How Family Therapy Can Benefit the Relationship with Your Teen

A family therapy program is one way to foster healthier and more productive communication between family members, address past trauma, and better the relationships with your teen children. Through family counseling sessions at Imagine Fort Collins, parents and their teenagers will be taught a series of skills and methods of building bridges and seeing each other in a better light. If you are struggling to make a connection with your teen, our family therapy program may be able to help. Contact us online or call 888.291.2309 today to learn about the benefits of family therapy.

What Is a Family Therapy Program?

Facilitated by a psychologist, clinical social worker, or licensed therapist, a family therapy program is a clinical approach to repairing the lines of communication within a family. To improve your relationships with your teen, your therapy sessions will be custom-tailored to address the specific issues you and your teen are facing, including any mental health disorders and behavioral health concerns. 

What to Expect During a Family Therapy Program

During a typical family therapy session, parents and their teens work together with a therapist. These sessions can take place in addition to you and your teen also seeing a therapist on a one-on-one basis. 

Family counseling sessions typically last one hour or less. The exact number of sessions needed to accomplish the goals you and your teen have for the therapy will vary based on the therapist’s recommendation. 

During a family therapy program, you and your teen can expect to be asked to:

• Discuss ways in which you can better express emotions, ideas, and thoughts in a healthy and productive manner
• Explore the behaviors and roles that exist within your family to identify issues contributing to the conflicts, then work to find constructive methods of solving those issues 
• Identify your and your teen’s strengths, then discuss ways to utilize those strengths to improve your relationships with your teen
• Develop empathy, understanding, and acceptance of each other’s struggles (including any mental health disorders)
• Learn to listen, and find common ground allowing you to relate to each other
• Set goals and work to achieve them

How Family Therapy Can Benefit Your Relationship with Your Teen

Within a family therapy program, there is the potential to teach the life skills needed to help improve a variety of issues commonly plaguing relationships between parents and their teens, including:

Complaining

The existential crisis typically battled during the teen years is wearisome for teens and parents alike, but with a family therapy program at Imagine Fort Collins, you both can get through it with your relationship intact. The first step in improving relationships with your teen is to accept that they are no longer the same child you once raised, knew, and loved. They are figuring out who they are now. During this process, teens may rebel, question and challenge you, and eschew their childhood. While it is difficult, your job as a parent is evolving too. You must continue to love and support, even in the face of these conflicts. 

Listening

Maybe you were the fixer, rushing to offer advice, tell your own stories of childhood as a way of finding a connection, and find solutions to problems your child was facing. Teens will often seek and require something more subtle. A family therapy program will focus on listening instead of telling. This may seem a simple shift but it’s one that may plague your relationship with your teen. When you learn to listen better, your teen will find it easier to open up and share, and both of you will be rewarded with a stronger and closer relationship.

Responsibility

Parents are eager for their teenagers to take more responsibility for their lives. During our family therapy program, you and your teenager will learn the role responsibility takes in improving your relationship. 

Togetherness

As kids grow up and take on more friendships, romantic relationships, part-time work, and extracurricular activities, you may feel as though you’ve lost your special bond with them. You will learn how to get on their calendar and why this is important for both of you. Just as with a healthy marriage, having a strong, healthy relationship with your teenager requires effort and hard work. The methods and techniques learned in our family therapy program will help you and your teen come together, see and respect each other and your individual struggles, and begin to do things together again.

Connect With Imagine Fort Collins Today

Parenting teenagers can be stressful. One moment they are happy and want to be around you, then the next they are upset and locked in their room. Find out more about how our family therapy program can help you and your teenager find common ground by calling us at 888.291.2309 or by reaching out to us online today.