At The Avenue Place, we find that many teens are indeed happy to attend therapy.  Through therapy, teens are provided with the unique opportunity to talk about any problem or concern in their lives and can be reassured that whatever issues or opinions they bring to the session, they will have unconditional positive regard and support from their counsellor.

Modern society is slowly breaking down the stigma of seeing a counsellor and now, more than ever, young people are accessing psychological support to solve friendship issues, build confidence and self-esteem, improve motivation for learning and manage difficult feelings like anger, anxiety, grief and depression.  Psychologists also support teens with more serious mental health problems such as self-harm, suicide ideation, trauma, eating disorders and conduct problems.

In some situations, however, parents feel their teen may benefit from therapy but are faced with the challenge of a strong-minded teenager who is refusing to attend. This situation can place a great deal of stress on parents who then become unsure about whether to insist their teenager come to sessions, bribe them or give up!

For parents in this situation, we usually recommend the following:

• Normalise counselling and address any negative stigmas- Talk to your teen about how common it is for teens to seek support for a variety of reasons and explain that seeing a counsellor doesn’t mean you are crazy.
• Give your teenager control in the counselling progress.  We usually recommend saying something like “ You may find counselling helpful, or you may not, but you will not know if you don’t give it a try.  As parents, we are happy for you to make the decision, but could you at least attend once, and if you don’t like the counsellor, you don’t need to attend again.  Does that sound fair? It may be a good way to get mum and dad off your case.”
• Try and determine the reason why your teen does not want to attend.  Two common reason we find responsible for teens reluctance to attend therapy is that they feel embarrassed talking to a stranger, and they may be worried their friends will find out.  These issues can be practically addressed, by ensuring your teen that he/she is in control of how much he/she shares with the psychologist and that psychologists understand it takes time to build the rapport and trust to share information.  Teens can also be reassured that their attendance at therapy is confidential.
• If your teen still refuses to attend therapy, don’t despair.  Generally, we don’t recommend forcing teens to come to sessions as this is often distressing for them and counterproductive.  There may, however, be some exceptions to this, if your teen’s mental health challenges are placing him/her in danger of significant harm.

If your teen is refusing to attend sessions we recommend contacting staff at the Avenue Place to discuss this further.  There are many other ways we can support young people some examples including working with their parents and school or linking them in with online counselling or support etc.