When we’re children, our whole world is at home. Our parents are our favorite people, and everything we need is taken care of in the house where we live. However, as we grow older, that changes. Once we become teenagers, our lives take place more outside of home than in it. […]
College is a stressful time for anyone, but it can be especially so for freshmen, who are experiencing living away from home for the first time. The stresses of college and heightened expectations can all contribute to deteriorating mental health among college students. Living with your parents up to this point has made it a little bit easier for you to take care of your health, both mental and physical. But now that you’re going to college, probably away from your family, you’ll need to take care of yourself and prioritize your mental health for yourself. […]
If your child is a senior in High School, you’re surely no stranger to admission anxiety. The worry starts during junior year, when college fairs and SAT scores set the groundwork for your child’s collegiate ambitions. Early action applicants will send in their applications during the fall season of senior year. Everyone else usually submits what’s needed by the New Year. Around March and April, responses start flooding in from universities, sending the senior class into a flurry of nerves and worry. […]
As the parent of a teenager, your child getting involved with drugs might well be your worst nightmare. We know it’s a dangerous path to go down, and sometimes our minds automatically shortcut to imagine all the worst-case scenarios. However, the journey through teen substance abuse and addiction is usually different from what you imagine. […]
As a parent, all you really want for your child is for them to be happy and successful. While promoting their happiness and success seems like a simple task, it’s something that gets difficult as your child gets older. As your teen starts making more decisions, being more independent, and having life experiences, many parents struggle letting them make those decisions and have those experiences. There’s a compulsive desire to direct them past the difficult parts of life, in order to protect them. And as parents, we often jump to conclusions. Again, it’s a compulsion rooted in love. If your child is sad, you jump in with offers of things to help them be happier. From the years 2005-2014, the prevalence of depression in teens increased significantly. It can be hard to differentiate between whether your teen is being moody, or if there are underlying depressive issues that need to be addressed. […]
Over and over again, studies have shown that teens and young adults are more likely to engage in risky behavior than any other age group. This behavior ranges from sexual promiscuity to substance abuse to dangerous thrill-seeking and extreme sports. As parents, there’s no need to read scientific reports to know that teens often engage in behavior that could be dangerous and impact the rest of their lives. However, science CAN help us understand why. […]
It can be difficult to be a teen. You are acquiring information at a startling rate, and sometimes you even notice that you are smarter, quicker to grasp concepts, and more knowledgeable than adults around you. All the same, you’re still a child, and regarded as such. Because of that, you’re subject to the commands and changes of your parents. Nowhere is this more evident than during a move. We move for all kinds of reasons, from the desire to be closer to extended family and friends, to relocation for a more successful job. While many of the benefits of moving are thoroughly thought out, it’s important to remember the emotional upheaval that comes with a move. […]
Here at Trinity Teen, we bring girls into a different setting from what most of them are used to. Whatever their troubled pasts, we find that there’s a renewal that happens when girls get out into the big, open, wild lands of Wyoming. Stresses of their old lives melt away. They stop worrying so much about small things which they now realize are comparatively unimportant. Their eyes are opened to wonder, which reminds them that they are young and that there’s a world of possibility before them. […]
One of the most difficult issues facing our teen girls today is body image. The quest to achieve physical perfection drives people to do crazy things, and the obsession with image can undermine confidence, healthy relationships, and progression in even the best and brightest girls. Issues regarding weight and self-image can be complicated. It’s hard to know what you can do to help instead of hurt. For example, is it healthy to tell your daughter over and over again that she’s beautiful? What if that leads her to think that beauty is all that matters? If you notice that your daughter is getting overweight and perhaps using food as a crutch, a drug, or a way to hide, should you say something? What can you say that won’t just make things worse? […]
Many of our patients struggle with traits like anxiety, and can often find themselves in a state of panic. For this reason, we find that an important life skill that not enough people learn is the ability to simply calm down in tense situations. To do this, we teach each of the girls about breathing exercises, and how they can use them to deescalate a feeling of panic to relax. Here are some key breathing exercises that help people calm down… […]
