Therapy and Adolescents

Your adolescent can benefit from therapy with a professional who specializes in working with teenagers, when they need to talk about the stress of being a teenager today.  It is normal for teens to begin to pull away from their parents in an effort to separate.  No matter how good your relationship is with your child, it is bound to change when your child hits adolescence.  A parent can experience a great deal of stress during this trying time when their teenager undergoes normal changes.  Teenagers can be moody, critical, combative, and absent-minded, but they are also creative, energetic, and impassioned about the world and their place in it.

 One major change in the process, from child to adolescent, is the development of abstract thinking, which is a critical component of problem-solving.  Teens will start to challenge their parents’ judgment and decisions, start turning to peers for advice, begin to test limits and rules, and separate physically and emotionally from their parents and families.  The testing of limits by teens is a critical part of how teens find out what adults think, feel, and expect, and how teens figure out how they are supposed to act, think and be in relationship with others.  During his time, parents can end up feeling shut out or misunderstood.

If you are considering introducing your teenager(s) to therapy you may want to familiarize yourself with the common questions that teens have about therapy.

 What can parents do?  They can continue to show an interest in their teen’s life and not take their teen’s behavior personally.  Teens want their parents’ approval and respect, even if they do not always show this.