How can I tell if my teen needs intervention or not?
In a recent get-together, some other parents and I were discussing how to sort out the difference between "normal" teen-age trials and tribulations and any behavior that would indicate that our kid might be undergoing too much emotional stress. We were debating how we could tell if adult intervention would be needed.
Short of booking an appointment with a therapist, I'd like to know how some of you wise parents out there have resolved this question?
Oct 31, 2016
Parent Replies
If the behaviors are enough to call attention to themselves, and given that you are having these suspicions, I would say time to find a counselor. Not necessarily a psychiatrist, but a LCSW or psychologist or family counselor. If you are told "there's nothing wrong", keep looking. We had these same worries starting when our daughter was 9. We took her to several adolescent psychologists from age 9-16. They all told us that either a) perfectly normal teen anxiety, it will pass, she's smart and bored is all; or b) it's your fault as adoptive parents. When our daughter started abusing drugs and alcohol in attempts to self-medicate, that's when we realized we had to step it up and find a psychiatrist specializing in teens. Turns out she has Major Depression, Executive Dysfunction and Addictive Personality. High school has been very, very rough. She's in 12th grade now, and we're confident she'll actually finish and go to college for the first time in a few years. So bottom line - if you as the parents believe there are deeper issues, you are most likely right, you know your kid better than anyone else, sometimes even themselves. Don't second guess, get pro help and nip the issues in the bud.
This may not directly answer your question. My 17 year old daughter, a computer coder and gaming enthusiast, was recently invited to be a beta tester of an app that tries to deal with this challenge. You might want to check it out. Even though it was designed with adolescent boys in mind, she had fun with the game and agreed that it could be addictive. As I understand it, K’Bro is an app designed as a game that fosters emotional resiliency. By playing a fun runner game, the app captures emotions in four categories: School, Family, Social Life, and Everything Else. There’s also the ability to share difficult emotions privately in the app, or, through an anonymous sharing site. Kids participate in gratitude practice in a playful way, helping to put difficulties into perspective. Using the app produces a daily “Am I OK?” index score so the kids know how they’re doing. If the adolescent is not doing OK, then parents get an alert. My daughter wasn't sure if she'd use an app to help her self-diagnose her mental state, but, she could see how other pre-teens and teens might find it useful. If you are interested, you could find out if K'Bro is still looking for beta users, or, maybe it is in production by now; http://www.kbro.io/.