Helping Your Teen Return To School

Is your head spinning because of recent developments regarding returning to school? What was a celebratory and exciting thought just a few short weeks ago has shifted. What can we do to help our kids?

How to help your adolescent return to school

Teens are an elusive species, they can be so hard to read and to support! To be sure, there is most likely some anxiety and grief bubbling underneath the surface. Most well intended parents want to help, but instead realize that they are making things worse or turning their kids away from them. Here are Do’s and Don’ts to help you navigate:

• Do: Ask open ended questions to open the door for more meaningful conversation. “I’d love to hear what you are thinking about x, y or z”. “Tell me about your new classes.” “Tell me about your table at lunch.” Don’t: Ask closed ended questions like “Are you excited/ready for school to start?” Do: Be curious about their lives. As much as it may seem they don’t want to talk to us, most kids really long for you to be interested in their lives.

• Do: Notice their emotions, name them, validate them and then allow them space to move through. Adolescents are still working on developing emotional intelligence and really need some guidance. Our emotions are all real and valid to us. If we don’t give them space to exist, they get stuck and we start to marinate. Don’t: tell your child to “just not stress out;” it leaves them feeling ashamed for their stress, judged, alone and they will not come to us the next time. Do: say: “I’m so glad you told me, it is hard isn’t it?” This allows them to identify their anxiety, justify it’s existence and then they can start to look for ways to manage it. Just stuffing it results in stomach aches, headachces, tense muscles, sleep problems, focus problems. Don’t: take it on yourself to fix their emotions. It’s not possible and you will get frustrated with them for not “complying.” Our emotions can be an important internal compass with which we can learn to notice and utilize. Emotions aren’t for fixing, they are for listening. Do: be compassionate with yourself, it’s so very hard to watch our kids struggle and keep ourselves from coming to the rescue.

• Do: Be aware that anxiety and grief in teens looks like: contempt(eye rolls, snarkiness, sarcasm), indecisiveness, lack of motivation, procrastination, moodiness, anger, silence, withdrawal, falling grades. Help them understand that while emotions are valid, we also need to be aware of how our reactions to our emotions can hurt others. Do: Teach accountability. Don’t: punish before teaching them how. This is a teachable opportunity, just ride the fine line of teaching vs lecturing. Do: Make sure your teen feels listened to consistently, (tune in often, even over seemingly small items) this provides fertile opportunity to do this teaching. If they feel lectured, this could be a sign that we aren’t working on other parts of our relationship with them.

• Do: Look for opportunities for giving them agency and choice-a feeling of control in this crazy landscape. This can be done in small ways: clothing, timing of chores/homeowork, decision making on things that are their problems (not ours). Don’t: micromanage everything. Do: Pick your battles on necessary items.

• Do: Before weighing in on any issue they face, determine whose problem it really is, (theirs or yours) and if it’s theirs, let the world’s natural consequences hit. This is the best teacher for future responsibility.

• Do: Model good self care in the face of societal stress-nutrition, exercise, limiting news tickers, compassion for others, healthy self talk.

• If they are returning to school for the first time in a while, Do: take it easy. Small steps, ease into the transition. Don’t: make elaborate plans right after school or in the first few weekends after school starts, they will most likely need to come home, decompress and collapse.

• Do: Speak to them in terms of a growth mindset vs fixed mindset. Growth mindset: “I saw how you managed your anxiety last week and was really impressed with how you’ve improved, you’ve come a long way.” Fixed mindset: “You are always so negative about school.” “Why are you always so stressed?”

We’d love to help you navigate your relationship with your teen! We offer individual counseling for adolescents or parents, family counseling and group therapy for teens(coming soon), Contact us today!

How to prepare for an online counseling session

Align Couples Therapy is 100% online for awhile. Please don't delay starting therapy at this time; self care and relationship care is as important as ever! Online sessions are easy and so convenient!

I’m working very hard on making this experience as impactful as an office session and believe if you give it a try, you will be glad you didn’t wait. Online video is much more engaging and warm than trying to build therapeutic rapport behind face masks. Both client and therapist must be able to view the full range of facial emotion in session.

Many clients are reporting that online couples therapy is working better than they imagined. I have noticed that when positive relationship experience happens in your own home during session, instead of only in the therapy office, it is moving couples along faster in the change process.

online couples counseling

Here are some tips:

• Allow some buffer time before session to get set up, comfortable and adjust your computer settings. You will also want to simulate the brain space that a typical car commute and alone time in a waiting room counseling office gives you. This allows you some time to think about your goals for the session and your assessment of the week prior. Jumping into a therapy session straight from an online work meeting will make it hard to orient yourself to the process.

• Have some headphones handy. This can help with privacy and filtering out background noise and echos.

• Sit in front of a window or shine a lamp in your direction for light.

• If you are signing on as a couple, set the computer on a table and sit back from it a few feet to provide ability for both people to be seen on the screen.

• Check your internet speed here, and make adjustments below.

• Restart your computer before session and close all extra tabs that are open, check your location to your router, you may need to move closer.

• Call your internet provider and make sure you are getting the best available speed, I was able to increase my wifi speed and get a reduced bill all in one phone call!

• For privacy: sit in your car on your lunch break or in your driveway. There is also no shame in meeting from the comfort of your closet! The hanging clothes make it very soundproof.

• Use your phone as a sound machine/put on some music outside of the room where you are having your session. I use a sound machine outside my office door. I use this one from Amazon, it’s got an amazing sound and has held up wonderfully over time.

• Ask family members not to game or stream movies during your session if wifi speed is an issue.

• Place your computer/laptop on some books or a pillow on your lap, prop up iPad to bring the camera to your eye level.

• Turn off messages/email notifications during your session to eliminate distracting dings, put phone on Do Not Disturb.

• Allow yourself some time after your session to adjust back into your day. Don’t rush right back to life.

• Give yourself a session or two to adjust to the difference, it definitely grows on you! Research shows that online sessions are not less effective than in-person sessions.

• Do not multitask during session, give it your full attention, like you would in a therapy office.

• This is a good article and more information from Apple about how to make video conferencing more enjoyable.

  I look forward to seeing you online!