Is family therapy the right choice for me?

When things seem overwhelming or you find yourself facing communication struggles in your home, it can be helpful to seek a therapist who can work with the whole family. Sometimes, it’s even helpful to seek family therapy in addition to individual therapy. But how do you know if your family would benefit from family therapy?

When we work with anxiety and anger management with our kids, teens and college students, we sometimes connect families to family therapists even if everything feels like it’s going well. A family therapist can offer their perspective on the entire family dynamic and work on issues together in a way that is different from the work we do individually.

Teenagers do a really good job when it comes to keeping parents out of the loop.

Part of it is just how teens are designed to be. They’re meant to be maturing on their own, increasing their independence, and building up their self-reliance. You want your teen to be able to start solving problems on their own. You need your teen to be able to figure out action steps to reach their goals.

But wanting your teen to grow in independence doesn’t mean you never want to know what’s going on.

You want your teen to come to you for support, too. You want to help them with their problems. You want to know when they need help.

Teens, especially teenagers with anxiety, can feel too overwhelmed to reach out for support.

So it’s crucial for you as the parent to provide opportunities for them to check in, and to be on the lookout for hidden signs of anxiety.

Compassionate Counseling St. Louis specializes in anxiety management for kids, teens and college students.

We work with a ton of families. We love the work that we do! But we also know, even if we love working with you, that we’re not always the best fit.

If things aren’t feeling better, we want to check in with your weekly outcomes scores, to track our progress. We want to try out a few new interventions. And if we’re still not seeing the progress we want to see, we might refer you out.

The kids are at home (still), summer camps are closed, and all the ways you normally fill your summer time look a lot different, thanks to Coronavirus.

So, what’s a parent to do?

This week, we put together a list of some ways to fill up summer - while still building skills for anxiety management, frustration tolerance, and relationship building (kind of the three big things we most care about here at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis!)

What do you actually do this summer? We have 10 ideas right below!

Anger and anxiety often go hand in hand.

Rarely if ever is a person just angry. There’s usually something else going on underneath it. We may look angry on the outside, but internally we feel stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious. There may be grief, depression, or loss that is impacting our external anger. Or, we may not really know why we’re acting so angry, because we haven’t trained ourselves to figure out what else is going on. We know we seem angry to other people, so we accept that we must be feeling angry.

Anxiety can be tricky, and if you or your therapist isn’t digging underneath the surface, you might be working on fixing the behaviors, but you’re never addressing the underlying cause. That’s why you need to work with therapists who specialize in anxiety, and know that it doesn’t always look like your classic flight/freeze.

Games work as anxiety treatment and anger management, too.

As we discussed last week, when we use play interventions, we focus on three things:

1. Building our relationship

2. Following the rules

3. Practicing self-regulation

Games provide us a great opportunity to help model rule following, to process frustration as it arises, to build self regulation, and to build up our parent/child relationship.

Below, you’ll find 25 of our favorite games to incorporate at home, including a few that we use as child therapists...

You know your child’s not just angry. There’s something going on underneath the surface, too.

And a lot of times, that anger is masking anxiety, stress, and overwhelm.

When kids and teens (and even adults, too!) get anxious, their brains and bodies start to take over. Their fight/flight/freeze response gets activated.

That means for some kids, when they feel scared, they look scared.

The run away (flight) or totally shut down and clam up (freeze).

For many of us, our fight reaction takes over.

And instead of just looking scared on the outside, we look MAD. We look like we’re ready to get into a fight and defend ourselves. We’re ready to yell, or scream, or call you bad names, and we have a very, very hard time calming down.

So how can you integrate games to help your child build up their anxiety and anger management skills?

There are a lot of new stressors in our lives right now.

We’ve all had to get used to a new normal during this global pandemic. For a lot of our parents, one of the biggest challenges is moving school from the classroom to the kitchen table. Whether your kids are attending classes over Zoom or you have now been put in charge of teaching the material, no doubt this is a major adjustment for everyone. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed!

If you’re a perfectionist, college is probably going to throw you for a loop.

Your standards of success will look very different when you’re in a brand new environment, and we want you to be prepared. We interviewed several college prep counselors at local, St. Louis area high schools, to find out the best ways you can help your teen prepare. These counselors have worked directly with students and have first hand experience in what it takes to get them ready for this major transition in their life. We are so excited to be able to bring their expertise to you, in hopes that we can all work together to help your teen thrive when they get to campus!

Today, we continue with Trisha Hasbrouch, Director of College Advising at St. Joseph’s Academy. She breaks down the difference between personal success and perfection. We are so happy to feature her on today’s blog!

Because college is such a new experience, many teens feel challenged.

And feeling that challenge can be challenging in and of itself! If you’re used to things coming easy for you, college can really throw you for a curve.

We interviewed several college prep counselors at local, St. Louis area high schools, to find out the best ways you can help your teen prepare. These counselors have worked directly with students and have first hand experience in what it takes to get them ready for this major transition in their life. We are so excited to be able to bring their expertise to you, in hopes that we can all work together to help your teen thrive when they get to campus!

As our series continues, we are excited to bring you our interview with Dawn Michel, College Counselor at Chaminade College Preparatory School and President-Elect, Missouri Association for College Admission Counseling. She talks about how to prepare and also the importance of calling home and maintaining family relationships while on campus!

Going to college is a big step, and leads to a lot of anxiety, stress, and nervousness - for teens and for parents.

We interviewed several college prep counselors at local, St. Louis area high schools, to find out the best ways you can help your teen prepare. These counselors have worked directly with students and have first hand experience in what it takes to get them ready for this major transition in their life. We are so excited to be able to bring their expertise to you, in hopes that we can all work together to help your teen thrive when they get to campus!

Today, we are thrilled to be sharing the knowledge from Dave Boland, Director of College/Career Counseling at De Smet Jesuit.

College is an overwhelming time for both you and your teen!

It can lead to a lot of anxiety and nerves. We interviewed several college prep counselors here in St. Louis. These counselors have worked directly with students, and have first hand experience in what it takes to get them ready for this major transition in their life.

We are so excited to kick off our College Readiness series by sharing our interview with Joann Elliot! Joann worked as a highschool college counselor for many years before opening College Counseling Tutoring in 2014. She is also the author of When to do What: A Step by Step Guide to the College Process and The Honeycomb Approach: 6 Factors to Finding Your College Fit. Read more below about her experiences working with high schoolers gearing up for their big transition to college and about her latest book.

Tips for call quality, what to cover, and how to get the most out of our time together.

Compassionate Counseling St. Louis always offers teletherapy options, including virtual video sessions and phone check ins, when you’re feeling sick and can’t make it into the office. Below we have a few suggestions to make sure your virtual session is as useful as can be.

How your picky eater may benefit from food therapy

Dealing with picky eaters as a parent can be difficult. From dinners at home to nights out with the family, it can seem like a daunting task to get your child to eat. But how do you know if that picky eating might be a sign of something else and your child might benefit from food therapy?

We reached out to Lisa Coosman, OTR/L, to discuss with us the ins and outs of feeding therapy and what it means for your child. She dives into what it takes to be an Occupational Therapist, what signs you should look for, and tips and tricks for best supporting a child with food aversions.

We see it coming every year. Our phones ring off the hook when spring time is on the horizon, as parents wonder how to prepare their anxious teen for college. Heading off to school can be an exciting time! But all of those new responsibilities, freedom, and big changes can also be overwhelming. We want to make sure that your teen is as prepared as possible!

Why is it important to start getting your teen ready for college now?

You might be thinking that you have plenty of time to ensure your teen is prepared for college. It’s only March! Your teen isn’t set to be on campus until mid August. What’s the rush?

Well, if you have an anxious teen, you know that preparing for something sooner rather than later is always a good idea. Having proper support in place early on, will make the transition for your teen seem more doable and approachable. Not to mention, it will also help lessen the overwhelm when they have an idea of what to expect and the change isn’t happening all at one time.

At one point or another, everyone will experience a loss or death - and some of us experience this in high school or college. So how do you deal with the aftermath?

There’s not one right way to get through this:

Many have heard of "the stages of grief": denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. However it's crucial to remember that this isn't a linear progression. You may move through stages in a different order. You may circle back. All of these feelings are acceptable, but allow yourself to recognize that there isn't a correct way or correct order to go through the aftermath of a death or loss in your life.

Both parents and kids can benefit from child psychological testing

It’s no secret that teens experience a lot of change. Starting new schools and meeting new people can be overwhelming. All of that change can make it hard to communicate how they're feeling, especially to their families. It’s important for teens to know that they aren’t alone in how they feel and it’s okay to be anxious!

Dr. Dan Weinstein, PsyD, helps people find their strength and accept who they are by utilizing CBT and elements of DBT. It’s his dedication to his patients (and his juggling skills!) that makes us so excited to have interviewed him for today’s blog! Please read more about his practice below!

Why did you choose to become a psychologist in St. Louis?

I am from St. Louis and I chose to be a psychologist because of my interest that began at age 9 with a family friend who was working on his Ph.D. in psychology at Wash. U.

It’s winter in St. Louis and, as happens every year, we’re getting more and more calls from anxious teens and college students concerned that they might have depression. 

Right off the bat, it’s important to know that we can’t diagnose depression just based on a few concerns or a phonecall. But it’s important to know that depression is on the rise for kids and teens, and depression is a serious mental illness. And, we can figure out some good next steps depending on what you’re noticing (which is why we schedule free 15-minute phone screenings if you’re wondering whether or not counseling is a good next step for you). 

Why do anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand?

Anxiety and depression can go hand in hand for many teens and college students. For some, one seems more apparent than the other and is more of the primary concern. For others, both seem to be equally impacting what’s going on.