A new wellness trend ‘rage rituals’ has popped up online and its unconventional approach to releasing big emotions could help your teenager – and yourself – ‘express anger’ better.
Helping teenagers deal with their big emotions, especially as exam stress piles up, can feel impossible as a parent. Often, your suggestions are met with silence, leaving many wondering ‘why won’t my teenager talk to me anymore?’
But while there are many handy tips to help get through to your teen and conversation starters to get them to open up, sometimes their big emotions and their worries for the future lead to unhelpful arguments and everything feels even worse than before.
So what can you do to help? We know that teens’ anger, while directed at parents, is often caused by other factors, such as their increasing ‘hopelessness’ over their futures or, for tweens, their lack of emotion regulation. Talking about their feelings is, of course, a great option but we know that it’s not always easy for kids to open up to family members. That’s why we were so intrigued by TikTok’s latest wellness trend – and it could be a game-changer for parents and their teenage kids.
‘Rage rituals’ are gaining traction online for the unconventional way they ‘release anger’ and allow participants to feel ‘more gratitude and ease and peace.’ The ritual consists of people, mostly women, simply screaming in remote areas of forest while they beat large sticks on the ground, giving them the space and freedom to embrace the rage and release it, along with other big emotions in their bodies.
Mia Banducci, who leads rage rituals in Scotland, told USA Today about the practice, “When people do this and give themselves permission to release their anger, their capacity for joy actually expands. They’re able to feel more happiness and pleasure, and they go home to their families with more gratitude and ease and peace.”
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♬ LABOUR – the cacophony – Paris Paloma
Now, while many online are heading off to exclusive wellness retreats and stress-relieving ceremonies, paying a lot of money to take part, the practice is incredibly easy to recreate at home being that all you need is a remote space.
The idea of rage rituals is actually not a new one. Previously known under a different name, primal scream therapy has been around since the 1970s and experts have long praised the benefits of releasing rage through the practice.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Dr Rebecca Semmens-Wheeler said, “Screaming can be cathartic in the moment, helping to express and release emotions. This can especially be the case if those emotions have been repressed.”
According to the expert, the element of screaming with others is especially therapeutic – so parents can feel good getting in on the action too.
She said, “Screaming with other people could engender a sense of common humanity, which has been identified as a component of self-compassion. This helps us to feel that we are not alone and recognising this can lead to a sense of greater strength and ability to cope with challenges.
“It is also worth considering that other activities, such as singing in a choir, could have a similar effect, and indeed, singing has been shown to overlap with screaming in the beneficial effects. This bonding can lead to the release of feel-good hormones, endorphins and oxytocin.”
“I’m not saying that screaming is a solution to everything, but to be able to reclaim that narrative is really important so we can express our anger.”
In other family news, reflective parenting could help your teenager manage their big emotions, new research shows, while child psychologist Dr Becky has shared the one question to ask your teen to improve your relationship. Plus, we’ve put together a list of 125 funny jokes for teens that might even get a smile out of them.
