Blog

So. Your daughter is dating. Now what? Every parents nightmare. Despite knowing what it was like when you were their age, and that dating is a normal rite of passage, you fret and worry. It’s a normal instinct. Your child, who was once just a tiny baby, is now old enough to be forming these intense relationships with other people. You want to pull them in close and protect them from everything. We all know that we can’t protect them from everything forever. The best that you can do is try to prepare them, and remain a loving and supportive parent. […]

One of the largest issues that a parent will face with their teenage daughter, is the issue of confidence and self image. As a parent, you want your child to be happy. To thrive. To succeed. It’s hard to watch them go through something difficult, especially when it’s something like self-doubt, because you know their worth and wish you could somehow help them see themselves the way that you see them. Often, these efforts come a little late. We try to instill confidence in your teenage daughter once she is already down and not feeling great about herself. It’s never too late, but as a parent, you should do your best to encourage confidence in your teen daughter as early as possible, before she starts displaying symptoms of low self-esteem. […]

Depression is a common problem today, affecting more than 10% of adults and 6-8% of teens. Teenage girls are especially vulnerable to depression, with roughly ¼ of young women displaying symptoms of depression at some point in the teen years. Although many people downplay depression to “the common cold of mental health,” the truth is that depression can lead to many harmful behaviors in teen girls, and can be equally distressing for parents and family members who don’t know how to help. Here are a few things to understand about depression in teen girls: […]

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 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… […]