16 Dec New Year, New Me: Teen Input Essential to Treatment Plan
Your teen may claim “new year, new me” at the start of every new year as they promise to cut back on unhealthy behaviors and make safer decisions. Getting any teenager to follow New Year’s resolutions can feel like an uphill battle, but making and achieving goals is a great way to show your teen, especially one who is struggling with self-esteem, peer pressure, or risky behaviors, that they are capable of great things. If your teen recognizes that they need to make significant changes in their lives, their input about what that might look like is essential to their treatment plan in a mental health hospital.
Here are some suggestions for how to help your teen make and keep their New Year resolutions this year.
Set Intentions, Not Goals
Teens may want to make significant changes in their lives, but don’t always know where to start. They might feel pressured to make ambitious goals without considering shorter-term goals that might help them get there. If they feel overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations, they are more likely to give up on the goals that they set for themselves, even if they were motivated by the idea of it. When they feel discouraged, they are less likely to adapt their goals to make them more realistic. Setting intentions is particularly important when they first enter a therapeutic setting. While they may want to make ten changes at once, therapists work with teens to help them identify and prioritize underlying issues they want to work on.
Some examples of intentions may include:
- I resolve to believe in myself
- I resolve to be clearer and calmer in the way I communicate
- I resolve to spend more time with my family
- I resolve to find one thing that I really love to do and do it more often
- I resolve to find three things I am thankful for every single day
Point Out Things They Are Satisfied With
Sometimes, teens get caught up in wanting to reinvent themselves completely because they don’t like anything about themselves. As teens explore their identity in adolescence, they may genuinely feel like a different person every year. In reality, the idea of “New Year, New Me” implies that who they are is not good enough for the world and that they need to become a new person instead, which can be damaging to their sense of self-worth and identity.
Instead of suggesting that they start over with a blank slate, recommend that they come up with a list of things that have worked for them in the past or that they like about themselves and want to carry with them into the new year. This strengths-based approach helps them recognize that they may not want to be a “new person,” but that they are already a good person who wants to do certain things “better.”
Encourage Them to Ask For Feedback
Teens often struggle with asking for help, especially if they want to feel confident that they can pursue their goals on their own. In assessment centers, therapists collaborate with teens to help them recognize areas of growth they may want to work on and provide consistent feedback about the progress they are making. A teen’s treatment plan is not fixed and adapts as they begin to meet their goals and their needs change. At Viewpoint Center, our treatment team does not believe in unrealistic resolutions, but rather we help determine what additional support teens might need to follow through with their personal goals.
ViewPoint Center Can Help
ViewPoint Center is a specialty hospital for teens who struggle with depression and other mental health issues. ViewPoint Center a comprehensive therapeutic assessment facility that is licensed and provides 24-hour nursing. Viewpoint offers comprehensive assessments. Post evaluation, treatment plans are established to meet the unique needs of each student. By the end of the treatment period at ViewPoint, families have a clear understanding of the child’s diagnoses and are offered full guidance on how to move forward and seek proper treatment.
To learn more, call 855-290-9682.