Breakups Are Tough! Here’s How Parents Can Actually Help

Let’s be honest: watching your kid go through a breakup is brutal. It hits you right in the gut—especially if they’re sobbing into their cereal or hiding under a blanket with zero interest in life. And if it’s their first big heartbreak? Oof. There’s no handbook for this.

Teen breakups aren’t like the ones we had back in the day. These kids are texting, snapping, and FaceTiming non-stop when they're together. So when the relationship ends, it’s not just the person they’re losing—it’s the entire daily rhythm. Add social media to the mix and suddenly it’s not a private heartache—it’s a group chat postmortem. Their friends know, their mutuals know, maybe even Grandma knows if she’s on Facebook.

It’s intense. Teens feel everything at full volume. The highs of a relationship are super high, and the lows? They’re devastating. And as parents, our instincts can lead us in the wrong direction.

So what do we usually do wrong?

A lot of...