Navigating Adolescence
Insights & Practical Tips from a Teen Therapist
How Teens with ADHD Can Build and Maintain Friendships
Teenagers with ADHD often have big hearts, bright minds, and boundless energy, but navigating the social world doesn’t always come easily.
5 Communication Tools for When You and Your Teen Are Arguing
If you’re the parent of a teen, you’ve probably had moments where a simple disagreement spirals into slammed doors, shut-down silence, or a shouting match you didn’t see coming. You’re not alone, and you’re not failing.
How to Help Your Teen Build and Maintain Healthy Friendships
Friendships are everything in the teen years. They can be a source of joy, identity, and comfort, and sometimes, a source of stress, confusion, or even heartbreak.
Teen Moodiness or Anxiety? How to Tell the Difference
As a teen therapist specializing in ages 12 to 19, I often hear from parents who are caught between shrugging off their teen’s moodiness and worrying that something deeper is going on.
Group Therapy for Teens: Why It Really Works
When parents picture therapy, they often imagine their teen one-on-one with a counselor in a private room. That model absolutely has its place, but there’s another incredibly powerful option that’s often overlooked: group therapy for teenagers.
How to Help Your Teen with the Middle to High School Transition
Moving from middle school to high school is a major milestone for teens and parents alike. It’s not just a change of buildings or schedules, it’s a whole new chapter full of social pressures, academic challenges, and emotional growth.
Why Your Teen Daughter Struggles with Independence (and What Helps)
As parents, you often expect your kids to grow up through clearly marked developmental milestones. But parenting teenage daughters and supporting their growing independence will quickly teach you that this process doesn’t happen all at once
Teen Motivation in School: 3 Tips That Actually Work
Between distractions, big assignments, and shifting moods, it’s normal for teenagers to feel overwhelmed or unmotivated at times. Busy schedules and the pressure to keep up can leave them (and you!) feeling stressed-out and frustrated.
Staying Close to Your Teen When They Pull Away
Let’s be honest: staying emotionally connected to your teenager can feel tough. One minute you’re chatting about school, and the next they’re in their room with the door closed, headphones on, leaving you wondering what just happened.
Teen Boy Depression: Signs, Causes, and How Parents Can Help
Depression in teenage boys is often harder to spot than you might think. While many people associate depression with visible sadness or withdrawal, teen boys are more likely to express their distress through irritability, anger, or risky behavior.
Friendship Anxiety in Teens: What It Is and How to Help
It’s easy to expect friendships to be the safe haven in a teen’s life. But for many adolescents, relationships with peers can also become a major source of anxiety.
How Does a Fear of Failure Play Into Social Anxiety?
It’s easy to scroll past a meme or TikTok about “social awkwardness” and think, Maybe this is just who I am.
How to Help Teens Overcome Social Anxiety
Even the most outgoing teen can feel nervous walking into a new classroom, speaking up in front of peers, or introducing themselves to someone new.
What Causes Teen Depression? 7 Common Risk Factors
When your teen seems withdrawn, unmotivated, or stuck in a low mood, it’s natural to wonder: What happened? You might try to trace it back to a specific moment or trigger, but teen depression rarely has just one cause.
Tips for Helping when your Teen faces Peer Pressure
Teenagers often have a rebellious reputation. As they near adulthood, they may challenge authority and other norms. At the same time, however, they can be notorious conformists.
How Teen Brains Are Different: What Every Parent Should Know
If your teen seems like a walking contradiction: mature one minute, overwhelmed the next, you’re not alone.
How to Identify and Help With Teen Academic Pressure
If it feels like academic stress has become a full-time job for your teen, you’re not imagining it. Between the rising pressure to take AP classes, maintain perfect GPAs, get into competitive colleges, and “do it all,” many teens feel like there’s no room to breathe.
Are Screens Making Teens Depressed?
If you're a parent of a teen, you've probably asked yourself at some point: Is all this screen time making my kid depressed? With 95% of teens using at least one social media platform, and nearly half reporting they’re online “almost constantly”, it’s no surprise this question is front and center for so many families. But like most things in parenting, the answer isn’t black and white.
Tips For Helping Anxious Teens Who Are Applying For College
College application season has a way of sneaking up on families. Just as your teen is beginning to enjoy a sense of independence, they’re suddenly faced with one of the biggest decisions of their life, while juggling AP classes, extracurriculars, social pressure, and hormonal changes.
Teens and the Pressure of Academic Achievement
For many teens, school isn’t just about learning, it’s about proving yourself. Between grades, college expectations, extracurriculars, and the constant comparisons on social media, it’s easy to feel like you're never doing enough.