Help for Troubled Teens

SIMPLY LISTEN

Helping Others Cope With Grief

It’s part of life.  Someone special died today.  Someone’s father or mother, husband or wife, son or daughter.  A family, a lifetime of memories and a lot of pain are left behind.  And, for the survivors, the pain is just beginning.  Working through that pain and sadness is often a long and grueling process called mourning.

Almost everyone worries about what to say to the survivors.  You don’t want to hurt their feelings or upset them.  But more important than knowing what to say is knowing how to listen.  You cannot take away the pain that friends or co-workers are suffering from the loss of a loved one, but you can listen to their stories.  Storytelling is a very common and effective way for the grieving person to keep the memory of a loved one alive.  The biggest fear for someone in mourning is that those around them will forget the loved one now that they are gone. Read more…

Your Teen’s Friends

Peer Influence & Peer Relationships

Teens want to be with people their own age — their peers.  During adolescence, teens spend more time with their peers and without parental supervision.  With peers, teens can be both connected and independent, as they break away from their parents’ images of them and develop identities of their own.

While many families help teens in feeling proud and confident of their unique traits, backgrounds, and abilities, peers are often more accepting of the feelings, thoughts, and actions associated with the teen’s search for self-identity.  Read more…

Emotional Health

What Should I Know About My Teenager’s Emotional Health?

The teenage years are a time of transition from childhood into adulthood.  Teens often struggle with being dependent on their parents while having a strong desire to be independent.  Ideally, they are maturing from the one-sided self-centeredness of childhood to a self-identity that balances responsible self-interest with care and love for others.

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