Child and Teen Counseling

Are you worried about your child or teen?

Having concerns about our children is a normal part of being a parent. We all know that mental and emotional health is essential for young people to grow and thrive. However, sometimes issues develop to a level where additional help is needed.

At Mill Creek Family Services you get the support, guidance and practical strategies you need — for the ones you love.

Here are some questions parents often have when considering professional counseling for their children:

Is my child experiencing anxiety, depression, loss, grief or trauma?

Am I often worried about my child shutting down — or acting out?

Is my home and family time regularly disrupted with my child’s difficult behaviors?

For a young person with warning signs that issues may be developing, the earlier treatment is started, the more effective it can be. This can prevent more severe or enduring problems as a young person develops.

Warning Signs

It’s not always easy to tell if your child or teen’s difficult behavior is just a regular part of growing up. Parents can often wonder if the problems you’re seeing at home or at school should be discussed with a health professional. One way to figure this out is to consider whether the behaviors have lasted weeks, or even months or years. Do these issues get in the way of your child or teen’s daily life. It’s helpful to observe what happening at home or with their friends — and pay attention to reports from school. If your efforts to intervene have been unsuccessful, it’s a good time to consider contacting a health professional.

Younger Children may benefit from seeing a professional if they:

• Often talk about worries or fears
• Regularly lack interest in playing with other children
• Have a pattern of difficulties making friends
• Seem to regularly sleep too much or too little, have frequent nightmares, or often seem sleepy during the day
• Repeat actions or check things many times — fearing something bad may happen if they don’t
• Suffer from frequent stomachaches or headaches with no known medical cause
• Have frequent tantrums no matter your efforts to intervene
• Are intensely irritable throughout the day
• Are in constant motion and cannot sit quietly (except when they are watching videos or playing video games)
• Have ongoing academic struggles in spite of home and school interventions
• Experienced a recent and sudden decline in grades

Older Adolescents & Teens may benefit from additional help if they:

• Have lost interest in activities they used to enjoy
• Are spending more and more time alone, while regularly avoiding social activities with friends or family
• Consistently have low energy or regularly seem sleepy throughout the day
• Fear gaining weight, or excessively diet or exercise 
• Engage in self-harm behaviors (e.g., cutting or burning their skin)
• Smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs
• Engage in risky or destructive behavior alone or with friends
• Have expressed that they have thoughts of suicide
• Have periods of highly elevated energy and activity, and require much less sleep than usual
• Say that they think someone is trying to control their mind or that they hear things that other people cannot hear.

You Are Not Alone

All of these issues can be addressed and improved. If you are a parent and want some extra support and guidance through this tough time, let us know. If you are a child or teen, talk to your parents, school counselor, health care provider — or reach out to us here at Mill Creek Family Services. We are here to help!

Some of the improvements often seen in therapy can include:

• Insight into your child’s struggles and how to help them more effectively
• Greater sense of empowerment to handle behavioral challenges
• Deeper emotional connection with your child
• Reduced family stress and increased harmony

Our providers at Mill Creek Family Services have many years of experience and are ready to help your family. We work with you to stabilize the situation and offer you and your child/teen effective and research-based tools to manage their struggles.

MCFS accepts many forms of insurance and offer after school and evening hours for your convenience.  

Contact us — and we’ll be happy to help you make an appointment.