Therapy for Teens: What Parents Can Do to Help
How can you support your teenager when they start therapy?
Having a lot of feelings at the same time is part of being human, so if you feel both hopeful and hesitant about your teen starting therapy, you’re part of a very big club. If your teen has begun therapy, you might wonder what helps and what doesn’t. The truth is, the most powerful support you can offer often happens outside the therapy room.
I wish that I had had access to therapy in my teenage years and I’m so pleased - as a parent and fellow human - that it is increasingly accessible and acceptable for teens to engage in therapy. If you’ve connected with us to find counselling support or therapy for your teenager, we’re here to help you explore how therapy works best when parents are steady supports for their kid.
Therapy Isn’t Just Someone to Talk To
Sometimes parents say, ‘I think they just need someone else to talk to.’ Often this comes from loving, committed, and worried parents who have done their best and love the heck out of their kids. Teen therapy isn’t about fixing problems or just having someone to cathartically tell your secrets to, but helping teens build emotional literacy, coping skills, and self-awareness.
Confidentiality is central to therapy’s effectiveness - in the same way that you wouldn’t want your doctor casually mentioning your prescriptions to someone you knew, teens need privacy to be able to trust the process. Evidence shows that parental support that honours adolescent’s right to confidentiality improves treatment outcomes (APA, 2019). Your teenager’s therapist is there to help them cultivate the perspective-taking needed for emotion regulation, which we do by holding both care and neutrality.
When parents view therapy as a space for developing self-understanding rather than solving problems, it sets the stage for trust and transformation.
Model Emotional Regulation and Self-Reflection
“When your teen practices new ways of being, it may stir old patterns in you—that’s growth happening on both sides.” -from Siegel & Bryson’s The Power of Showing Up
Humans are social animals and we are intensely inter-connected. You know that it’s hard to feel OK if your kid isn’t OK! And that moves in other directions as well, when one family member begins a therapy journey, it often invites subtle shifts in everyone else.
One of the hardest parts about parenting a teenager is that they start to see us more clearly as humans, not gods. So even as your teen is struggling with insecurity, masking, trying on new identities or behaviours and you can see how experimental it is, they are still starting to notice where we may be a little hypocritical or unwilling to do accountability or emotion regulation. Noticing your own triggers or defensiveness when your teen begins setting boundaries or changing patterns is an important part of navigating the changing relationship and sets the stage for the eventual parent/adult-child relationship of your future.
Working Collaboratively with Your Teen’s Therapist
Many parents today feel the loss of the village it once took to raise a child. Therapists can’t replace community, but they can be part of the wraparound care that helps your teen feel held. Therapists are not just “someone to talk to” for your teen, but they do form an important part of the wraparound care we all need.
How can I communicate with my teen’s therapist?
We encourage parents to send updates that may affect therapy - this could be school issues, significant events, health concerns or positive achievements or changes you notice. Short update emails are welcome, but we reserve in-depth updates for scheduled sessions.
While some teenagers need the therapy space to be a “parent free zone,” many are open to their parents having a session with their therapist to ask how to best support progress between sessions.
It’s important to note that parent involvement in teen therapy is highly individualized. What parents have a right to access is also balanced against a teen’s right to confidentiality. Ultimately, what is best for a teen is a parent who wants to be involved and who can communicate with their teen about their concerns and support in a collaborative, respectful manner. If communicating with your teen feels difficult, family therapy or parent support can help rebuild connection.
Your Teen Needs Your Parenting - Not Just Your Rides
Beyond showing up for appointments, your steady presence matters most. Teens thrive when their daily lives reflect the same safety and consistency they’re learning to build in therapy.
Practical supports for your teen’s therapy journey
For in person therapy, your teen will need reliable and timely transportation to their sessions. We know traffic can be busy in west Ottawa, but it will compound yours and their anxiety if they’re worrying they won’t make it in time for the start of session. (You are also welcome to spend their session in our cozy waiting room and help yourself to a beverage at our tea station!)
For virtual therapy, your teen needs privacy - a space where they know you can’t hear them and - ideally - they can’t hear you either.
After sessions: Either way, give them some emotional space after session - a post-session interrogation may come from a loving place, but we all need time to process after session. Of course you can ask your teen, how is it going in therapy? (Which is less invasive than what are you doing in therapy?) Especially if your teen is struggling with anxiety or depression, or you’ve noticed a significant shift in their mood, it can be hard to give them space around therapy. Emotional **safety at home is an extension of therapy - when we model that we can honour each other’s differences or differences of opinions and foster connection and affection, we raise resilient, emotionally mature humans.
They need your help with boundaries
One of my mentors says - therapy happens between sessions. What they mean is that it’s both the time and reflection between sessions that matters, but also the integration and application of what’s being explored in therapy. Teen or adult - attending therapy alone isn’t enough to create change in your life without taking steps to support the change you want.
Teenagers still need their parents for daily support to meet vital needs like sleep, nutrition, movement, and digital boundaries. Every family needs a screen time policy and teens should not be left to discipline their own screen use.
They need to know you like them
Therapy can help teens explore their emotions, but what grounds them most is knowing their parents like and appreciate them - not just love them.
This may feel a little sensitive, since many teenagers literally define their own brand as being the opposite of their parents. I know that you might have doubts that your teenager likes you. I hope you can tap into the awareness and faith that teen insecurities are often masked by being “too cool” for something or bravado. Underneath, they still need to know that the most important people in their lives - their parents - find joy, enjoyment and love in knowing them. If you are having a hard time tuning into those feelings, please consider reaching out to us to support you in your parenting relationship with your teen. In fact, evidence shows that parental emotional attunement positively predicts teen engagement with therapy (Jones et al., Journal of Adolescent Health, 2020). Even though your role as a parent is changing from when they were little, your own wellness is a significant influence on your teenager.
Even small gestures of patience, warmth and affection are positive investments with your relationship with your teen and go further than lectures or advice.
Supporting a teen in therapy isn’t about having the right words - it’s about being a consistent, caring presence as they learn to navigate their inner world. When parents show curiosity, patience, and warmth, therapy becomes a shared process of growth for the whole family.
If your family would like support navigating your teen’s mental health journey, The Wren Centre’s therapists offer compassionate, evidence-based therapy for teens and families in Ottawa.
by Kathryn Anne Flynn
Recommended Reading for Parents of Teens:
The Power of Showing Up - Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson
Parenting a Teen Who Has Intense Emotions - Pat Harvey & Jeanine Penzo
The Whole-Brain Child - Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers - Lisa Damour
Have questions about our therapy services for teenagers, parents or family therapy?
