Talking to teenagers

Photo by Tanja Heffner on Unsplash Parents, health professionals, teachers say it often ‘ oh children are so resilient, they adapt don’t they’ This is usually said in the context of parents separating, moving schools, transitioning to secondary school ect. It is true in these cases that children/teenagers adjust to change and transition, but what happens if the child has experienced a traumatic incident, are they able to process this and move on? I see young people in my counselling room that are experiencing school refusal due to severe anxiety, this anxiety is sometimes a delayed manifestation of a traumatic event that has gone unprocessed. The teenager believes it is a fear of school, but in fact it is trauma that is unprocessed, now setting off the flight or fight response, it is the body’s way of saying that the incident needs to be worked through therapeutically. Sometimes incidents witnessed by children/teenagers can be rationalized and talked about at the t...

So, we are back to routine, are you screaming for your teenager to get out of bed yet? Well you know that you’re not on your own with this, parents of my clients complain about this regularly. As adults we find it hard to get out of bed, but the bills and the mortgage payments and the boss gives us the motivation to get up. What does the teenager have hanging over him to make him get up on time and conquer the day…? His assignment on music production for modern theatre, no he’s got that covered because he believes he can get the guidelines emailed to him instead of attending first period/lesson. Also Lucy who sits next to him said she can help out with that! The fact that he will be marked down as late on his attendance record…no he’s just going to come up with some doctor’s appointment, bus broke down routine, he’s got that covered. The fact that mum will be totally p****d off with him and she will do that silent, only answer in curt sentences thing and tell ever...