Articles

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. […]

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. […]

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… […]

As your children get older and enter their teenage years, it is natural and common that you might recognize that they begin to develop a different value set from your own. This is a terrifying moment for many parents. After all, if they aren’t getting these values from you, then where are they getting them from? Feeling like your teen is losing their way in the world is something that many parents feel, at some point in their journey to raise their child. However, there are a few important factors to remember about this time. Here are some thoughts you should work through when talking to your teenager about their values and your own… […]