Daughter struggling to talk about feelings

[LouJ85]

My DD (14) really struggles with talking about her feelings. She often bottles things up and will reply with "I'm fine" when I can see quite clearly she isn't. I pushed her a little more to talk to me the other day and she became quite tearful and said "I just don't like people to worry about me, so I say I'm fine". I've talked to her about the importance and benefits of opening up and talking about her feelings, which she seemed to take on board a little.

For Christmas, I want to get her something that might help her. I'm thinking along the lines of a book aimed at teenagers around how to talk about your feelings, or maybe a journal of some type?

Does anyone have any recommendations (or indeed advice around getting her to open up more!) Thank you

This is very interesting. So work around emotional literacy would be good then, recognising and naming emotions then learning to manage and express them?

Could be! I don't know your DD – it might be that she's perfectly emotionally literate and I'm way off the mark.

I was just very surprised by how few emotions these teens could easily name... and it's not as though they don't know the feelings on the wheel exist.

They know the words, but they couldn't easily connect them to the sensations, and wouldn't think to use them when talking about their day to day experiences.

Might open something up, might not. You know your DD

I’m not sure she needs counselling dont pathologise adolescence

This, in spades. The modern way is to intervene in order to solve every problem from the word go, not enough resilience is the result and people constantly looking to others to sort things out for them.

As I said earlier, my 24 year old has been a very closed, private individual since he was small. The last time he truly described how he was feeling was when the cat died when he was 16. It’s ok.

You can’t make someone be open with you if they don’t want to. Respecting their mental space and not picking over every little detail is just as important as providing the emotional space for them if they DO want to talk.

@DotBall

I’m not sure she needs counselling dont pathologise adolescence

This, in spades. The modern way is to intervene in order to solve every problem from the word go, not enough resilience is the result and people constantly looking to others to sort things out for them.

As I said earlier, my 24 year old has been a very closed, private individual since he was small. The last time he truly described how he was feeling was when the cat died when he was 16. It’s ok.

You can’t make someone be open with you if they don’t want to. Respecting their mental space and not picking over every little detail is just as important as providing the emotional space for them if they DO want to talk.

And as I have already explained - counselling was not MY suggestion. My DD herself was relaying a conversation she had had with her friend at school, in which HE had suggested counselling. And her response was I don't want that.

At no point have I said I think she needs counselling, not have I "pathologised" anything.

But thanks 👍🏻