Mental Health for Teens in the Valley: How to Help Your teen

Mental Health for Teens in the Valley

Have you begun to worry that your teen is struggling with their mental health? Does it seem as if your teen is dealing with problems that you just don’t know how to help? When your child has mental health concerns, it’s very natural to feel powerless, as if there’s nothing you can do to make things better. The best thing you can do is reach out to the pros, those who know how to help mental health for teens in the valley. That said, there are some small things you can do that may be able to help. 

Let Them Know It’s OK to Speak Up 

The last thing you want to do as a parent is to pretend that your child doesn’t have a mental health issue, or to ignore what they may be going through. So, it can be beneficial simply to talk about such things. Being honest with them about anxiety, depression, suicidal ideas, and more can make a difference. It can let your teen know: “hey, these things do exist, people do go through them, you aren’t alone and we’re here for you,” among other realizations. 

Best Practices: Neither Judgemental nor Dismissive

Optimism is important, but you don’t want to be so optimistic as to come off as dismissive or worse, uncaring. Telling your child who may be dealing with a mental health problem that “you’re going through a phase” or “it’s gonna be all right” can actually have the opposite effect of what you intend. To that end, you may want to reassure them, to let them know that this is more common than they realize. Showing your teen that you’ll support them can be greatly beneficial as well. 

How to Be Supportive the Right Way 

It’s possible that, at some point, your child will open up to you about their mental health concerns. When that happens, the main thing that you want to do is to listen to them openly and honestly. Be patient with them. Let them know in no uncertain terms how this won’t change how you love them in the slightest. While it may feel empowering at the moment, putting blame on others, leaping to conclusions, and similar behavior will only be detrimental. That said, you don’t want to enable them, either. Doing their schoolwork for them, to use one example we’ve seen, won’t help anybody.

Mental Health for Teens in the Valley

A Place that Helps Mental Health for Teens in the Valley 

It can be scary when your child has a mental health struggle, but it’s important to remember that there is help. Here at Insight Treatment, we’ve helped so many teens as well as their families. While we have many facilities all throughout the area, our Van Nuys facility is right here for teens and their parents in the valley. Beyond treating the kids at our IOP, we also have events for parents, too, such as parents’ groups and more. For a free evaluation to see how we can help, you can message us through our site or call (888) 295-9995.