This is college season. It’s a time when many young people are heading off to college – or, if not college, the beginning of adulthood and entering the workforce. It’s a time when many, many young people are, for the first time, tasked with being independent.
They’re also entering a world that not even adults really understand.
For example, the dating world now has changed considerably, and there is a fair argument to be made that many of the ways that it has changed has been for the worse.
Instead of sharing phone numbers and talking, people share Instagram accounts and communicate by liking photos. Instead of meeting at the mall or with friends, many people are meeting online, or relying on apps in a way that not even millennials did in the past – apps focused entirely on a person’s appearance.
People are learning about relationships online in a way that also was not true, and are having fewer social experiences (even before COVID), so they’re coming into relationships with more anxiety, fewer social skills, and less understanding of how to create relationships that last.
Working with a Therapist on Becoming Their Best Self
We talk a lot about helping teens embark on adulthood by supporting them with their anxiety, depression, stress, ADHD, and more.
But what about their relationships?
One of the *biggest* components to adulthood is creating these special, long lasting relationships for the first time. The experiences they have now, not just with dating but also with friendships – can shape who they are as they figure out how to build something special with others.
Many therapists, including several of our team here at Right Path Counseling, provide individual relationship therapy to those that need help being single, loving themselves, navigating the dating world, addressing past trauma, and figuring out how to give the relationships they do have the attention and care they deserve.
These services are more commonly associated with a person’s 30s, 40s, and 50s, but they can be just as valuable for teens that are trying to figure out how to be solo adults for the first time. Therapists can teach teens:
- How to be single and experience self-love.
- How to build self-esteem and self-confidence.
- How to address some of the extreme highs and lows that many teens experience when they’re in relationships for the first time.
- How to handle relationship conflict in a healthy way.
- How to address anxiety and dependency issues.
- How to keep the focus on oneself instead of letting a relationship distract from school, work, and other important parts of independence.
- How to handle the world of dating when dating takes place almost entirely on a phone.
Many parents can remember what it was like navigating the dating world for the first time. It’s challenging. There’s also many reasons to believe that it is even harder today.
Connecting your teen with a therapist is not necessarily about getting them help for relationships *right now.* But it is about giving them someone they can talk to and turn to when issues arise in the future, by introducing them to someone that can support them psychologically as they grow.
For more information, or to get any type of mental health support for your teen – or yourself! – reach out to Right Path Counseling, today.
