If a therapist has recommended psychiatric hospitalization or other in-patient therapy for your teen, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends asking the following questions: 1. Why is this treatment being recommended? 2. How will it help? 3. What are the alternatives and how do they compare? 4. What does the treatment program […]
There are ads in most magazines and newspapers exhorting parents of difficult, rebellious and obstinate teens to bring their kids to one or another residential treatment facility. But treating a teen residentially isn’t always the most appropriate choice. A teenager who is trying to withdraw from an alcohol or drug addiction may find a residential
If your teenager is shy, he has lots of company. Studies show that some 40% of Americans consider themselves shy. Why is your teenager shy? Some people have an inherited tendency to be shy. Others have low self esteem and feel unworthy unless they can be perfect. Some are plagued with anxious thoughts about whether
How can you raise your teenager to be mentally healthy as well as physically fit? The following are guidelines you can encourage in your teen: • First, make and keep connections with others. We all need love and trust in our lives. In the give and take of relationships you can grow as a mentally
It’s sometimes sad that the only life experience as difficult as being a teenager is being the parent of a teenager. Much of this difficulty comes as the result of a teenager’s ambivalence toward his parents. One minute he may be loving, fun and affectionate and the next, uncommunicative, unreachable and impossible. He may alternate
Many parents dismiss teen love as love that’s not real, but all feelings are real. Some feelings of love are infatuation, some are immature and some signal a mature love. People of all ages can feel any of the above, and teens especially need to know the difference. Infatuation means being in love with love,
How can a parent tell the difference between normal rebellion and the signal that a teen is troubled? Ask yourself these two questions: • First, how frequent and intense is the rebellion? Normal rebellion is sporadic. There are moments of sweetness, calm and cooperation between outbursts. If on the other hand, rebellion is constant and
“You just don’t understand!” Have you heard this from your teen recently? Are you beginning to sound ominously like your own parents did when you felt misunderstood? How can you begin to develop more empathy for your teen? • First, remember what it was really like when you were a teenager. For example, how much
There was a time when your child thought you were perfect. Now your teen finds much to criticize and little to praise. Your taste in clothes and music is scorned. You may not be a paragon, but an embarrassment. What’s going on? Your child is working tempestuously toward one of the major goals of adolescence
It happens to most parents from time to time. Your teenager may be a good kid. He or she may not have serious problems, but there are times when your patience wears thin and when your coping skills waiver. What can you do when you teen is just driving you crazy? ⢠First, if a
