Tag Archives: adolescent

November 11, 2012 · 8:54 am

Why I Became A Licensed Professional Counselor

“Why did you decide to become a Professional Counselor?”

I get this question fairly often. Mostly from new counseling graduates or clients who have been seeing me for long enough. For me, being a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) is an honor and a challenge. To fully answer this quesiton, I would have to start by talking briefly about what I do as an LPC.

My “Job” as an LPC

I put the word “job” in parenthesis because I often don’t feel as if this is a job lately. I am in the profession of helping people through a wide variety of problems.

Here are a few things I get to do on the “job.”

  • Listen: I listen to what my clients have to say. Many times, people feel they talk but they are not heard. They feel as if they share their feelings, but the underlying meaning of why they are feeling that way is not brought to light. So, I listen for what is being said, but also to whay is not being said.
  • Recognize: I am training to recognize many things as an LPC. Some of these include signs of unhealthy boundaries, indications of a mental illness, patterns of behavior, and structural patterns in relationships.
  • Validate: This cannot be underestimated in my role. People often need validation and empathy in order to fully heal.
  • Plan: I establish a plan to help my clients with the issues they bring to me. This includes coming up with goals and ways to reach those goals.
  • Encourage: I encourage my clients in reaching their goals, making progress in their life, and reaching healthy milestones.
  • Advise: I advise clients in handling certain situations, such as handling a child’s visitation after divorce, talking with doctor’s and teachers about what is going on.
  • Play!: As a play therapist, engaging children during therapeutic play is one of my roles, and definitely one of my favorites.

The Reason I Chose Counseling (A Rare Moment of Personal Disclosure)

I am an only child and grew up in a 2 parent home. I can say confidently and thankfully that I am loved by both parents and a small extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I had a happy childhood. However, starting around middle school, I began to experience the challenges that I believe most adolescents experience. I started a new school as well, which added to some of the social challenges of the time. Making friends was difficult for me and I found myself being bullied pretty regularly. This was more of the relational aggression bullying that we see among girls. I remember feeling confused and lonely. I did not have siblings or friends to talk to and I don’t remember my school having a school counselor either. I began surrounding myself with anyone who would be my friend, no matter whether they were a good influence or not.

I finally made my way to high school. My grades were good and I was making a few more friends. But then I got the dreaded boyfriend. You know the one that every mother and father despises and wants to keep far from their daughters. I will skip the details of this time in my life, but I’m sure you can fill in the blanks with your own experience, or one of someone you know. The bottom line is that I again felt lonely and confused. I actually wanted OUT of the relationship with this boy, but I felt trapped and scared. If only I had someone to talk to and help me sort it all out in a healthy and safe way.

Why didn’t I talk to my parents? This is where my career choice will begin to make sense for you. I didn’t tell my parents how scared and lonely I felt for many reasons (that I can only now finally to put into words):

  • Embarrassment. I was embarrassed to admit I made mistakes and needed help.
  • Fear. I was afraid what would happen if they intervened.
  • Disappointment. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents, especially being an only child and all.
  • Pride. As a teenager, you are trying to prove yourself as an adult and admitting mistakes doesn’t help your case.

Putting It All Together

So that’s my personal story of some difficult times when I really needed a counselor as an adolescent. I’m confident the outcome could have been different, as well as saving myself and my family some grief. However, like most challenges and triumphs in our life, those experiences made me who I am today! I am in the business of helping people who are lonely, need answers, feel depressed, or don’t know the healthiest way to handle their circumstance.

I have mentioned in other posts, the importance of finding a mentor for your teenager and it’s for the reasons I stated above that I believe this is so important. With the rise of depression in teens, divorce, autism, and so much more, I don’t ever want a teenager, child, adult, or parent to feel they are alone and don’t have someone to talk to and help.

There are many professionals in the helping profession who follow this blog. I would love to hear how you decided this was the career for you!

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July 24, 2012 · 11:18 am

Boys Need Men, and Other Lessons I Learned From the Elephants!

Years ago, my dad shared this CNN story with me, South Africa Reins In Its Young Elephants. I found it such a fascinating story and wonderful analogy for our young men today, that I continue to reference it all these years later. Please read the story for yourself, but I can share a summary.

The Story of the Elephants

The CNN story, written by Dean E. Murphy in 1998, is about a group of wild elephant bulls on a game reserve in South Africa. The elephant bulls, considered teenagers in elephant years, were being extremely aggressive. The elephant bulls were terrorizing the reserve by killing rhinos and chasing off safari visitors. One man even lost his life to one of the aggressive, young elephants. I can just imagine the chaos!

Reserve officials were perplexed by the strange behavior of the elephants and began contemplating the reasons for this behavior and possible solutions. You see, these elephants were orphaned at a young age and relocated to this reserve. It turns out, there were no older elephant males on the reservation. Officials determined that the male elephants had no role model for appropriate behavior.

The park finally introduced a handful of elder elephants to the area. At the time the story was written, the unruly behaviors of the elephant bulls had already decreased significantly. Wow, even the animals learn from their elders!

The Lessons:

Children Need Positive Role Models. I’m not the first person to tell you how much it means that you model good behavior for your children, boys and girls! They watch our every move and listen to our every word!

More Boys Need Men In Their Lives. I see more and more young boys in my therapy office without this male figure in their life. These boys yearn for their father and appear to be seeking guidance from anywhere they can. Moms serve a precious and irreplacable role in their lives, but they can’t serve as the male figure. William Bennett, a blogger with CNN Opinion, wrote in his article Why Men Are In Trouble, “For boys to become men, they need to be guided through advice, habit, instruction, example and correction. It is true in all ages.”

We Can Learn From Our Elders. I think today we really do not place enough value on learning form our elders. Whether we are young or middle-aged, our elders can teach us a lot about life. When I was pregnant with my first child, I read many books, hoping to be prepared for this new chapter in my life. When my baby finally arrived, I found the most valuable lessons came from my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and my friends. Their experience taught me more than any book I read! Our younger generations are facing life today with the same mentality… learn what you need to from the internet. Unfortunately, there is so much more we can teach them. But first, we have to teach them to value the lessons what we have to offer.

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June 6, 2012 · 3:50 pm

Possible Reasons Your Teen “Just Doesn’t Give A Care” Anymore

 If you are a parent of a teenager, you probably wonder what happened to your carefree, happy-g0-lucky kid. In exchange, you have what sometimes seems like a completely different person. Your little one is now no longer so little and extremely moody and doesn’t seem to care about much of anything anymore.
One of the most frustrating things about this stage is their ”I don’t care” attitude- apathy. What exactly does this mean? Is your teenager depressed? Is this normal?
One mother on Depression Forums says “My teenage son (19 yrs old), since probably his Junior year in highschool has completely lost the motivation to do ANYTHING other than sleep and play video games. ” Like many other parents, she worries because he is very bright and has so much potential for his future.
Concerned parents are looking for answers to these discouraging changes in their adolescents. I found a great article on apathetic adolescents with good, thorough info on this very topic. An article by Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D, author of “The Connected Father,” sheds some light on why your once joyful andmotivated child is now an apathetic adolescent. He notes numerous causes for this apathy and some helpful ideas on how to identify which may be the case for your child. As always, if you have concerns, that nagging feeling something is not right, please seek help from a professional and talk to your pediatrician.
APATHY AS A PRETENSE. “I don’t care if you don’t like how I’m changing!” an eleven-year-old explodes as parents censor the new tough talk he has learned testing young manliness with male peers. But the parents stick to their standards: “How you talk with friends on the playground is your business; but how you talk at home is ours. None of that language here!”
It’s hard to be an early adolescent because what gains you points with peers can earn you demerits with parents. He still wants his parents’ good opinion, but to save face he pretends it doesn’t matter. His statement of apathy in this situation is really bravado speaking. What he actually feels is, “I care too much about what you think of the new me to let my caring show.”
Parents need to see the “I don’t care what you think” statement for what it is, and avoid strong statements of disapproval at this vulnerable age. Disagree with the young person’s choices when they feel they must, but don’t criticize his character when doing so.
APATHY AS BOREDOM. “There’s nothing I care to do!” moans the early adolescent (around ages 9 – 13) at a loss of how she can occupy herself. Having discarded childhood hobbies and possessions because she no longer wants to be defined and treated as a child, she doesn’t yet have older likes, interests, and activities to replace those that have been let go. When it comes to knowing how to meaningfully engage herself, for a while she is riding on empty.
While parents are often inclined to trivialize boredom in their adolescent, it is actually a very painful emotion. It is an expression of loneliness. The young person can’t find a satisfying way to connect with herself, other people, or the world. She feels disconnected, at loose ends. Although short term boredom creates the opportunity for the adolescent to develop her own resources and entertain herself, long term boredom should catch parental attention because it is often a staging area for impulse. The young person is willing to do something, anything, with friends to escape the emptiness they share. This is a time when parents need to keep their adolescent adequately busy so impulsiverisk-taking to cope with long term boredom is not allowed to rule.
APATHY AS DEFIANCE. “Who cares about grades?” protests the middle school student to parents, as academic performance falls from failing effort. “It should be good enough to just get by.” The formerly high performing young man is rejecting the importance of school achievement to which he was committed as a child and that his parents still are. By this expression of apathy he intends to show the adult world he is no longer wants to be wed to the values of childhood. Not caring about what mattered to the child and what matters to parents feels like an expression of adolescent independence.
But for his future sake at this disaffected time, the parents insist that all school work will be done, and apply their oversight to make it so. “Although we understand how school performance matters less to you at the moment, we still expect you to pay attention in class, complete all the homework, study for all the tests, and if you can’t make yourself do all this, we will give you our support of our supervision, even if that means showing up at school to help you take care of studies there.”
APATHY AS A DEFENSE. “I don’t care about serious dating anymore,” declares the high school junior who has just been jilted by her boyfriend of two years, with whom she had fallen in love, but who it turned out hadn’t been in lasting love with her. Now she discovers some painful lessons about love: love is not guaranteed to be forever; the one we love the most can hurt us the worst; our love for someone is not always the best measure of their love for us.
‘Caring takes daring’ is the lesson the young person has learned because when it comes to love, the risk of hurt is always there. Apathy at this juncture doesn’t heal the suffering, but it does defend against becoming enamored again anytime soon. Respecting this decision, parents can also help the young person appreciate good aspects of this last relationship that can strengthen the next loving attachment when she feels ready to try again.
APATHY AS INDIFFERENCE. Adolescence can be a very self-centered and socially limiting experience, in the extreme causing young people to lose empathy for others in their preoccupation with self-interest and confinement to their own small social circle of friends. In the first case, concern for others is sacrificed to caring only for self, ignoring the needs of those they live with. This is when parents complain: “He only thinks of himself!” In the second case, the high school student may be so committed to a social clique and sticking to her own kind that there is insensitivity and indifference to the welfare of others outside of her immediate associations. This is when the young person seems to think: “Who cares about them?”
Because healthy personal relationships must work two ways and not just one (the adolescent’s way), and because after leaving school the young person must be prepared to function in a larger and more diverse world, lack of empathy and range in personal relationships will not serve the growing adolescent well. Therefore parents need to insist on mutuality with them and do all they can to broaden experience and enlarge sense of social affiliation while she is still living at home.
APATHY ASCYNICISM. Fresh out on one’s own and facing a large impersonal world and job market that is inhospitable, the last stage adolescent finally secures an entry level job, earning just enough to move in with two similarly situated friends who need a third roommate to make rent on the one bedroom apartment they now all share. What a come-down from the comforts of living at home!
Because the present is discouraging and the future looks unpromising it’s tough to care about life when life doesn’t appear to care much about you. If you just graduated from college and there are not the opportunities you thought awaited someone with your advanced education, life can feel unfair. Add pessimism to apathy and cynicism can result, creating an outlook with little hope and a lot of disappointment and anger. True independence is a letdown when the world is revealed as the hard, impersonal place it is. Now the work of making one’s way begins.
Because cynicism makes it difficult to stay motivated, it can be the enemy of effort at a time when summoning the will to keep trying, to try even harder, is what is needed. Although parents should not spare the older adolescent this time of struggle, they can offer encouragement and also provide perspective by relating some of the trials they went through starting out in life many years ago.
APATHY FROM SUBSTANCE USE. At any stage of adolescence, when life gets hard to engage with, it’s tempting to escape from these demands, which is where a lot of substance use comes in. The escape is about freedom – freedom from worrisome or painful cares, freedom for unrestricted and uninhibited pleasure. The effect of substance use is an altered psychological state.
Depending on the dose and frequency, substance use can take the user from sober caring, to less caring, to acting carelessly, to becoming care-free, to not caring at all if intoxication or getting wasted occurs. When regular use of alcohol, marijuana, or other psychoactive drugs becomes established, a loss of normal caring can disable effort. Now apathy erodes ambition, motivation falls away, and healthy functioning is harder to maintain. Another impact of substance use on apathy is not caring about consequences and engaging in dangerous risk taking. In either case, parents should push for an assessment of use, and if advised see about getting substance use counseling, treatment, or support group help.
APATHY FROMDEPRESSION. “What differences does anything make?” exploded the high school senior. She just lost her best friend to a fatal car accident a month ago. “Nothing matters anymore!” That’s what her parents report in counseling, explaining how “our daughter’s just feeling really sad, but she’ll get past it. We just need to give time.” However, based on other data that they share, I disagree. “She’s showing signs that she needs help. She’s no longer striving on her own behalf. She doesn’t care about the future. She looks downcast all the time. She’s stopped socializing with friends and just stays by herself. She’s given up working out. She’s not interested in communicating and gets angry when you want to talk with her. I think she’s becoming seriously depressed. Significant loss of any kind always carries the risk of a depressive response.
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March 21, 2012 · 2:55 am

A Trustworthy Mentor for Your Adolescent

Being a therapist to so many adolescents and pre-adolescents has given me a unique opportunity that most parents never experience. I am privy to information about the inner lives and social lives of these kids during what some people consider the most difficult times of growing up. The teen and pre-teen years are riddled with self-identification, hormonal changes, and social pressures that most of us would not return to in a million years, even if there are some good memories sprinkled here and there. As their therapist, it’s my job to determine when a parent needs to be made aware of certain circumstances, and when maintaining confidentiality is in the best interest of the teen. This is a struggle for parents sometimes, but I have found that most often they are comfortable (and even relieved) in knowing that their teenager is in good hands. I take this as a compliment when they have confidence in my judgement and I value this confidence and trust, from both the parent and the adolescent.

However, not all kids are in counseling or need to be in counseling though. Does this mean the adolescent is not being faced with a difficult personal decision or facing social pressures they feel they cannot handle? Absolutely not.  No matter who they are, they will face some very challenging circumstances during these years. And unfortunately, they may find it too difficult to come to a parent for help. Even when they have a great relationship with a parent, sometimes, they worry about disappointing their mom or dad. Other times, they overestimate their maturity or ability to handle the problem.

I recommend that parents encourage their adolescent to have a relationship with another adult that the parent trusts as well, such as a godparent, grandparent, or close family friend. Give them permission to confide in this person in the event they feel they cannot talk to their parents. The purpose of this is so that the teen has a safe person to turn to and the parent also feels comfortable their child is in good hands. Many times, this trusted adult can help the child tell their parent about the situation by being a support, and guide them in making better choices.

My final note on this topic is to always continue to build and maintain a positive and healthy relationship with your teenager because ultimately, you want them to confide in you for guidance and support. As a parent, I want more than anything to have a close relationship with my son and daughter. Experience has taught me though that this doesn’t mean they will tell me everything going on in their lives, especially during the adolescent years. For parents who have raised a teenager or two, I am always wondering, how did you do it? I would love to hear your comments!

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