Adolescent emotional development and parenting styles

Dual transitions: childhood to adolescence and primary to secondary school

See the below video for an introduction to adolescent emotional development.

This video is also available in 10 languages. Select your preferred language on the translations page.

Introduction to adolescent emotional development

This chapter is about adolescent development and emotional intelligence.

A child moves into adolescence at the same time that they transition into secondary school. Early adolescence is between 10 and 14 years (years 5 through to 8). It is the next greatest period of development after infancy and toddlerhood. During this period there is rapid brain growth. This growth provides adolescents with opportunities for learning. It is also associated with stress.

Early adolescence can be exciting, but also challenging. Families play an important role in helping adolescents manage the changes they experience. One of the biggest changes is starting secondary school. Giving support and guidance during this time is not always easy for parents and carers. The social, emotional and academic challenges for adolescents become more complex. Also, parents’ suggestions or advice are often rejected by adolescents.

When children reach adolescence, they can think faster and evaluate themselves, others and their life more critically. They can also consider and manage more complex issues. However, they are still developing some important skills. They are still learning how to evaluate risks, get organised and manage emotions. Early adolescents also experience their emotions more intensely. These factors can make school, responsibilities, friendships and new situations feel overwhelming.

A key protection during this transition is emotional intelligence. Having emotional intelligence means having the skills to identify, understand and manage emotions. These skills will develop throughout adolescence and into the mid to late twenties. Emotional intelligence can help adolescents cope with some of the common challenges they deal with during this time. For example, it can help with boredom, motivation, focus, and dealing with relationship problems.

Families can help adolescents learn emotional intelligence while they guide them through their transitions and changes. Building or maintaining a close connection and supporting healthy emotional development is an important part of this.

Each family and young person’s needs are different. Parents and carers should decide what fits for them and their young person.

This resource will give you information and ideas for things you can do to help your adolescent to develop emotional intelligence. It will also give you information about how to assist with the emotion challenges that can come up during this period of school transition.

This resource includes written material, animation, acted interactions between parents and adolescents, and presentations given by two of the experts on this topic, Professor Sophie Havighurst and Dr Christiane Kehoe from the University of Melbourne.

Emotional intelligence

What is emotional intelligence and why are these skills so important for adolescents

Emotional intelligence is being able to:

Children and adolescents get better at identifying their emotions as they develop. They learn to recognise that they may feel a whole range of emotions at once. For example, they may understand that going to a new school might make them feel sad about being apart from old friends but also excited to meet new friends.
They will also learn to understand what causes emotions, like anger, sadness and fear. This important self-awareness helps a young person process their emotions and figure out what they need. For example, an adolescent might be angry with a friend for hanging out with someone else. But it would be helpful to recognise that this anger is caused by hurt and a fear that the friend may prefer the other person.
If we can understand that we are worried about losing our friend, we can do something that strengthens the friendship rather than drives a friend away. For example, inviting the friend over to spend time together might help, but being angry is unlikely to help.
Friendships become more important throughout adolescence.
Your adolescent’s ability to recognise and understand how others feel is important and helps them see the other person’s point of view. Being able to consider others’ perspectives and respond with empathy is important for friendships. As they get older, this will also help with intimate relationships.
Recognising sadness and comforting the friend can help them and strengthen the relationship. For example, they might be able to notice that a friend is sad about going to a different secondary school. By offering them support and comfort, they are showing emotional intelligence.
Emotions influence thoughts and the decisions we make.
Adolescents can learn to be aware of their emotions when solving their problems. This includes having awareness of ‘gut feelings’ and using these in decision making.
It might involve questions like:
- How will I handle the worry of starting at the new school, and what will help me feel more comfortable?
- What can I do when I can’t find my classroom?
- I don’t know anyone.
Or it might mean thinking: ‘I’m anxious about sneaking off to the city, my instinct is telling me this is not a good idea, I might say I can’t go’.
Emotional awareness helps adolescents to know how to respond to new challenges. This may include knowing when to seek help and support for more difficult problems.
This is about being able to wait to get what you want and manage the frustration and worry this can cause.
Having patience means that they can manage a long wait to do something they are looking forward to. It also helps them in getting through exhausting days at school. It may contribute to them being able to stop checking their phone – ‘I really want to check my phone! It’s making me anxious to wait’ ‘How do I manage these feelings and stop my reactions from getting me in trouble?’
When emotions build up, they can overwhelm our ability to think clearly.
For example, when a person is really angry or worried, the thinking part of the brain does not work as well. Being able to know what you can do to calm down in order to focus and think is an important skill.
This includes being able to manage fear and worry about going into new classes. It could also be managing shock or irritation if you miss the bus or coping with the stress and anxiety of doing exams.
We need to be able to think clearly to perform well or to work out how to manage the challenges of a new school.
Sometimes it is good to express emotions and other times it’s necessary to hold them back or even hide them.
Knowing when and how to express emotions are key skills adolescents are still developing. When excited and happy – it’s great to show this. When someone is disrespectful and it makes you feel angry – it is important to stand up for yourself without flying into a rage. Other times it may be important to mask feelings. This could be when you want to hide anxiety while giving a talk to the class, or when you want to ‘show no emotion’ when a classmate is being mean.

Why emotional intelligence skills are so important

Research has shown that emotional intelligence is important because it:

allows awareness and control over what you do
results in lower stress and better health
helps you to self-soothe and think more clearly when faced with a challenge
enables more satisfying relationships
helps to manage peer pressure and conflict
makes you more resilient, so that you can more easily deal with change and stress
helps you to ‘trust your instincts’, especially on issues of safety and in unknown or dangerous situations.

Adolescence is a time when skills in emotional intelligence continue to develop. The parts of the brain needed to manage strong emotions do not finish growing until the mid to late twenties. Understanding a little more about what is changing for young people during this stage of life can be useful for parents and carers.

Emotional intelligence is affected by biology, experiences and parenting. The biological factors that impact your adolescent’s emotional intelligence are temperament (how emotional or reactive they are), physical health, thinking abilities and whether they have any neurodiversity (see resources for support for Autism - AMAZE, Association for Children with Disability, Children and Young People with Disability Australia).

Their experiences in life with family, school, friends, community, and culture also impact their emotional intelligence. This may include difficult experiences such as trauma, loss, racism or discrimination, moving country, physical or mental health problems or family changes.

Finally, parenting and caregiving plays an important role in the development of emotional intelligence and this can include guidance in how to deal with emotions. This last point, guidance in dealing with emotions, is the focus of this resource. This guidance might be useful for parents, carers, relatives or other significant people such as teachers in a young person’s life. The term ‘parent’ will be used hereon to be anyone having this role.

Adolescent development

What developmental changes occur

There are many changes during early adolescence and the transition years that effect emotions and behaviour. These are:

huge physical growth leading to often being tired
puberty
changes in the brain with important new growth
thinking skills improve to allow more complexity
sleeping changes, so that adolescents may have a harder time falling asleep at night and waking up in the morning
increasing challenges with friendships and, eventually, intimate relationships
development of identity with two stages:
- in early adolescence (10–13 years) the main question is ‘Am I normal?’
- from mid-adolescence (14–16) the main question is ‘Who am I?’
increased need for autonomy or separateness from parents: adolescents want less help making decisions and managing life.

What emotional changes occur

The changes during adolescent development have a huge impact on the emotions of your child. These include:

increased irritability and anger, especially towards you and other family members. Family conflict is at its most frequent in early adolescence and most intense by late adolescence!
managing emotions and hiding feelings or difficulty managing emotions. This is because their emotions are stronger and they have not developed the parts of their brain that help them calm themselves—they seem to have less control
emotions coming on fast and changing constantly
feeling more emotional about social situations
regularly withdrawing into their own space (this might be their bedroom or outside the home)
getting better at knowing their own emotional reactions—for example, when they get angry, they might feel guilty about this
being more aware of how they cope with emotions—for example, they might know that listening to music when they are angry helps them to calm down or they may know that exercising when they are stressed or talking to a friend when they are sad can help them feel better
being more embarrassed about themselves or their family
feeling shame about their changes (physical, sexual, emotional)
wanting new or different experiences to feel good, sometimes involving very risky activities
more stress and anxiety.

Starting secondary school

Transition and change

The transition to secondary school creates many emotional challenges for young people.

There are so many emotions your adolescent may feel, including:

sadness about not seeing old friends
grief about the loss of childhood
anxiety triggered by increased pressures and expectations
disappointment that so much is not perfect
powerlessness when they can’t do what they want.

These emotions need to be able to be expressed by young people and acknowledged by parents and carers.

During this time, anger and tears can be useful as they often help adolescents to express more vulnerable emotions, like embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear or hurt.

Adolescents are also learning to experience mixed emotions at times. There is much uncertainty and anxiety but also excitement about what lies ahead. Sometimes emotions like embarrassment, shame, anxiety or sadness are held in or avoided and are not able to be expressed or worked through. If this happens, these emotions will often erupt as irritability and anger.

It is important for you to support your adolescent develop the skills in emotional intelligence. These will help them handle these challenges better.

Parents play a vital role in this process but parenting changes too!

Education

Updated 23 January 2026