It can be so easy for parents to get wrapped up in helping their teens through struggles that they forget to take care of themselves.
Many parents end up becoming “starving bakers.”
Imagine a baker spending all of their time, energy, and resources to make sure they have enough bread to give away to those who are hungry in their community. While this is a noble act, it is actually more harmful than good if the baker starves because they don’t ever set aside some bread for themselves.
This same situation occurs when parents are so focused on helping their teens with mental health issues that they neglect their own mental health.
If you’ve been spending all of your time, energy, and resources to help your teen, you may be feeling burned out, overwhelmed, and tired. If your teen has been having trouble overcoming their mental health issues, you might be feeling anxious. If your teen is struggling with problem behaviors that will be detrimental to their future, you may be grieving the loss of the hopes and dreams you had for their life.
It’s not healthy for you to have to take on all of these feelings without receiving any support. If you are starting to feel like you are having a hard time staying afloat as you try to help your teen, you should consider going to therapy, too.
Benefits of individual therapy
While you may not be wrestling with the same issues as your teen, there is still a lot for you to gain from going to individual therapy.
Expressing your feelings
Therapy will provide you with your own space to talk about your experience with your teen’s challenges.
When you are feeling angry, frustrated, exasperated, or anxious about your teen’s behaviors, you might feel like you can’t share these emotions with anyone else.
You can’t exactly tell your teen, “I’m grieving the relationship I thought that I would have with you,” after an argument, or “Your constant anxiety makes me feel depressed.”
However, you can share your real, raw, honest feelings with a therapist without the fear of judgment or making your situation worse.
Learning healthy coping strategies
The stress and struggles that come from parenting a teen with big emotions or problem behaviors can be a lot to manage.
A therapist can help you learn healthy coping strategies that you can use to deal with the heavy emotions you may be feeling.
This way, if you are having challenges coping with the emotions you are feeling, you will have some healthy, effective strategies you can use to help.
Improve your relationship with your teen
Sometimes the approaches parents use to help their teen are not always as helpful as they might think.
For instance, it might seem like protecting your teen from experiencing negative emotions is a positive tactic, but it will get in the way of their ability to develop resilience and address the root causes of their problems. While it might seem like accommodating your teen’s symptoms is a way to help them cope, it can actually worsen these symptoms.
Seeing an individual therapist will help you learn how you can modify your own behaviors in ways that will help your teen.
Therapy will also help you learn strategies that you can use to improve your communication with your teen.
If it is like pulling teeth to get your teen to share information about their day, your therapist can give you suggestions that will help you have more meaningful conversations. If you find it difficult to speak to your teen without yelling at them or shaming them for their behavior, a therapist can help you find different, more effective ways to communicate.
How we can help
At Creative Healing, we recognize just how vital it is for parents to receive the support they need to thrive while navigating the challenges of raising a struggling teen.
In addition to encouraging parents to attend individual therapy, we also offer SPACE, a parent-based treatment program, to help parents of teens with anxiety, OCD, and self-harming tendencies.
Through this program, you will learn ways to help support your teen, reduce accommodations they make for their symptoms, and shift the way you respond to your teen’s feelings and behaviors.
Learn more about SPACE and start taking steps toward self-improvement today when you visit our website.