Does Your Teen Need Professional Help?
Several years ago, one of my kids got injured at school. She was running around and fell and we were concerned because she was in a lot of pain. To my non-professional eye, it didn't look like there was any kind of problem – no bruising, no bones sticking out, no obvious injury. But, over the course of the next day or so, she continued to complain that it was bothering her. Granted, there wasn’t weeping and gnashing of teeth, but it was bothering her enough, and she was voicing discomfort enough, that my husband and I thought, "Just to be sure we're going to take this child to the urgent care in order to cross our T's, dot our I's, and make sure that there's not something going on that we're not seeing."
After waiting our turn at the Urgent Care, the initial assessment was that everything was fine. The doctor took x-rays, she said that there was nothing glaring that she saw, but that the radiologist would take a look, just in case, and they would contact us if something was found. They sent us home, told us to give some pain medication, and maybe try putting some ice on it. We went home and did just that, thinking nothing more of it and figuring that we had done what we needed to do to take care of the situation.But then we did end up receiving that follow-up phone call that said, "Oh after the radiologist reviewed the x-ray, there is a buckle fracture. So, here's a referral to the specialist, and here are the next steps to take." What we thought, at first, was “no big deal” ended up with our daughter in a cast for 6 weeks!Sometimes, as parents, we make that hard call to decide “Do I need to go to the doctor? Do we need to set a doctor's appointment? Can we manage these symptoms on our own at home? How long do we wait and see?"
As a parent of three kids (now, ages 20, 18, and 16), I’ve asked myself those questions numerous times! And, as a parent of teens, we don't get as much guidance -- there's no book, there are not a lot of guidelines – on when to take action with our teens and their mental and emotional well-being. So I wanted to spend just a couple of minutes today, just sharing some thoughts about that.Let me just start off -- mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, caregiver of a teen...Gosh it is hard work, isn't it? I have an adult child and two teens at home, and it is not for the faint of heart to be a caregiver to a teen!And guess what? It is not for the faint of heart to be a teen in today's society. It's tough!
Our teens today are facing things that we didn't have to face as we were going through our own teen years I was talking with a mom recently who was just having such a hard time. She had gone through all of the steps at home, done all of the support things, did everything that she knew to do to help her teenage daughter. She reached out to friends, people in the community, youth pastors, and still was just left with the difficulty of "My teen is still struggling, and I don't know what to do!"
When they're young it's so much easier when it's just a wiping away of the tears and a kiss at the boo-boo. You know, those days had their challenges of their own but at least we felt like we were able to take care of the situation. It gets a little lot more complicated as our kids get older and the consequences of things get so much bigger. So, you are not doing anything wrong. There's no failure on your part by reaching out for help and support. As a mental health professional myself, I don't have the capacity to treat my own kids. That wouldn't be something that would be wise for me to do. I'm too close to the situation so, I would, and have, sought out help for my own family members.
So, I just want to give you that reassurance that being a parent is tough, and sometimes the hard call is to reach out for the support that we need -- that professional advice and support. So, good for you for taking that into consideration. That's something to be applauded! It's certainly not easy, but it's necessary sometimes.
So, how do we know? How do we know when to take that next step? We've been trying to work with our kids through their struggles. Maybe it's been weeks. Maybe it's been months. Maybe it's been years. It's the same things coming up again and again. Or maybe similar things to a new level. What's the call?
Here are things that we look at, as mental health professionals:
How much of an impact are these things having on your teen in her day to day life in areas of her mental health her mental well-being, her emotional well-being?
Is your teen able to function at school? Are the grades dropping at school? That's a big indicator that something's off if your teen is typically a certain level with grades and then all of a sudden, those grades plummet, that's a red flag. We want to pay attention to that.
Is your teen skipping school? That's a big one, and it will certainly impact your teen’s grades! You know, these are hard things to tackle on your own. You need some support with these situations and this topic, especially, is difficult to navigate through on your own with your teen.
In relationships? How are those relationships going? Is there a lot of drama in the relationships? Is your teen much more withdrawn? Has your teen typically been a pretty social kid and now she hardly leaves her room? She typically gets people coming over all the time, texts all throughout the day and night and now there's no interaction with friends. Is there a lot of relationship drama? Peer drama? Both online and in-person? There is so much complexity to your teen trying to navigate through social media and the in-real-life social elements of our kids' lives can bring up a lot of anxiety for our kids. (It can bring up a lot of anxiety for us parents, too, but that’s the topic of a different blog post!)
There can be a lot of feelings of not belonging and a lot to work through with that, so we want to pay attention to the drama around our kids' relationships. And are there stable relationships? What are good are healthy relationships? What are the relationships that you're concerned about? Because we want to build on the healthy relationships so that there’s less time and energy for the less healthy ones!
Is your teen sleeping a lot? A lot more than normal? Or, is your teen sleeping too little? Those are some other indicators that some things may be off that you could take a look at with some professional help.
Is your teen eating significantly more or less? Has there been a significant change in weight – gain or loss? Often time anxiety and depression can affect appetite.
We're here to help
Those are just some guidelines. What are the things that are impacting your child and maybe impeding in functioning in different areas of life, keeping them from being their best selves mentally and emotionally What's keeping them from being their best selves at school, in their relationships, in extracurricular activities, in sports and those kinds of things. And here's the thing, we are here to partner with you. We at Harper Therapy are here to support you as a parent, and as a caregiver. We're here for your kid. We are here as a non-judgmental, extra ear. We're an extra sounding board for your teen.
Chris and Alina are our resident teen experts. You can find out more about our teen services. So give us a call at 813-434-3639. We would be happy to set you up with a free consultation so that we can talk through what's going on specifically for you, your teen, and your household. To find out what things are concerning for you and how we might be able to help. Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, caregiver -- thanks so much for loving your teen, for being there to support him or her. Thank you so much for watching and being curious about how you might be able to get some extra support for your teen.
