Struggling Adolescence

Valuable Information to Help You and Your Teenager.

More than ever adolescents are suffering from mental disorders, behavioral problems, and emotional pain. Due to the severe breakdown of the nuclear family within the past 40 years children are not getting their needs met. These crucial needs consist of: (Unconditional Love, Belonging, Wisdom, Guidance, Discipline, Morality, and Encouragement). Unfortunately most adolescence do not feel comfortable to disclose their personal lives with their parents out of fear of disappointing them. Teens often avoid discussing their “failures” or struggles with their parents because of the pain and disappointment associated with them.
When a child’s needs aren’t met they will seek to meet them on their own. The majority of the time adolescence engage in self destructive behaviors and rarely receive appropriate guidance to break free of them. Drugs, Alcohol, Premarital Sex, Destructive Relationships, Trouble with the Law, and Violence are just a few. Depression, Anxiety, Self Harm, and the inability to have successful relationships are generally the result. Adolescents can be set up for failure when faced with the deadly combination of unmet needs and self destructive behaviors.

These struggles are more severe but many teens experience depression even from common every day teenage occurrences. These include relationships with peers and the opposite sex as well as pressure to achieve the most in life. Be honest with yourself, how many times has your teen complained to you about something seemingly insignificant and in your head you say, “Your have it easy, you don’t even know what real problems are”. Understandable thought given the comparison between your life stage and your teen’s minimal responsibilities. However, it is important to know that psychological struggles are not based on what happens to people. Instead it based on the meaning we associate with the events in our lives. Even though a simple break up may seem insignificant in the life of your teen, it can be a sole cause of full blown depression. It is no surprise that adolescents are in such pain.

All teens need a strong adult figure in their life that isn’t stuck with the role of being your teen’s parent. Counseling provides your teen with a healthy mentor in a safe environment where they can freely work through difficult struggles. Not to mention the training, tools, and experience that adolescence can greatly benefit from.

Youth, Marriage and Family Mental Health Specialist Paul D. Myers
Parenting, Adolescence and children’s emotional / behavioral problems,
Depression and Anxiety

7604 San Jacinto Place
Plano, TX 75024
pmyers@mechcenter.org
972 345 6788