin-Yu recommends creating a plan ahead of time to cope with stress. Made in advance, this plan might include:

• A mantra to help ground us, such as “I’m the calm, not the storm,” “One of us has to stay grounded, and it’s me,” or “My job is to listen, not to solve.”
• A calming activity, like petting the dog, pouring ourselves a glass of water, pressing our feet into the floor and feeling the ground underneath us, or taking a deep inhale and a long exhale.
• Things that have helped us in the past, like turning on soft music, getting outside to sit alone in the car for a few minutes, or texting our parent friends.

It also helps to know in advance which moments tend to call for the plan: Sunday nights when the stress builds up, or mornings before a major school test. To make sure we actually use it when those moments come, it helps to set a reminder, for example, a phone alarm at 6 a.m. labeled READ COPING PLAN. It can also help to write the plan on an index card and tape it inside a kitchen cabinet door.

If you find that hard moments like these are the norm in your household, and there is a pattern of quick escalation, you might want to consider working with a therapist like me, someone trained in behavioral approaches, who can support you in mastering the parenting skills you need.

Above all, please be gentle with yourself. Taking a moment to secure your own oxygen mask is not a detour from caring for your child. It is what makes that care possible. When we tend to our own calm first, we give our children the steady, regulated presence they are looking for, even in their hardest moments.