adolescent therapy
Advice Column: Avoiding Rejection During Internship Application Season
Q: My daughter, a high school senior, can leave school midday for an internship. Many of her friends have already found one. She’s stressed but increasingly avoids applying to more places and pushes back on every suggestion I make. How can I help? A: Stress and avoidance often travel together. When friends announce their placements,…
Advice Column: Stubborn Teen
Question: My son is a good kid. He’s on top of his schoolwork and does chores when asked, but from time to time he won’t budge on the most benign requests. For example, he was overseas for summer school and didn’t send a single picture with friends. I suggested he offer his old bike to…
MCPS Academic Rigor and Competition: A Teen Mental Health Perspective
By: Olivia Levinton, visiting guest journalist for Kentlands Psychotherapy High levels of academic rigor and competition among students are notorious features of MCPS high school education, affecting students’ mental health in various ways. In this piece, two rising senior teens– one MCPS student and one private school student– share their perspectives on academic competition, heightened…
Beyond Surviving: How Therapy Helps Montgomery College Students Move from ‘Fine’ to Flourishing
Have you or someone you care about ever felt isolated from fellow students while in college? Has making new connections proven harder than you expected? Does everyone seem just too busy to get together? You’re not alone. Although you might see students chatting between classes or during lunch, beneath this busy exterior, many are silently…
How Dr. Megan Burleson Helps People With ADHD Navigate College, Work, and Life More Successfully
Life as a teen, college student, or young professional can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re living with ADHD. Juggling assignments, jobs, friendships, and personal goals requires strong executive functioning skills—things like planning, organization, time management, and emotional regulation. When ADHD makes those skills harder to access, it can feel like you’re constantly climbing uphill while…
How My Therapist Mom Helped Me Understand Mental Health
My friends think it’s amazing that my mom is a therapist. They assume she can fix everything with a quick conversation or a couple of probing questions. To our generation, mental health is extremely important. Everyone is looking for advice on how to feel better, get over a breakup faster, or navigate friendships when something…
Early Brain Damage in Contact Sports: What New Study Reveals About Risk to Young Athletes
In 2018, we wrote an advice column addressing a parent’s concerns about long-term brain damage that can result from contact sports. Now, with new research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Boston University, it’s time to revisit this critical topic. A new study published this month reveals that even young contact-sport athletes show…
Why Limiting Smartphones and AI in Middle School Is Worth the Fight
As parents, we all know how quickly childhood changes, especially during the middle school years. Although learning to navigate a bigger school and multiple teachers grabs our attention, under the surface, quietly, the refinement of social skills, the development of identity, and the management of emotions take center stage for them. New research shows that…
The Gen Z Stare Is Real. It’s a Problem. And It’s Largely Our Fault.
Have you all been following TikTok’s so-called “Gen Z stare?” We need to see this as something more than a passing internet fad. We need to take it seriously. The vacant, slightly contemptuous, silent stare when spoken to isn’t just rude, it’s a sign of a serious, larger issue. Researchers are seeing similar behaviors: decreased…
What Freya India Gets Right—and Wrong—About Girls’ Mental Health
The Digital Age’s Impact on Girls’ Mental Health By Dr. Elizabeth Carr, Founder, Kentlands Psychotherapy Freya India, pop culture influencer, has quickly become one of the most compelling and insightful cultural critics writing about the mental health crisis among young women and girls. Her voice is urgent, passionate, and clearly attuned to the social and…
It's not an easy time to be a kid. Perhaps it never is, but now it's especially true. Let us help you understand and support your child's needs.
Is your teen struggling with school, in their relationships with friends, with you? Do they seem irritable, withdrawn, unmotivated, sad? Our therapist know how to help.
Are you looking to make some aspect of your otherwise good relationship better? Maybe you’ve tried all the strategies that make sense to you.