4 Ways Counseling for Teens Can Impact Your Entire Family

When teens are struggling, seeing a counselor can help them be reflective about their thought patterns and circumstances. Counseling for teens can also give them the opportunity to talk to someone who is a trained listener and can ask skillful questions to help the teen come to their own realizations. When counseling works best for a teen, it impacts the entire family.

4 Ways Counseling for Teens Can Benefit Your Family

Here are four ways that counseling for teens can have a positive influence on the family unit.

1. A family environment becomes less unpredictable.

Teens who learn how to cope with emotional dysregulation are better able to recognize internal chaos, and they have the tools to respond in healthy ways.

If the teenager has been lashing out in unhealthy ways due to an inability to recognize his or her emotions and manage them well, the family unit has likely been under serious stress. The more prolonged that state of stress, the more chaotic the home life becomes.

When a teen develops a trusting relationship with a counselor, there are often fewer outbursts in the home, a greater degree of harmony among parents and other siblings, and a more holistic approach to healthier living in general. Even without trying, often when a teen learns new coping mechanisms, the family learns them too.

2. Sibling relationships may be restored and renewed over time.

Not every teen who undergoes counseling wants to be there or thinks that he or she needs it. However, over time, many teens start to see the benefits of counseling in their relationships.

Even if your teenager is going to counseling for an issue that primarily impacts just his or her life, the ripple effect of that counseling can be deep and wide. Perhaps your teenager has consumed much of your attention and has broken trust with another sibling while in the throes of mental illness or addiction, for example.

When your teen starts to reflect on those behaviors and the ways that they impacted his or her relationships, lament and grief  –  and a desire for restored relationships  –  tend to follow. Counseling for teens can open up a world of hope for sibling harmony that seems lost and long-forgotten.

It may take time to build back trust, but counseling and learning new ways to manage stress can be helpful in the relationship reparation process that’s necessary within the family.

3. Younger siblings learn better mental health tools from their older brother or sister in counseling for teens.

Even if the type of counseling your teen undergoes does not include family counseling, other family members may benefit simply by being observers. When another child (your teen) concedes that counseling has been helpful, it primes the belief among younger siblings that counseling isn’t something to be feared or ashamed of.

If anything, the fact that counseling has given your teen some positive strategies lets your other children know that seeking out the help of a trained professional is a good thing. It lays the groundwork for that younger sibling’s willingness to seek a counselor later in life.

4. Counseling for teens opens up dialogue in the family unit.

Your teen may not come home and tell you what was discussed in the latest counseling session. However, what that teen might do is exhibit slow change.

Where an overwhelmed teen may have made a judgment against himself that he could never change, that same teen may be less likely to make that judgment if treated by a well-matched, licensed counselor.

As your teen engages in some of the practices they’re learning in counseling, you might notice that you are talking more to your spouse, asking better questions of all your children, and breathing through stressful moments at work. Your teenager participating in a few months’ worth of counseling can mean the difference between an aware parent and an unaware one.

You can’t be aware of a solution for a problem that you didn’t know existed. So staying open to what you might learn in the process is key. And we can help direct you to the counselor who is most equipped to help you or your teen.

Pursuing Teen Therapy

If your teenager is in counseling for teens and what she or he is learning appeals to you, contact the counselor and ask if there’s a parent session or perhaps a series of parent coaching workshops you can attend. Remember, the tools and skills your teen is learning can be helpful for you too. So asking for help to learn these ways of coping is a vulnerable step that’s worthwhile.

Reach out to our offices today for a free assessment regarding your options for counseling for teens.