Teen Therapy
Does this sound like your teenager?
Every time you try to talk to them, they ignore you, snap at you, or won’t talk? They are constantly on their phones or game system and won’t do other activities? They are too social and/or you think their friends are a bad influence? They are socially isolated and seem to have no friends? They are constantly stressed out about everything. It seems they are always angry at you and at the world. They seem to live their life in peaks and valleys. They don’t follow rules and don’t seem to care about consequences?
Does this sound like you?
You are at your wit’s end. Consequences aren’t working, and every day is a constant battle with your teen. You have tried to be understanding and help them but your teen rejects your attempts. You are exhausted by all the fighting and wish that just once they would do what you ask without a fight. You worry that your teen is out of control. You dislike your teenager’s friends and the influence they have on your teenager. You wish they understood that grades and school matter. You can’t understand why their social time is between 10pm and 2am. Your teen doesn’t do their chores.
You feel powerless to help them when they are anxious and struggling. It always seems that no matter how hard you try, you make no progress with your adolescent. Your teen bullies you and makes your life hard until you give in to their demands or wants.
You read articles and consume media that says what’s going on with your teen is normal – which makes you lose hope.
But there is hope, and there are solutions!
Statistics show that 11% of adolescents report at least one major depressive episode in the last year, more than 31% of high school students reported they felt sad or helpless almost every day for 2 or more weeks, more that 5% of teenagers report an alcohol or drug addiction, 9% of teenagers have an anxiety disorder diagnosis, 10% say stress causes them to get lower grades than they think they can get, 59% report that balancing all their activities causes stress, 40% say they’re irritable due to stress, 37% said stress causes them to feel overwhelmed, 36% say they feel tired because of stress, and 30% say they feel sad or depressed because of stress.
Your teenager is not alone and you, the parent are not alone in your struggles with and to help your teen.
How do I know my teenager needs help?
The fact that you are asking this question means that your teen can benefit from therapy. There is a misperception that your adolescent has to have a mental health diagnosis to benefit from therapy. This perception is not true.
Adolescence is a time of transition for children. There are increased pressures socially and academically; there are increased responsibilities. Your teen is beginning to learn how to develop independence while still needing you the parents.
With the right match between your teenager and a therapist, many of these issues and struggles can be addressed and coping skills and strategies can be developed to assist your teen in navigating adolescence and reducing conflict.
The Child Mind Institute provides a free symptom checker (https://childmind.org/symptomchecker/) that you can use to determine if your teen is struggling with a mental health issue or learning disability.
How can Invictus Counseling help?
I employ an eclectic approach which takes elements from different therapeutic models and theories and combines them into a specialized approach suited to your teenager’s needs and current concerns, issues, and goals. With teenagers, I focus on the importance of developing a strong bond with them – called a therapeutic alliance – as this relational connection supports positive outcomes in therapy with teenagers.
I challenge their faulty perspective taking, work with them to develop effective conflict resolution skills, model appropriate ways to advocate for themselves, assist them in creating strategies to talk with their parents and other adults that are not adversarial, and use their strengths as the starting point for developing coping skills to address their challenges. I place particular emphasis on repairing broken relationships with parents, creating a greater bond between teenager and their parent, learning to be honest with their parents, discovering and pursuing passions like sports, art, music, and mitigating the causes of high risk behaviors and choices. I believe that it is essential that you, the parent, are part of the process with teens as the relationship you forge with your teen now is the foundation for the relationship you will have with them as an adult. My philosophy is that periodic sessions with both your adolescent and you along with individual sessions with your teen leads to achieving the goals we set.
Call me today for a free 20-minute consultation so we can begin the journey to help your teenager become resilient and navigate life’s challenges on the road to success.