by Lauren Goodman | May 13, 2025 | Depression Therapy for Teens
Understanding Major Depressive Disorder in Teens
Major Depressive Disorder is a lot more serious than most people realize. I often hear teens and parents come in to my therapy office saying someone’s depressed, but meeting the full diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder in teens is less common. In this post I will be discussing how to recognize Major Depressive Disorder in teens and what to do about it.
Depression Looks Different in Teens
Major Depressive Disorder in teens doesn’t always look like it does in adults. This can make it a little harder to spot.
How It Looks the Same
Some symptoms are similar, like crying a lot, sleeping too much (or not at all), losing interest in things they used to love, or feeling hopeless. But there are other signs that are way easier to miss.
How it Looks Different
Instead of low energy, teens often show a lot of irritability. We’re not just talking about normal teenage moodiness either. This kind of irritability can seem extreme and irrational. When it’s paired with things like falling grades, pulling away from friends, or feeling hopeless, it’s time to pay attention.
When to Get Your Teen Evaluated
If your teen seems more irritable than usual and it lasts for more than two weeks, it’s a good idea to have them evaluated by a mental health professional. And if your teen ever says they want to die or mentions suicidal thoughts—don’t wait two weeks. Get your teen evaluated right away. A lot of teens say these things for attention, but take it seriously. It’s always better to be cautious.
Anxiety and Major Depressive Disorder in Teens Often Go Together
Another tricky thing about Major Depressive Disorder in teens is that it often comes with anxiety. Many teens who are feeling depressed also get overwhelmed and nervous more easily. They might start avoiding situations they used to handle just fine. That nervous energy is part of the bigger emotional picture.
How You Can Help Your Teen with Major Depressive Disorder
So what can you do? First, sit down with your teen for a real, honest talk. Ask if something’s been bothering them. Be ready—they might bring up school stress, mean friends, or even ways they feel hurt by you. It’s okay. Try to listen without jumping in to fix it for them or to defend yourself.
Teens See Things Differently
And remember: teens often see the world differently than adults. They might take things personally that aren’t actually about them. For example, if you’ve been stressed at work and therefore more short-tempered, they might think you’re mad at them. Gently help them see a bigger picture without brushing off their feelings.
Keep Checking In
After your heart-to-heart, watch your teen for a few days. If they don’t seem any better, check in again. Let them know it’s okay to talk to a therapist, and offer to help them find someone. You’d be surprised how many teens secretly want someone to talk to but don’t know how to ask for it.
Quick Takeaways on Major Depressive Disorder in Teens
1.Major depression in teens is a real and serious emotional disorder.
2. Don’t assume it’s just for attention—if your teen seems off, pay attention.
3. Take all comments about suicide seriously, every time.
4. Talk with your teen and get help if things don’t improve.
5. Depression doesn’t mean failure—for your teen or for you as a parent.
You Got This
Major Depressive Disorder in teens is a hard thing to deal with. If your not sure if your teen is suffering from this, continue to check in with them. If they don’t improve, seek professional help, and if they mention suicide, talk to a professional right away. Otherwise, just be there for your teen, and you will get through it together.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | May 10, 2025 | Christian Counseling
The Parenting Tightrope
One of the hardest parts of parenting is figuring out how to help our teens grow into solid, responsible adults. It can feel like we’re constantly trying to balance being firm and being kind—and it’s not always clear which one is right in the moment. So, when do you discipline teens?
When to Discipline Teens: That Tricky Moment
Let’s talk about a real-life situation that can get totally different reactions from different parents. Imagine your teenager calls you from a party, and it sounds like they’ve been drinking. What do you do?
Option 1: Grace First
You drive over, pick your teen up, and let them know how proud you are that they called. You’re grateful they didn’t accept a ride from someone else who might’ve been drinking too. Sure, they made a mistake, but they were wise enough to ask for help. That’s a big win in your book.
Option 2: Tough Love
Or maybe you feel angry and disappointed. You tell your teen they’ve broken your trust and that you’ll be checking their messages for a while. You ground them, because they know better than to be at a party without adults, let alone drinking.
When to Discipline Teens and When to Show Grace
One of those responses is gentle and full of grace. The other is firm and direct. Neither one is wrong. There’s a time for grace, and there’s definitely a time to discipline teens. Knowing when to do which is the key.
Why Too Much Grace Can Hurt
If we’re always soft, always showing grace, our teens miss out on learning some really important stuff—like how to take correction, handle limits, and respect authority. These are all things they’ll need to thrive in a job someday. Unless they plan to work for themselves, they’ll need to be able to accept feedback and follow rules. That kind of maturity starts with how we discipline them now. Even if they do work for themselves, it’s still vital that teens learn the life skills discipline teaches.
Why Too Much Discipline Backfires
But if we’re all discipline, all the time? That’s just as damaging. Teens raised with nothing but harshness often struggle in relationships. They may become rigid, struggle with forgiveness—for others and for themselves—and are much more likely to hide things from you. Honestly, if you’re only coming down hard on your teen, there’s a good chance they’re already sneaking around.
Learning About When to Discipline Teens From the Best Example
Jesus modeled the perfect balance of grace and discipline. And how did he decide when to be soft and when to be firm? He looked at people’s hearts. If someone showed real sorrow, he responded with kindness and compassion. But if someone was just faking it or didn’t care, he got firm and serious. He was loving and caring to penitent sinners, but firm and disciplinary towards the prideful, self-righteous Pharisees. That’s emotional intelligence at its best.
Doing Your Best as a Parent
Look, none of us are perfect. We’re not going to hit the mark every time when figuring out when to discipline teens. But if we take time to look at our kids’ hearts—if they’re truly sorry versus just being sorry that they got caught—we’ll be better equipped to choose grace or discipline wisely.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | May 10, 2025 | Teen Addiction
Healing Family Relationships After Addiction
For teens who have had parents addicted to drugs or alcohol, life has been tough. Excessive drug and alcohol use make it hard for a parent to be fully present and available to their child. Addicted parents usually have good intentions; they love their teens and want to help their teens grow. Sadly, addiction gets in the way. For parents who have recently recovered from drug or alcohol dependence, family relationships after addiction can be tough. However, healing your relationship with your teen is not impossible.
What Now?
If you’re a parent who has struggled with addiction but is now recovering, you might wonder how your teen is supposed to heal too. Addiction never affects just one person—even though it can feel like one of the loneliest struggles in the world. You know addiction has affected your children. So, what comes next?
How to Heal Family Relationships After Addiction
There are four important steps involved in healing family relationships after addiction.
1. Make Sure You’re Committed
First, make sure you’re serious about staying sober. Also, make sure you are not replacing one form of coping with another. For example, don’t stop drinking just to start taking Xanax every night to get to sleep. For healing family relationships after addiction to work, you have to be completely honest with your family about your journey to recovery.
2. Be Patient
Even if a parent has really turned their life around, their teen might not trust them right away. After years of covering for missed events or doing things like driving a parent home from a party, these teens have learned to rely on themselves. They’ve taken on adult roles too early, and that kind of self-protection doesn’t disappear right away. It takes time to heal family relationships after addiction, but it will happen.
3. Be Understanding
Third, I’ve seen that with honesty and consistency, most teens who’ve experienced this do let their parents back in. It takes time, and it isn’t easy. However, deep down, they’ve always wanted you to be their safe place. Unfortunately, now that you can be, they’re cautious. Be patient and kind. Own your past mistakes, don’t be afraid to apologize, and ask how they’re feeling. But make sure you don’t tell them how you think they should feel. When working on healing family relationships after addiction, you can’t tell your teen how to feel. Instead, try to understand their feelings and thoughts.
4. Expect Some Rebellious Behavior
There will be times when it feels like your teen is trying to recreate a chaotic relationship—maybe they’re acting out or even using substances. Likely, they’ll be rude, condescending, and rebellious. That’s because they’re used to crisis; it’s what feels normal. It takes time to unlearn that. Give them a structured life that makes chaos harder to create, but expect them to test the limits for a while. This doesn’t mean this behavior is okay; you still have to discipline your teen for acting like this. Just be prepared in case it happens. Besides, once they stop acting like this, they’ll actually be glad to stop having so much conflict.
Healing Family Relationships After Addiction with Love
Most of all, remember your child loves you, and you love them too. Express this often, and stay humble. With time and loving care from you, your relationships will heal.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Apr 23, 2025 | Christian Counseling
Low Teen Self-Esteem
Sadly, many teens have low self-esteem. They measure how good they think they are by how good others think they are. Not only this, but teens with low self-esteem believe others are thinking poorly of them, even when this is not the case. Low teen self-esteem causes teens to think another’s comment or action is an insult when really it means nothing. Self-esteem is something nearly everyone struggles with to some extent, and teens especially tend to think badly of themselves.
Symptoms of Low Teen Self-Esteem
They might seem wrapped up in how they look or being the best at sports. However, the only reason they are acting this way is because they think if they can look perfect or be the best at something everyone will love them. Why do they want everyone to love them? Because they can’t love themselves unless other people love them.
Why Teens Act This Way
Low teen self-esteem also causes them to get more embarrassed or to have their feelings hurt more easily. This is because deep down they’re expecting to be disliked by everyone. Worse yet, most teens think they deserve to be disliked. Many teens go through this, but for most people it starts to fade as they grow up. Why? First, as teens get older their emotions become steadier. Second, they’ll start to shape their identity. This helps them become more secure in who they are because they aren’t relying on others to shape their identity for them. However, few fully conquer the fear of what others think.
Consequences of Low Teen Self-Esteem
If teen self-esteem is low enough, teens can have severe anxiety. They are so worried about what others think that many teens prefer to stay at home where they know they will be accepted. The more they avoid potentially embarrassing situations, the more their anxiety will grow. Sometimes, the anxiety is bad enough to warrant therapy. If your teen seems overly anxious, give me a call. I’m happy to talk with you about your child’s situation.
How to Improve Teen Self-Esteem
There are some key things for your teen to think about when improving self-esteem. But before you share these things with them, they have to be willing to work on improving their self-confidence. Don’t tell your teen they have poor self-esteem, just tell them to keep these things in mind.
- What people think of me can’t actually harm me.
- Most of the time I think other people are thinking poorly of me, they actually aren’t even thinking about me at all.
- I should do what I think is fun, not what is popular, even if I think it will make other people think I’m weird. Once I start doing it, I’ll be glad I did.
Finding Acceptance in Jesus
If you are a Christian family, encourage your teen to think about Jesus when they start to worry about what others think. Tell them what God thinks of them is more important than what other people think of them. And God will always accept and love them, even when people don’t. Some teens might hear you say this and just think it’s another cliche, something all Christian parents tell their kids. However, some teens will hear this, and the idea will take root in their brain and in their heart. Keep repeating it, even if it seems like your teen isn’t paying attention.
The True Cure to Low Teen Self-Esteem
Caring about what God thinks instead of what people think is the only real cure to low teen self-esteem. The other things I mentioned will help, but Jesus is the only way to completely eliminate low self-esteem. Think about it like pulling out weeds from a garden. The weeds threaten to take over the garden, just like low self-confidence threatens to take over your teen’s life. The suggestions I gave above are like pulling off the tops of the weeds; it will help for a while, but eventually the weeds will grow back. Jesus pulls up low self-esteem by the roots.
Don’t Replace Low Teen Self-Esteem with Pride
This doesn’t mean you should tell your teen that they’re perfect. And make sure they don’t start to think that either. Instead, they should value themselves for who they are, whether they are popular or not. If you’re a Christian family, remind your teen of this: Jesus saw them as someone worth dying for, even with their failings. It doesn’t mean they don’t have any failings; it means God loves them anyway.
Wrapping Up
Tell your teen that if they start to worry about what others think, suppress the urge. It will be hard at first, but eventually it will become more natural. Eventually, they will pretty much stop worrying about what people think completely. If you and your family are not Christian, consider attending church as a family. I have seen Jesus transform the way people view themselves from the inside out. Otherwise, just tell your teen to remember the three things I listed above. Most importantly, believe in them. They can do it!
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:7
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Apr 22, 2025 | Parenting Techniques
Are You Listening to Your Teen?
Are you listening to your teen? I mean, truly listening—not while scrolling your phone or stirring dinner, but giving them your full attention. Do you set everything down, look them in the eyes, and try to understand what they’re saying?
What Therapy Can Offer—And What You Can Too
Therapy can offer a lot to teens, but one of the most powerful benefits is actually something you can do for them at home. What is it? Simply giving your teen your full, focused attention. It’s hard to listen sometimes. Sadly, we live in a world full of things trying to distract us. However, we can choose not to give these things our attention.
What Listening to Your Teen Looks Like
When a teen comes into therapy to talk about something that’s bothering them, they can feel that I’m fully present. This is how they want you to listen to them too. Don’t fold laundry, leave the TV or music on, or examine your fingernails or clothes while they’re talking to you. Respond to what they’re telling you. Try saying, “Really! What happened?” or “No way,” or “That must have been really hard.” Match the emotion in their words—even if they don’t show much emotion outwardly themselves. If they tell a sad story with a straight face, respond with compassion anyway. That’s how they know you care.
The Power of Listening to Your Teen—No Training Needed
Of course, therapy involves more than just listening. I’ve spent years learning tools and techniques through reading, training, supervision, and reviewing my sessions. These are skills I’ve practiced over time—just like you’ve developed your own strengths and expertise in your career or everyday life. However, listening is one thing you can do without training. You just have to remember to set down what your doing, pause the music or TV, look directly at your teen instead of other things, and listen to your teen patiently and completely. Also, don’t plan how to respond to your teen while they’re talking to you. Just listen.
Being Tactful
Listening well makes teens feel seen, heard, and respected. This doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they say, and it doesn’t mean you can’t share your opinion. However, you have to choose the right moment. Being tactful means knowing when to offer your thoughts. Being tactful is especially important when listening to your teen. Try to listen more than you talk. Most importantly, when they open up, keep the conversation centered on them—not on your experiences or how you would handle it. In other words, try to hear them instead of making them hear you.
What Being Tactful Looks Like
And make sure you don’t offer you’re opinion at the wrong time or too often. It might come across like you’ve just been waiting to share your thoughts instead of trying to understand theirs. Or that you think their problem is easy to solve and they should’ve figured it out themselves. Even if that’s not what you mean, that’s often how it feels to them. And if they disagree with your suggestion, don’t shut the conversation down or tell them they’re being unreasonable. Let them explain why they see things differently. Most importantly, when you do share your opinion, make sure your tone is warm and open.
Your Superpower As A Parent
However, you have a huge advantage—your teen wants you to hear them. They may not say it out loud. In fact they might seem like they don’t want your advice. However, I promise deep down your teen really cares about you listening to them and what you think. In fact, your teen cares more about you listening to them than anyone else on the planet. It might not always feel that way, but your interest in what they think and feel means more than anything a therapist, teacher, or coach thinks. Those people matter—but you’re their number one.
Just Listen
So, Mom or Dad—whoever is reading this—please take the time to really listen to your teen. It shows them how much you care. Set your phone down, leave your to-do list for later, and let go of the urge to plan how you’ll respond to them. Just listen. That quiet, focused presence can go a long way.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
