Parents and Teen Therapy: 3 things to consider
So you are the parent of a teenager struggling with anxiety, depression, self-esteem, stress, trauma, or other mental health concerns. Connecting with a therapist for your child or teen can feel like a very vulnerable process. You are asking another adult, a professional yet another adult, to help your child navigate some of the hard things that they’ve been struggling with. As a parent of a teenager in therapy, this can feel very vulnerable, helpless, and sometimes isolating.
Confidentiality and protecting the therapeutic space for a teenager can leave some parents feeling lost, isolated, and as if they don’t truly know how to help their teen overcome the struggles that they are facing. As a therapist who has worked with teenagers and their families for many years, today we will discuss three different ways that parents can support their teens throughout the therapy process.
Ask for check-ins, and establish standards for communication.
It is extremely important that teens have confidentiality in their therapeutic space, and are able to trust that not everything that they share with a therapist will be communicated entirely to parents. While this is extremely important for the therapeutic process in allowing teenagers to open up, process hard things, and create safety within the therapy environment, lack of communication can be a frustrating thing for parents. So if you are a parent of a teenager and want to be involved in the therapy process, establishing guidelines, expectations, or practices for communication can be a great way to start off on a positive note. Coordinating communication between therapists, teens, and parents can look a number of different ways. But here are a few ideas or suggestions to discuss with your team and the therapist as a starting point of what might work for you.
Ask for a brief debriefing on ways that you may be able to support the team and their progress at home at the end of every session, every couple of sessions, or once a month.
If teens are in a skill-building type therapy program, ask for the therapist and team to teach you some of the skills so that you can support them at home.
Establish some form of check-in protocol between you and your team to gauge their progress on mood, anxiety levels, depression, etc. (This can be a number, a scale, or really any form of sheer communication that helps you understand their experience in a way that’s accessible and non-invasive)
Model the skills that your teen is learning in therapy at home.
If your teen is in any kind of therapy that is based on emotional regulation, skill building, or cognitive coping techniques, these interventions take practice. A home environment is a great place for teens to practice the skills in safety and with the support of people who care for and love them.
If your teen is learning a new form of communication, model that type of communication in some of your conversations with your teen or other family members. If your teen is learning regulation skills like deep breathing, self-care, or other behavioral management techniques, model those same behaviors as you regulate your own emotions, care for yourself, and work to create healthy behaviors for you.
Everyone can benefit from quality skill building, so why not work towards healthy habits as a family.
Consider your own parallel therapy journey.
The success rates for therapy for teens and children are often highly dependent upon the health of the home environment that the child or teen is living in. We often say that children and teens can only regulate or manage their emotional health and behaviors to the extent that the big people around them can regulate or manage their emotional health and behaviors.
So if you’re looking to support your teen or child, working towards strategies to be the best and healthiest parents you can be, maybe a critical part of assisting your child or teen and being the best and healthiest they could be. We all have areas of life in which we can improve our health and wellness, so modeling the importance of managing our own emotional and mental health care can be a great way to support your team as they are pursuing their own mental and emotional health.
If you are looking for a therapist to partner with your child or teen, we are ready to help. Our team of therapists is equipped to assist with teen and child therapy services both in person at our Arlington Texas-based therapy office and online through our online therapy services. Whether your family is struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, or more, we would love to support you in the next step of your journey towards emotional and mental health and wellness.
