Teen Counseling Adolescent Therapy – South Metro Counseling

Is Your Teen Struggling? Our Specialists Are Highly Trained And Fluent In Teen Talk

“I would recommend SMC to other parents. They helped my daughter through a very tough time. ”

— R. M. Parent of Teen Client

“Effective coping skills. Made our son feel comfortable right away.”

— D. D., Parent of Teen Client

Right now you’re either at your wits end or scared for your teen’s mental health and well being.

Your children are the most important parts of your life and you’ll do anything to protect them.

We are specially trained to help teens work through life’s struggles and challenges.

How Do I Know that You Can Help My Child?

Counseling For Teenagers:

Teen Anxiety and Worry. Kids don’t have it easy now days. Girls are twice as likely to develop a mood disorder than boys. Most are over-scheduled, bogged down with busy-work from school, and try to balance their social life online with their home life with the family.
Teen Depression. We see this far too often. Almost 20 percent of teens will suffer from depression before they reach adulthood. Sometimes teens are unable to see all the wonderful things about themselves. They can turn to isolation, over or under eating, or self-injurious behavior. We’ll help them see the value in who they are as a person, build a solid sense of self (to have the confidence to be a leader and not a follower), as well as coping mechanisms to use when intense situations occur.
Life Transitions for Teens. We see teens when things are changing in their lives. Maybe their parents are divorcing, a close family member passed, or when they break up with their significant other. Studies show the transition between elementary to middle school is very painful on children.
Talking With Teens. Sadly it gets really hard to talk with your teen. They become more secretive as they grow their own wings and you don’t know how to deal. Teens often tell us that they just want their parents to listen and validate their “minor” hiccups. Too often parents minimize what their children are going through “It’s just young love,” or “trust us this isn’t stress, you just wait”. This is all your teen knows so listen up and they will open back up and let you in.
Personal Identity. We get teens in that are suffering from teen bullying (in and out of school). The biggest way parents can help a teen that’s getting bullied, is to help their teen identity WHO THEY ARE and what they want to stand for. This is like amour. And we are happy to explain more in the consult.

“We honestly didn’t know how much our daughter was struggling. When she asked for counseling we almost said “No”. The difference between the girl that came home from school before counseling and then after is like black and white.”

— T. B., Parent of Teen Client

Have your teen check us out

We offer a free 20-minute consult so that you and your teen can come in and get to know the counselor, before agreeing to anything.

Why Don’t We Just Get Started?

Because your teen’s relationship with whom ever he or she works with is the biggest factor in creating a successful outcome.

If your teen likes the counselor he or she is more likely to:

Want to come
Trust the treatment
Place value on what the clinician says.

Trust us, greater change occurs when your teen has a good relationship with their expert.

How Do You Get Teens To Talk?

Well most of the time that’s easy.

We keep what they talk about between the expert and the teen.
We do art therapy to help teens express themselves.
And we have another secret weapon that we’ll explain below…

At the consult, we explain to you that at SMC, we hold the confidentiality between the expert and the teen. Like a diary that can never be read.

Yes, sign my teen up for a consult!

This way they know that they can say whatever they want and be open about their feelings without fearing that they may disappoint the parent(s).

Don’t worry if there’s a time that your teen is threatening to harm themselves (suicide) or someone else, we call you right away and sit with your teen until you are there.

But I Want to Know How To Help My Teen

Of course, and we want that too.

We don’t want your child to be in counseling long term. We want to build up their support network (including you) outside of the therapy room so that they can get out and on with their life ASAP.

Whenever we find opportunities to pull the parents or family in for a session we do. Learning how to communicate with you teen is essential and we are big believers that it takes a village!

How Long Does Counseling Typically Last?

That’s not a question any ethical professional can answer. Because every case is so different. But what we can say is that we have one of the highest counseling success rates in Minnesota and beyond.

SMC is known for producing great results, quickly.

Again, our goal is to get your child in, better, and on with life. And when your teen graduates the treatment we say “See you whenever you need us”.

We have a very open door policy in that when your teen doesn’t need counseling anymore, we stop meeting, and we reassure the parents and teens that “You can always come back”.

And they do. Whenever they hit a bump in the road or a rough patch, in they come for a brush up session, and out we send them back to a happy life.

This sounds perfect, let’s meet!

What About Other Kids Finding Out That My Teen Goes To Therapy?

Great question! Although we cannot guarantee that no one will ever cross paths with your teen, we do offer some solutions (as we know if it were us we would want the same effort):

When we schedule, we tell the teen to come right at the start of the hour. So if they have a 4pm we say “Come right at 4pm.” Then the teen before them finishes at 3:50pm, leaves the building privately. Now it’s not every time that your teen will be flanked with other teens but we make sure they do this.
One will use the front entrance and the next will use the back. We encourage teens to always come and go using the same preferred entrance. That way as clinicians we can keep tabs on who comes in where and add an additional safe guard.

Teens LOVE SMC and We LOVE Teens!

We can’t tell you how many teens snap and IG about SMC. They love it here.

Why do they feel so comfortable? We take the stigma out of psychotherapy and make this the cool place to be.

Once your teen signs up we pick out a channel on Pandora and listen to their favorite music while we talk.

We offer plush comfy couches where your teen can lounge and feel very much at home.

With their tunes softly jamming in the background, their tummies full from the snack and beverage center, they are ready to do some work in the therapy room.

We will take care of your kid.

We get it, we understand them, and most importantly the teens that come to SMC leave feeling confident, amazing, and happy.

Our secret weapon: Meet SMC’s therapy dog, Lucy (10 pound French Bulldog). She does a wonderful job sitting on the laps of our clients.

The teens pet her as they share their story or talk directly to Lucy, as the expert listens in the background. Therapy dogs are a beautiful addition to the work we do.