Parenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment

Why doesn’t your teen learn from their mistakes? Or admit when they’re wrong? Why can’t they just act like an adult? If you’ve ever wondered about any of these, you’re not alone. To answer these questions, we’re diving into the world of teenage brain development and what it means for us as parents. Spoiler alert: it’s not as straightforward as you think. Whenever your teen is acting out, you might...

“Parents have so much influence on their child’s concept of themselves.” -  Ciara What if your struggling teen could look at themselves with hope and confidence, knowing they have the power to overcome their challenges? This second conversation with formerly struggling teen Ciara Fanlo is focussed around one main questions: What can parents do to best support their struggling teen? When asked what...

From a very young age, Ciara felt like she didn’t belong. Cutting was just one of her destructive behaviors to cope with the pain she felt: not knowing how to be in the world with how sensitive her heart was. Ciara Fanlo is a previously struggling teen who spent the majority of her adolescence in treatment, including inpatient hospitalization, wilderness, and therapeutic boarding school. Reflectin...

WHY can’t my teen just do what I ask them to do?! I’m sure you’ve had this thought before, just like any other parent on this planet. Today, Seth shares a relatable story of a teen who’s not showing up and isn’t showing any motivation for behavioral change. Sounds familiar? Then this episode is for you. Why do our teens show up like this? Where is this behavior coming from? They’ve signed the home...

“You think you’re doing okay and then you realize ‘How did I miss how much my child was struggling?’” - Hope Meet the parents from my latest parent coaching group. Eight months ago, these parents went on a 6-month journey with me to influence lasting change in themselves and their struggling teens. Now, they’re bravely sharing their stories, what it means for them to ‘do the work’ as a parent, and...

How can you best support your struggling teen according to former troubled teens?  As teens, Hayley and Colin were both sent to wilderness, followed by other treatment (residential treatment center, and therapeutic boarding school). Now, approximately 12 years later, they use their experience as former troubled teens in treatment to provide peer-to-peer coaching for teens and young adults who feel...

How can you trust your teen is learning and growing even when some behaviors look similar?  Moving past your teen’s previous behavior can feel hard, especially when they’re showing similar behaviors now. But they’ve been to treatment, and they’re older now, so how can you know whether it’s a repetitive pattern behavior you’re witnessing or whether maybe the same behavior has a completely different...

We all have difficult relationships in our lives. A difficult relationship for me was the one with my father. We’re a few days after Father’s Day and I decided to dedicate this episode to my father. In this emotional episode, I’m sharing the talk I gave at my dad’s funeral. I remember how extremely hard it was, wanting to speak to the reality of my childhood and our relationship and at the same ti...

Have you ever felt stuck in a triangle within your family, where one of you takes on the role of the victim, the other the villain, and another the hero? Maybe good cop, bad cop sounds familiar to you? This is what we call the drama triangle, or triangulation, and it happens in every single family, whether you have a struggling teen or not. It often becomes a vicious cycle leading to massive probl...

In this deeply personal episode, I share my own journey through the challenges of parenting a son struggling with anger and substance abuse.  In this crossover episode with People Who Suffer, Andrew McKee interviews me for a change and I’ll walk you through the first signs of my son’s struggles and how my emotions became entangled with his; when he was angry, I was angry. When he was upset, I was...

Why do our teens keep falling back into old habits? Whether it’s big changes like making healthier life choices or smaller ones like working out more, change is hard! But why? Why is change so hard?  And at the same time, it’s also hard to watch someone go through the stages of change, isn’t it? When your struggling teen knows their behavior isn’t working for them anymore and they want to change,...

What can you do as a parent when your teen is refusing therapy? Or when your kid stops engaging in therapy? I have a question for you, parent: Do you know WHY your struggling teen doesn’t want to go to therapy (anymore)?  “I think most people really want to rise to what level they can and there’s probably something significant in the way if they’re not rising to that point” - Trevor Allen Today’s...

What do you do when things aren’t working and it feels like there’s nothing left to be done? Whether your teen is isolating themselves in their room, refusing to go to school, self-harming, refusing to eat, refusing therapy, or any other negative pattern you find yourself in with your struggling teen, we sometimes reach the point where it feels like there’s nothing else we can do. You can’t contro...

Should you support your teen in college if he’s still using? Or let your daughter go to prom when she’s still breaking curfew? You want to support your teen in healthy behaviors but how do you go about that when they’re still showing maladaptive behaviors? You don’t want to take away activities that have a positive, healthy impact on your teen but at the same time don’t want to ‘reward’ them while...

Going back to old patterns is part of the process.  In a perfect world, we’d change our behavior and never make the same mistake again. And so would our struggling teens. But perfection doesn’t exist, and there’s no such thing as a magic switch that makes everything work out perfectly all of a sudden.  I know how hard it is to experience a setback yourself or see your teen go through it. But one t...

Are you allowing your child to learn through failure?  There’s a thin line between offering safety and comfort. Just like safety, offering comfort to your kid is a way of protection. It’s a way to protect your child so they don’t have to experience the hardships and difficulties that you had to go through yourself. But is it really in your child’s best interest to keep them from experiencing unsuc...

When does your help start to hinder your teen’s growth? As parents, we want to help our kids as much as possible and protect them from discomfort. It seems like our generation has taken this belief to an extreme though. Did you know that the age at which parents allow their kids to go out and explore the world by themselves autonomously (for example by letting them go to the grocery store by thems...

Listening is the key that unlocks understanding and it allows us to be more helpful to our teens (and others!). So how can we become better listeners? Not only to our struggling teens, our children, but to everyone around us? “The more I let go of what I think my adult children should or shouldn’t do, the more they have taken accountability for their actions in their life” - Beth Hillman I see it...

How can you help your teen become more independent? This one simple question will help you boost your parenting skills for daily decision-making. Parenting is an interesting thing… One day our child is completely dependent on us and we’re in charge of everything. Then they grow up and it’s hard to know what we’re still in charge of and what not. How can we best support them to become independent y...

How can you help your struggling teen take more accountability?  What can you do to help your teen understand choice, consequence, and accountability? Those are the questions Seth and I will be exploring in today’s episode. [Struggling to set boundaries & consequences? Check out my free guide to help you create your own Parent Home Plan 🗺️] Our brain likes going into defense mode. It’s what it...

How can you prepare for your teen to come home after treatment? Last week’s guest mom of a teen struggling with his mental health, suicidal ideation, and self-harm is back and we dive deeper into the journey after treatment, and the lessons she learned (and is learning) in order to come to her own way of being so she can be the best parent she can be. “Letting him figure his life out has been impe...

“We were mentally panicked. We didn’t want our kid to die and we didn’t know what to do.” Today's episode will hit close to home for many of you. We're diving into the raw and real journey of a mother facing her son's struggles with mental health, including suicidal ideation and self-harm. She reflects on her son growing up as an emotionally needy child, things getting rougher when...

80. What to Do When Your Teen Is Stuck in Unhealthy Behavior? Have you ever found yourself in that heart-wrenching place where you're watching your child or young adult spiral into unhealthy behaviors? Seth and I know that pain all too well, both from our professional experiences and personal journeys. Today, we delve deep into the complexities of this tough subject. We don’t just offer pract...

Ever noticed your brain filling with worst-case scenarios when you have limited information on what’s happening? We’ve all been there. It’s what our brains do. But why? And how can we make sure we’re not parenting out of fear? In this episode, Seth and I explore the concept of fear-based parenting and the tendency to jump to negative conclusions when faced with unknown situations. Both in times of...

Collaborating with your child on technology habits, can you imagine? Or your child making the decision to put down their game console and go for a run instead, not because ‘mom’s been nagging about it’ but because it’s what they want themselves? In this second part of my interview with Emily, we’re diving deeper into how you can collaborate with your teen about their own technology habits.  [Haven...