Few things are more tragic for a loving parent than watching your relationship with your child crumble. Relationship counseling is one healthy way to rebuild relationships with your teen, foster healthier and more productive communication between family members, address past trauma, and better the teen relationships in your life. Through teen relationship counseling sessions at Imagine Fort Collins, parents and their teenagers will be taught a series of skills and methods of rebuilding bridges and seeing each other in a better, more hopeful light.
If you are struggling to make a connection with your teen, we may be able to help. Contact us online or call 888.291.2309 today.
What is Teen Relationship Counseling?
Facilitated by a psychologist, clinical social worker or licensed therapist, relationship counseling is a clinical approach to rebuild relationships with your teen and repairing the lines of communication within your family. To improve your relationships with your teen, relationship counseling sessions will be tailored just to you and your needs and situation so as to address the specific issues you and your teen are facing. This includes any mental health disorders and behavioral health concerns you and they may have.
How to Rebuild Relationships with Your Teen
During relationship counseling in a family therapy program, you and your teen will be together in the same room for counseling sessions. This can be in addition to you and your teen also seeing a trained family therapist in a one-on-one setting.
Family counseling sessions typically last one hour or less. The exact number of sessions needed to rebuild relationships with your teen will vary based on the therapist’s recommendation.
You should expect that, in order to rebuild relationships with your teen, you both will be asked to:
- Explore the ways in which you each can better express emotions, ideas and thoughts in a healthy and productive manner
- Discuss the roles and responsibilities that exist within your family
- Identify the issue(s) that have contributed to the deterioration of your relationship, then work to find constructive methods of solving the issues
- Identify the strengths you and your teen possess and discover ways to utilize these to improve rebuild relationships with your teen
- Develop empathy, understanding, and acceptance of each other’s struggles (including any mental health disorders)
- Learn to listen and find common ground allowing you relate to each other
- Set goals and work to achieve them to improve teen relationships
How Relationship Counseling Can Help Rebuild Relationships with Your Teen
No matter how fractured your teen relationships are currently, there remains the potential to learn the communication skills needed to help rebuild them. There a variety of issues that plague relationships between parents and their teens. Fortunately, these can and will be addressed during relationship counseling. The result will be that you rebuild relationships with your teen:
Complaining
Teenagers sometimes complain about how unfair, meaningless, and miserable their life is. This ongoing, verbalized existential crisis can wear down teens and parents alike. At Imagine Fort Collins, you both can get through this period and rebuild your relationship with your teen. The first step is seeing them and appreciating that they are figuring out who they are now and who they are becoming as young adults. While difficult, it is still your job as their parent to love and support your teen, even in the face of these conflicts.
Listening
Teens seek and require subtle approaches to communication and advice. A relationship counseling program will teach you to focus on listening instead of telling. When you learn to listen better, your teen will find it easier to open up and share. As a result, both of you will enjoy a stronger and closer relationship afterwards.
Responsibility
Parents are typically eager for their teenagers to take more responsibility at home, school, work, and planning for their future. You and your teenager will learn the role responsibility takes in rebuilding your relationship.
Learn More at Imagine Fort Collins
Parentings teenagers can be stressful. In fact, chasms in relationships can form and widen over time without putting in the hard work to stay connected. Learn how you can rebuild relationships with your teen today by calling us 888.291.2309 or reach out to us online to inquire about relationship counseling.