Clair Mellenthin

Child and Family Therapist

How To Connect and Communicate With Your Teenager

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When cute kids turn into teenagers, they often stop talking to their parents! While they communicate plenty with their peers, unfortunately, they don’t do the same to their mom and dad. Here are some tips to help you reconnect with your teen:

Step Back and Listen

If your child comes to you with a problem, resist the temptation to immediately jump in and offer solutions. Instead, validate their experience by saying something like “that sounds really tough.” By holding space for the “hard stuff,” you can build trust and create a space where they can come talk to you. Let them really speak their mind and their heart to you.

Timing Is Everything

If there is something difficult that arises with your teens, don’t react by freaking out. In the heat of the moment, we often use angry or intense words that don’t help the relationship we have with our teens. Instead, learn to control your emotions, calm down, and then talk about it. Going on drives is a great way to open up that line of communication. Don’t force eye contact, and try to make things normal and natural. Nighttime can be another opportunity to really listen and hear your teen out as you’re giving them a back rub or helping to put them to bed.

Don’t Be Afraid to Apologize

In parenting, it is inevitable that you’re going to make mistakes. Remember that not only is your child learning, but you are too! Set the example for them that we can acknowledge our shortcomings and repair the relationship by apologizing after things get heated.



4 Tips to Beat the Back-to -School Blues

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Back-to-school means the end of summer playtime, but it also can mean excitement for children. There’s a fresh start of heading back to school, seeing old friends, and getting into a new routine. However, sometimes kids have a difficult time with the adjustment period and need a little help making the transition. Here are 4 strategies to help beat the back-to-school blues:

Create Nighttime & Morning Rituals

Kids of all ages need something to depend on for home routines at night and in the morning. Even if it’s just a quick snuggle, all children need some touch-up (even older kids). Every family is different, but rituals can include things like reading a book together, giving a high-five, or having some other special experience to help your child feel a sense of structure.

Keep Track of Positive Things

Ask your child for positive, happy things they experience throughout the day, then write them down on sticky notes (you may also consider making a collage of some sort to help your child be creative). It’s so easy to focus on the negative, hard things, and keeping a collection of spots of positivity can help cheer kids up.

Ask Deeper Questions

We’re often socialized to give short, predictable greetings to each other. For example asking “how was your day?” will almost always yield an answer like “fine.” Instead of just going through the motions, start a conversation and dig a little deeper to get to the root of how your child is actually. Allow them to express both the positive and the negative parts of their experience.

Seek Outside Resources

If after you’ve done your very best you still feel like your child’s mood or behavior have extended beyond their typical adjustment period, it’s alright to get help. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and other types of mood disorders can be hard to face alone, so seek professional therapy for your child. There is no shame in getting help and support.

Do you work with kids in a therapy setting?

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As children, we learn from our parents how to cope with challenges in our lives with their model as our example. A child learns if they have value from the first interaction with parents, and as well as how to navigate obstacles along the way. If the family has an unhealthy approach to managing the ups and downs of life, if they do not acknowledge the bumps and bruises, if they pray it away, or ignore it, the child learns there is not any room for their big feelings. They think, “something must be wrong with me!”

If you work with children in a therapy setting, one of the best discoveries to make is that the parent of your client is your client too. Working as a play therapist for the last nineteen years,  I have learned a few things about what parents of my clients want and need. I know for sure that they want to feel like they have a voice and can be seen. They matter. I want parents to understand how critical it is for them to be present for their child. If parents had any idea how much they matter, it would change everything. They have to be involved and be willing to allow for change, for the entire family unit.

Attachment Centered Play Therapy was written with you in mind – centering on the different types of traumas we see in our play therapy room and mental health clinics.  It was written to help you, the therapist, understand the nature of trauma – from natural disasters to divorce to violence in the homes to prolonged separations between parent and child.  How these experiences change the nature of the relationship and most importantly of all, what you can do to help repair, rebuild, and create lasting security and change. Parents are the only person who has the power to create lasting changes. If we do not involve them as we work with children in therapy, we are missing the kid. This book will give clinicians the tools to help parents recognize that if they feel powerless or scared, they do not have to have all the answers, they can know change is possible. This book not only dives into the attachment theory but also has practical application and interventions that empower parents to have awareness and tools to make permanent improvements with their relationship with their kids.

My new book launches on May 6th! Order now at a pre-launch price and save!! Click here to buy now!

Celebrating Play Therapy Week!

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We are celebrating play therapy week! Many parents still don’t quite know what this type of therapy entails or how it could benefit their children. Here is some helpful information about play therapy:

What Is It?

Play therapy is a kind of therapy that gets away from the traditional method of sitting in a chair and talking to a counselor. Instead of using just words, play therapists provide toys, artwork, games, and other physical means to allow participants to explore certain topics and express their feelings. Play therapy works with the developmental level of a child, teen, or adult who perhaps doesn’t have the language capacity to articulate emotions or difficult experiences.Continue Reading