Often parents feel overwhelmed and upset they are unable to manage a adolescent or teenager in their home. At times, parents feel as if there is no way out, or that nothing can cure the reactivity and arguing at home. I want you to know that you can work and engage with your child in healthy ways. By discovering and properly dealing with the roots causes of the conflict, you can put a stop to the patterns that exist and the frustration that can and does occur for parents attempting to raise and teach their teen. There is hope!
Teens
Often teenagers loose direction in how they might attain autonomy, power, influence, and a sense of self-esteem. They then develop maladaptive ways of meeting those needs. They get caught in depression, negative peer groups, substance use, defiance at home, etc. This can be effectively dealt with by my Life-Mapping and counseling work. Standard talk-therapy is often too clinically weak and can irritating/boring to teens. They tend to tune out and merely put up with the counseling to appease parents. In my Life-Mapping work I work with the adolescent in building rapport and assisting them in mapping and organizing their lives from a strengths-based perspective. This occurs by aligning with them to help them own and manage their own life. They often complain to me about feeling like their parents are trying to ‘run their life’. So, helping them develop a framework and a plan in concert with the parents agenda can help them feel autonomous but still connected to parents. It leads parents to still be parents but also have some sense of knowledge and control over what their teen is doing. Students with ADD or ADHD and other academic challenges can receive help as well. I have extensive history and training in working with substance abuse and substance dependence. Helping teens with chemical and sexual addictions can help them rid these stumbling blocks that have impeded their lives in a manner that does not allow room for healthy relationships with their parents. I have been working with teens for seven plus years providing counseling and help for parents and teens.
The Process
Teens typically engage with me in an initial parent consultation and then a teen intake assessment. I then offer individual and parent-teen sessions. Typically the nature and flow of the sessions is determined by the teens needs and information cleaned from the parent consultation. In these sessions the teens receives a comprehensive assessment, detailed feedback regarding the strengths and areas of improvement, co-generated life-map, and concrete details on moving forward and owning their space and thoughts. Consistency and accountability is taken and your teen will manage and facilitate the treatment process by homework and assignments that they do as they work through their Life-Map. I work concurrently with parents as well so they can support the counseling process while at home with their teen.
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Read more about parenting and teen help on my blog.
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Contact me to arrange an appointment by email or phone, 435.574.9193