Real Talk About Teens & Counseling for Concerned Parents
As parents, your children’s needs are front and center, but many parents struggle with sending their teens to visit a counselor. Lakeside Counseling Licensed Professional Counselors love working with parents and adolescents. In the past, families were limited to available clinicians in their neighborhoods, but today, online counseling gives you access to knowledgeable professionals around the corner or on the other side of the world, all from the comfort of your own home. If you’re a parent who’s still hesitant about scheduling a first appointment for your son or daughter, we hope you’ll take a few moments to learn more about the process below. You can also reach out to set up a free consultation anytime. We’re always happy to help.
Why Might Teens Need Counseling?
As adults, it’s easy to forget how challenging it is to be a young person. Or sometimes your relationship with your teen is so conflicting that it’s hard to really sort through what’s at the core of the matter. Counseling can be beneficial for young people in a variety of scenarios, including:
Difficulty forming attachment bonds with family and friends
Struggles with academic challenges
Lying and manipulation
Dealing with bullies (or bullying others)
Understanding health problems (the child’s or that of a family member or friend)
Working through grief and loss
Handling big feelings like sadness, anger, stress, low self-esteem, or depression
Working on a specific diagnosis – ADHD, OCD, eating disorders, etc.
Changing problematic behaviors – self-harm, acting out, etc.
What Happens During Counseling?
Just like an in-office counseling session, we will meet your teen where they are. We use a range of counseling techniques that are appropriate based on your child’s age and the reasons they have for working with us. Often times, we incorporate family sessions into our work with teenagers, as struggles in the parent-teen relationship are usually best explored when key family members are all part of the conversation. During the initial consultations, we’ll walk through everything you need to expect before starting online sessions.
While we mainly work with teenagers, there may be some occasions where we can work with younger clients. If you have concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll review your unique situation to determine whether or not we are a good fit for you and your child. Additionally, we are happy to work with parents to develop parenting skills, to better understand their children, and to learn how to interact with them in healthy ways. The flexibility of the online counseling platform also means that we can easily offer family counseling sessions, even if family members are in different physical locations.
Is Online Counseling Safe & Does it Work?
We use a completely private and secure online counseling platform to protect the privacy of our clients. As a healthcare professionals, we are held to very strict security protocols when information is received, distributed, and stored online, and that includes the software used to conduct our online counseling sessions. Thus, these sessions are completely private on our end, and we can help you and your child to take steps to keep information safe on your personal devices.
How do I Schedule an Appointment for My Teen?
On our website, we have a simple online request form that will help you get started. We look forward to hearing from you.