Heartbreak: Helping Your Kid Through

So your teenage son has had his first heartbreak. How do you help him through this? Well,
let's talk about that today on tips on teens. My name is Kent Toussaint. I'm a licensed marriage
and family therapist, and I specialize in helping kids, teens and families to live happier
lives. I lead two organizations teen Therapy Center and the nonprofit 501 c three organization,
child and Teen Counseling, both here in Woodland Hills, California. Every Wednesday at noon,
I jump onto Facebook Live to answer your parenting questions. Let's answer today's. My 16 year
old son got his heart broken for the first time about a month ago. It was particularly humiliating
because the girl was cheating on him and his friends knew before he did. To him, it feels like
the end of the world. We've tried to help him get his mind off it by taking him out to do stuff, and
we planned a vacation for spring break. We told him there will be other loves and tried to make
him see the bigger picture, but nothing is working.

Any advice? Yeah, first of all, I think you're probably doing a lot of the right things. You're
showing him love and support, trying to keep him busy, which I think is all great. Hopefully
he still has friends that he's active with and can stay engaged and stimulated by his friends
vacations, being there for him, showing him love and acceptance. But heartbreaks suck. I know
that because I, as well as you, have been through them and they hurt and none of us get over them
easily. It takes time. It's going to take your son time. A month is not a lot of time to get over
this, especially if he still sees this girl at school, in passing periods, at lunch with this
other guy in Spanish class. It's torture for this kid, I'm sure. Again, we've all been through
this, and hopefully we've all gotten over it. We've all moved on from our high school heartbreaks
or whatever that is. He's going to be okay. I think you're giving him the love and support he needs.
Hopefully he has love and support from his

friends as well. And I think normalizing that this process is going to take time. You're not
going to convince him to feel better. He has to just go through this process and learn, and he
can adapt and get through it. You may want to normalize it for him. Again, I'm sure you've gone
through a slimmer process and you can say, hey, I know how it feels. I've been through this. I've
had my heart broken, too. If he wants to talk about the details and you feel it's appropriate,
go ahead and share your story. It may or may not help. It may help a little bit. It's not going to
dramatically change the situation, but it may help him realize, oh, other people have gotten
through this. I can get through this too. And he may be in this funk until the next girl comes around
that he has a crush on, that he thinks is a possibility. We don't know. There's no way to tell the
future. If you think that he's becoming self destructive, maybe that's a time to talk to a therapist.
But if he's just going through

the grief, the typical grief of heartbreak and sadness, we just got to ride this out and just
be there with him. Stop trying to convince him to change his mind, stop trying to cheer him up.
But the arm around the shoulder and just sitting with him, I think is the best you can do, and that
will be appreciated. Imagine if you're in the situation, you probably wouldn't want someone
trying to convince you to feel another way. You'd want someone just to be there with you and say,
I get it and normalizing it, that, yeah, it's crappy and it doesn't feel good, but he will one
day get over this. And the problem is, as parents, we see our child suffering and we feel helpless.
We just want to go and grab them and say, it's going to feel better. I need you to feel better so
I can feel better. And the more we can be aware of that anxiety in ourselves, the more we can put
it aside and to be patient and let your son go through this process as he naturally would. That's
our question for today. Again. My

name is Kent Tussant with Teen Therapy Center and Child and Teen Counseling. If you liked your
question answered here on Tips on Teens, email us at tips on teens@teentherapycenter.com.
You can also direct messages right here on Facebook. And if you want these videos directly in
your feed a little more often, make sure you join our Facebook group, Tips on Teens. Thanks,
guys. I'll talk to you next week. Bye.