How to Step Out Of Your Child’s Drama

Teenage DramaQ. My 13-year-old is constantly complaining about things at school. She complains about who is getting away with what, that the teacher is targeting and being mean to her, and that another long-time friend is talking behind her back. She had me ready to barge into school and take down the teachers, administration, and the mean group of girls. Then I checked in with a friend whose son is in the same class and she had a different perspective from a different point of view (her son’s) which made me reevaluate everything that my daughter was telling me. My question is how do you deal with your child’s drama without getting sucked in? 

A. Kids love drama! For kids, whipping up a little bit of drama is great practice for negotiating systems and navigating relationships. They use different kinds of language to practice their impact and to strategically figure out how to get what they want. When we are young, we all practice our dramatic skills of provocativeness to see how our responses might impact another. This can be great fun for kids and teenagers, and it is a very beneficial practice for them in ideal situations.

In early childhood and through the early school years, drama is used to figure out where the boundaries are and to play around with what outcomes might arise. However, teens and tweens up the ante. In the adolescent years, drama becomes a form of pushing those boundaries and figuring out how far one can take a situation. Adolescents are keenly skilled at finding chinks in the armor, feeding on our most private insecurities, and generally getting what they want when they want it. Wouldn’t we all like to get what we want when we want it?

The trick to dealing with childhood and adolescent drama at any stage is calm, conscious, and detachment.

What this means is that we do our best to stay unaffected by the demands. No rule in parenting says your child’s problem needs to be your problem, and in fact, having good boundaries around that idea and being able to respond to your child from a place of neutrality helps them to fine-tune their negotiation skills, plan more efficiently and effectively, build confidence in their problem-solving abilities, and deal with disappointment. 

Calm, conscious detachment doesn’t mean shutting down or dismissing your child. It means respectfully listening, reflecting, and even considering your child’s thoughts and feelings without an emotional connection to them. It means being the outside observer in a situation clouded in angst and emotion.

Kid Getting off the busConsider this, your teen comes home frustrated, saying their teacher “hates them” and is giving them unfair grades. They may talk about how hard they’re trying, how other students get better treatment, or how the teacher “just doesn’t understand.” Does this sound familiar? Your teen tries to rally your support by making the situation sound extreme or even personal, perhaps hoping you will intervene on their behalf by contacting the school or challenging the teacher.

By staying consciously detached, you can validate your child’s feelings without rushing to fix the problem. You might say, “It sounds like you’re really frustrated with things in that class. What do you think would help you feel better about it?”, “What would you like to do about it”?, or “What do you wish would happen”? This helps the teen process their feelings and brainstorm solutions, teaching them problem-solving skills and resilience instead of relying on a parent to “rescue” them.

Girl Being Teased

How about a trickier and more personal, emotionally charged, scenario? Your middle schooler comes to you upset that they were “left out” of a friend hangout. They share dramatic, hurtful details of a conversation that another child in class overheard through the rumor mill. The feeling of being left out and isolated is one that is palpable to a lot of parents and tends to trigger a bigger emotional response. Your child may expect you to take their side, perhaps encouraging a confrontation or voicing anger toward the friend group. They may want validation for feeling wronged or to gain sympathy.

By consciously detaching, a parent can listen empathetically without overreacting. A calm response like, “That sounds really hard. I remember how painful it can feel to be left out,” validates their feelings but doesn’t escalate the drama. This approach teaches the teen that it’s okay to feel hurt without the need to retaliate or rely on others to handle their emotions. You can even roleplay a scenario and act out the different ways that something might be said or received to help your teen fine-tune their strategy or pull high emotions into a more manageable level. This can be followed up with some open conversation about rumors and how they can be like a game of telephone, changing in tone and emphasis. With some calm encouragement, you may advocate having a direct conversation with a friend to clear up any misunderstandings that might have been passed along unintentionally.

These responses might not be possible if you jump into the drama with your child. This is a good place to remember that your child’s experience is not the same as your experience. They may have similar struggles but their experience is likely to be quite different.

Conscious detachment helps kids see that parents trust them to navigate their relationships and manage challenges independently. This builds their resilience, self-awareness, and problem-solving skills. By not climbing into the child’s drama, parents model emotional stability and allow space for the child to explore their feelings without external pressure. Kids learn that they can come to you for guidance without needing to manage your emotions to their charged events, which helps them build deeper trust in you and themselves.

You may also find these articles helpful.

The Power of Acceptance

On Being a Parent