It's all well and good for me to sit here at the keyboard and tell you that you need to get your teens into counseling, but I'm really not that naive. I know how difficult that seemingly simple task can be. Provided you can even persuade the teen to get into the car to go to counseling, there's no way to force the child to speak to the counselor. What I can give you is an idea why your teen may not want counseling and a few ideas to try to use in convincing them to go.

Teens often balk at counseling for the same reasons that adults do. Chief among these is that they don't want to be blamed. They are afraid of how they will be viewed by this stranger. When talking to your teen about attending counseling try to ease this worry by reassuring him/her that the counselor is not judge and jury. The counselor's job is one of support not blame. They act as a totally unbiased partner helping people understand their feelings and why they feel the way they do. They are not generally bespeckled and bearded old German men with grave faces. Rather they are attentive, reassuring, and every bit as human as you and your teen.

Another reason teens, and adults, fear counseling is that they don't want to find out they are "crazy". Define your most imaginative view of "crazy" then look at yourselves in the mirror. Do you even remotely resemble your wildest vision of a nutcase? Be fair and brush your hair first. Have your teen do this or some such silly exercise to lighten their mood. Humor helps us relax and become receptive to new ideas. Reassure your teen that the counselor will not be viewing them as a frazzle haired, wild eyed monster either. In fact, if there is ONE person in the world who can convince you that you aren't a loony tune, it is a counselor who has seen 10 people just like you each day, 5 days a week for 5 years. A counselor is there not to tell you that you are crazy, but rather to help you understand that you are simply confused by your normalcy.

Just as there are some people we can't relate to, there will be some counselors that we cannot relate to. Don't expect a knock down drag out clash of personalities. When our personalities don't match well with the counselor we simply don't feel comfortable confiding in them. Feeling uncomfortable at the first session is normal. If this discomfort persists for several sessions, however, consider changing counselors until you find one that you do feel comfortable sharing with.