Teen Counseling
Your teen is struggling and you don’t know how to help
As parents, we already know and expect that the teen years are going to be challenging, particularly as our children go through hormonal changes, begin to deal with conflict with their peers, begin to try on the experience of independent decision-making and adult responsibilities, and face the kinds of social pressures we have been trying to protect them from and prepare them for such as drug and alcohol use, peer pressure, bullying and sexual relationships. Even in the best of circumstances it can be a difficult experience for both parents and their teenage children to navigate together.
Sometimes, however, something serious happens and our children begin to suffer – maybe it’s something that we are aware of, or maybe we are witnessing distressing changes in our children and we have no idea why they are happening. Common signs of distress in our children can include:
· Social withdrawal
· Intense angry outbursts
· School avoidance
· Grades suddenly slipping
· Reports from school of behavioral concerns
You have probably tried to talk to your child as you have noticed more signs of distress, but maybe they aren’t opening up to you, or perhaps they also don’t know what’s at the root of the problem. The more you try to help the more you feel helpless, and perhaps this has also led to conflict or distance in your relationship with your child. It’s hard for anyone who has not been through this to understand how painful and frightening this experience can be for a parent.
Counseling Works to Identify the Problem and Involve You in the Solution
If it’s the case that you are in the dark about why your child is struggling, in our experience, in most cases there is an underlying cause for distress in teens. This is particularly true when your child had been doing well, but then had some kind of change in their behavior and emotional wellbeing. There are many reasons why an adolescent may have trouble opening up about the underlying cause to their parents. In most cases we have found that part of the child’s distress is due to wishing they could speak with their parents about the issue, but there being one of a variety of possible reasons that this is difficult or complicated to do.
In other words, it’s usually the case that both you and your child want the same thing – to be able to talk about the problem, and find a way to overcome it together.
Counseling is an excellent resource in these kinds of situations since experienced adolescent specialty therapists usually have a good understanding of the common causes of serious distress in adolescents so tend to be good at getting to the root of the problem, even when the child themselves may be confused about the source of their own feelings. Specialized therapists are also good at uncovering and working through the common reasons as to why it may be hard for an adolescent to talk to their parents about the problem, and can work with both you and your child to gradually have this conversation so that you can understand why they are struggling, and more confidently know how to help.
Trauma is a Common Cause of Teen Distress
One of the very common causes of anxiety, depression and other forms of mental health and behavioral distress in teens is trauma. Trauma is when a person goes through an unexpected experience that they are unprepared for and unable to protect themselves from, which overwhelms their ability to cope, and within which they are unable to access anyone to help. Some common experiences that can be considered clinically traumatic are:
· The sudden death of a friend of family member
· Exposure to violence or abuse
· Being forced into unwanted sexual contact
· Being exposed to chronic problems in a relationship such as alcohol or drug use, threats, or humiliation
Trauma is a bit like grief in that it feels overwhelming and tends to be hard to speak with other people about. However, unlike grief, which tends to gradually get easier to hold over time, unprocessed trauma tends to stay at the same level of intensity and efforts to stop thinking about or avoid reminders of the traumatic experience tend to start causing problems in themselves (such as school avoidance or social isolation). With time, depression and anxiety start setting in, resulting in problems with a person’s emotions, motivation, focus, sense of pleasure, sense of self worth and other important life areas. Self-injury and suicidal thinking can begin to present as a person feels more hopeless about finding a way out of the pain.
However, also like grief, trauma is very treatable and people do well in counseling when helped to begin to open up about their experience and to find ways to talk about it. A person can learn how to cope with the experience they have been through, find ways to reduce the intensity of the feelings about it through gradually sharing details of their experience, and gradually reconnect to themselves, others, and a sense of pleasure and hope in life once again.
Everyone Wants to Feel Hope Again
Even in times that seem hopeless, young people never stop wanting to feel better and wanting to connect to other people and their parents again. One of the hardest things to go through is to feel isolated in your pain, and it’s most often the case that teens want to open up about it but just don’t know how or don’t know how to get through the things that are getting in the way.
At Goldfinch Counseling we specialize in helping teens to face and work through the underlying causes of their distress, and helping teens and parents to reconnect and continue on their journey together. Therapy is usually very effective for young people since they have not been facing the causes of their suffering for very long, so the adaptations they have made to their emotions and behavior in order to cope, but which themselves are furthering isolation and mental health symptoms, have not usually had enough time to put down roots and become entrenched. For that reason, therapy tends to be effective relatively quickly at helping teens to recover, reconnect and regain hope.
You May Still Have Some Questions Or Concerns About Teen Therapy…
I’m concerned about confidentiality and my ability to keep therapy private.
Our goal is to work with both you and your child simultaneously. We want to involve you, the parents, in the process since, at some point, you will be continuing to work with your child. And we want you to be involved so you can better understand why your child is struggling and how to help—we are partners in this work.
I don’t have enough time for us to be able to attend therapy sessions.
We offer flexible scheduling (including in the evenings) and offer both in-person and telehealth sessions for your convenience. But the work spent in therapy can actually save you time in terms of the overall well-being and functioning of your child.
I’m concerned that it will take a long time for therapy to make a difference.
Improvement can happen fairly quickly with children as we begin to understand the underlying causes of their distress and teach them tools to help them manage their emotions. Involving those in their lives, like their parents and family members, can help accelerate the process of change so can see results actually happen sooner.
Experienced Clinicians Who Know How to Help
At Goldfinch Counseling we are a child and adolescent specialty practice. That means our clinicians have focus primarily on working with young people and have extensive experience working in many different environments with children and adolescents, so you can feel confident knowing not only that your child is in good hands, but also that you will be involved in the process.
To set up a complimentary, 15-minute phone consultation, call or text us at (551) 282-9967 or use our contact page to get started.
Have a question about our adolescent therapy services?
Send us an inquiry using this contact form and we will get back to you right away.
