Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment

20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.

Prevention Solutions - Teenager

Gary Direnfeld, Dad of 1, MSW, RSW

Gary Direnfeld is a social worker with more than 25 years of experience  working with parents, teens and young children. With a  private  practice located in Dundas, Ontario, he provides counseling, mediation  and assessment services on most matters of family life from the comfort  of his home office. People regularly travel from surrounding regions for his special brand of counseling.

Visit at: www.yoursocialworker.com

[ Page 1 of 3 | print friendly version ]

Think Your Teen Needs Counselling?

Counselling teens can be tricky business. The call is invariably from an exasperated parent who no longer can tolerate the behaviour of their son or daughter.  The teen is presented as out of control. There may be concerns of drugs or alcohol; school performance; and/or the influence of the peer group. The teen may be described as depressed, anxious, angry or even suicidal.

The parent wants the counsellor to meet with their son or daughter. The subtext is a parent wanting the counsellor to talk some sense into their child. The hope is that the counsellor can wag an even bigger finger in front of the teen for an effect more profound than that of the parent or miraculously get the teen to open up.

Wagging fingers doesn’t work. If the teen isn’t talking to their parents, then dragging them off to the counsellor as an agent of the parent likely won’t work either. If the teen does meet first with the counsellor and does talk, what is often heard is a litany of complaints about the parents. The counsellor is next in the middle between parents and teen playing “he said, she said”. So what is a parent to do?

Crystal Meth
FREE E-GUIDE

Download Now

“It's the unlucky who learn from experience.

The lucky learn from the experience of others.”

— Ronald G. Morrish
“Secrets of Discipline”