Teen Mental Health Resources: A Guide for ParentsFinding the right help for your teen's mental health struggles can be confusing and overwhelming. This free guide is designed to help you make sense of the options and take action toward getting your teen the support they need!  Get your Guide HERE Let's talk about Stress. In my therapy practice where I work with teens and young adults, I work with kids every day who tell me their lives are super stressful. The stressors they experience are pretty typical – academic pressure, conflict with friends or family, worry about the future, etc. But the stress itself isn’t really what concerns me. What I’m noticing in my teen clients is this pattern: 1)they experience something stressful 2) their body has a response to that stress that makes them uncomfortable 3) they avoid avoid avoid so that they don’t have to feel that discomfort. On today's episode, we will explore: 1)How to help our teens understand what is happening in their nervous system when they experience stress. 2)Why it's a natural process and nothing they need to fear or avoid. 3) How to fully complete each stress cycle so they don't end up unleashing their stress energy in unhealthy ways. 

Many of you know I started my career as a foreign language teacher. And it occurred to me recently that parenting has something in coming with learning a new language. When you learn a new language, there are things you “learn” – grammar, vocabulary, etc. and there are things you “acquire” – the sounds, the common phrases, the culture. Parenting has similar features –there are things we explicitly teach our kids and there are things they absorb or acquire simply by being in our family. On today’s podcast we will explore the idea that there are things our teens are learning directly from us, and other things they acquire and absorb just by being in our presence and in our family. Join me for an interesting twist on how we think about parenting…