Is your adolescent child angry or unhappy? Does your teen lack confidence and self-esteem? Do you feel uncertain about how to help?

It can be hard to tell when your teenage child needs professional help. Most parents understand the teen years are a time of rapid physical and intellectual maturing, and know mood changes and testing new behaviors are a part of that process. As your child starts to look more grown up, your expectations naturally rise. Parent/ teen struggles often develop over the teen being expected to behave more maturely while he perceives he is being treated like a child.

Efforts to resolve differences can be complicated by the teen’s still developing capacity to share his emotional experiences. So what’s a parent to do? Here is something to consider. When your teenager was an infant you learned to meet his or her needs through understanding sounds and gestures. Those sounds and gestures still have meaning – often far beyond the words the teen has learned to use. As the adult, you know how to live in an adult world. Your child desperately wants to know those things, but may not know how to ask the questions.