Helping Your Family Get the Right Help: Therapy, Treatment & What to Expect
Deciding to get professional help for your child is one of the most important things a parent can do, and often one of the most confusing. How do you find the right therapist? How do you know if therapy is actually working? What do you do when it isn’t? When does medication make sense, and who should prescribe it? These are the questions families bring to us every day. This page brings together our most practical videos and articles on navigating the mental health system for kids and teens: how to shop for a therapist, how to evaluate the process, when to stay the course, and when to make a change. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been at this for a while and something isn’t clicking, you’ll find honest, experienced guidance here.
Most Helpful Videos
How to Find the Right Therapist for Your Child: What Every Parent Needs to Know
Kent and Jill walk parents through the entire process of finding a therapist for their child or teen, from recognizing the signs that something is off, to having the conversation with your kid, to knowing what green flags and red flags look like in that first phone call. They also address what’s actually happening when your kid says they “just played a game” in session, and why confidentiality is the foundation that makes all of it work.
Antidepressants for Teens: When Should You Medicate Your Kid?
The decision to consider medication for a depressed teenager is one of the hardest a parent can face. Kent is clear that this is a conversation for a pediatric psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner, not a pediatrician, and not a therapist. This video walks through what questions to ask, what to expect from the process, and why the therapist and prescribing professional need to be working together.
How Do You Know When Your Teen Is Done With Therapy?
There’s no clean finish line in therapy, and Kent and Jill are honest about that. This video explains how to recognize when the original goals have been met, how to step down gradually from weekly sessions rather than stopping cold, what to do when your teen is resistant, and why ending therapy doesn’t mean the door is closed forever.
Most Common Problems
The path to getting help for your teenager is rarely straightforward. Most families run into at least one of these three challenges along the way. Below are the situations we hear about most often, along with the videos most relevant to each.
Finding and Choosing the Right Therapist
A poor therapist fit can leave your teenager convinced that therapy doesn’t work and resistant to trying again, so getting this right matters. Kent walks parents through what to look for in the interview process, what questions to ask, and why that first phone call gut check is more reliable than you might think.
Related Videos:
Evaluating Whether Therapy Is Working
Parents often can’t see the most important progress because it’s happening inside the room. Kent’s advice: stop measuring week to week and think in three-month blocks instead. The real leading indicators are whether your child feels safe with their therapist and whether you feel heard as a parent.
Related Videos:
When Standard Therapy Isn't Enough
Sometimes outpatient therapy isn’t the right level of care. Whether that means exploring medication, a higher level of support, or an intensive program like wilderness therapy, knowing your options and having a thoughtful plan is essential. This is never a simple decision, and it should always involve qualified professionals.
Related Videos:
More Videos About Therapy & Treatment
When a child rejects therapy or says it’s boring, parents are often left without a clear next step. This video explains why that reaction is common, what it usually means, and how parents can work collaboratively with a therapist rather than just handing their child off and hoping for the best. Kent also talks about the role of physical, creative, and social outlets in managing anxiety alongside treatment.
How Can Group Therapy Help With Bullying?
When a child is being bullied, group therapy can offer something individual therapy alone cannot: a safe, facilitated space to build social skills, practice assertiveness, and feel less alone. This video explores how group therapy works in a clinical setting and when it’s worth considering as part of a broader treatment plan.
How Do I Break Up With My Kid's Therapist?
You’re not happy with the therapist, but your teenager is attached and doesn’t want to leave. Kent’s first recommendation is always to try to repair the relationship before ending it, because your child’s trust in the process is worth protecting. But if the alliance truly can’t be rebuilt, this video walks you through how to make the transition in a way that minimizes damage to your child and keeps the door to therapy open.
FAQs
Start by looking for someone who genuinely specializes in adolescents and actually enjoys working with them. Not every therapist does, and teenagers can tell the difference. Ask potential candidates how they work with resistant teens, what their approach looks like in the first few sessions, and how they communicate with parents while still protecting your child’s confidentiality. You should feel good after that initial phone call. If you don’t, keep looking. There are a lot of therapists in the San Fernando Valley and beyond who do excellent work with kids and teens.
The most practical way to evaluate therapy is in three-month blocks rather than week to week. Progress in therapy is often invisible to parents because the most meaningful changes happen in the room and inside your child’s internal world before they show up in behavior at home. The better leading indicators are whether your child feels connected to their therapist and whether you as a parent feel heard and respected. If both of those are true, give it time.
That is a conversation to have with a pediatric psychiatrist or a pediatric psychiatric nurse practitioner, not a pediatrician and not a therapist. These specialists are trained in the nuanced pharmacology of the adolescent brain in a way that general practitioners are not. If you are considering this route, make sure whoever is prescribing is also communicating regularly with your child’s therapist so the two approaches are coordinated rather than operating in isolation.
Resistance is very common, especially in the beginning. The worst thing you can do is force therapy in a way that makes your child feel coerced and alienates them from the process entirely. A better approach is to take the pressure off and keep the therapist in the picture even informally, while you focus on strengthening your connection at home. Many teens who start out refusing therapy come around once they understand it’s a confidential space that belongs to them, not a place where their parents get updates on what they’re saying.
Wilderness therapy is an intensive residential program, typically 30 to 120 days, in which at-risk teens work with counselors in an outdoor environment to build self-awareness, accountability, and connection. It can be genuinely transformative for the right teenager, but it is expensive, not typically covered by insurance, and only as effective as the transition plan you have in place for when your child comes home. Without a thoughtful structure to return to, teens often fall back into the same patterns. If you are considering it, work with a professional who can help you evaluate whether it is the right level of care and what the next step should look like after.
Need Help with your Teen?
If you’re trying to figure out whether your child needs therapy, or you’ve already started and something isn’t working, we’re here to help you think it through. At Teen Therapy Center in Woodland Hills, we work with kids, teens, and families at every stage of that process, whether that’s finding the right fit, figuring out the right level of care, or just getting a clearer picture of what’s going on. We offer a free phone consultation and would love to connect. Reach out today.