My Teen Won’t Accept Help: What to Do

When your teen is troubled, it can be challenging to know how to respond. You offer to help, they refuse; you try to rein in negative behavior, but they react in the extreme—or shut down entirely.

Watching your teen struggle with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues is difficult. But when they won’t accept help, it can be stressful for you and the whole family. How do you persuade them to engage in therapy or treatment?

There’s no single approach that works effectively for all teens—in fact, you may need to employ multiple strategies to help them understand the benefits of treatment. It’s important to understand why they’re resisting treatment, how to encourage them to seek help, and what to do when all else fails. It may take patience, empathy, and support to reach that goal, but it will be worth the effort.

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What You’ll Learn

• How do I know when my teen is struggling with a mental health issue?
• Why do teens resist treatment?
• What are some strategies for helping resistant teens go to therapy?
• When should I get treatment professionals involved?

Quick Read

Understanding when your teen is struggling can be challenging, as their behavior often shifts during adolescence. Signs that may indicate a mental health issue include persistent disengagement, isolation from friends, extreme emotional reactions, and changes in appetite or sleep patterns. If negative emotions last longer than typical adolescent cycles and are accompanied by significant behavioral changes, it may be time to seek professional help.

Teens may resist treatment due to stigma, time constraints, lack of trust, or previous negative experiences with therapy. To encourage them to seek help, parents should create a safe space for open dialogue, validate their feelings, and provide examples of others who have benefited from therapy. Empowering teens to take control of their mental health is crucial, as it fosters resilience and self-awareness. By supporting them in finding appropriate treatment and encouraging healthy coping strategies, parents can play a vital role in their teen’s journey toward well-being.

Understanding When Your Teen Is Struggling

Many children go from expressing their feelings and thoughts all the time, wanting to interact with their parents, and having expressions and emotions that are easy to interpret, to suddenly being less open, less engaged, and harder to understand as teenagers.

Increased social awareness, self-consciousness, complex feelings, and a greater desire for autonomy all converge during the adolescent years, and most teens are either overly expressive or very unexpressive. That can make their meltdowns and tantrums, or their silence, more difficult to trace back to a definitive source.

Signs to Look For

So how can you tell when your teen is struggling versus when they are going through the normal cycles of adolescence? Your teen may be struggling with something deeper, if they:

• Have difficulty with daily tasks or life functions, e.g., refuse to get out of bed or go to school, struggle with homework or chores
• Complain of constant fatigue and seem disengaged for a persistent period of time (at least two weeks)
• Cut off their friends or start isolating themselves more frequently
• Become obsessed with their self-image
• Engage in an increasing number of risk-taking behaviors
• Have significant behavior shifts (lying, talking back, excessive crying, throwing fits)
• Overreact to normal life situations
• Avoid certain people or places; they read into others’ behaviors
• Become extremely superstitious or obsessive, or believe without clear evidence that others are conspiring against them

Your teen is having trouble with friends, difficulty with their studies or teachers, or relational challenges like a break-up, you may expect to see them cycle through anger, sadness, or anxiousness related to those issues.

However, if their negative emotional state persists for longer than the circumstances and is accompanied by frequent outbursts or changes in behavior that become more extreme, they may be dealing with a mental health issue that needs to be addressed.

Why Teens May Resist Mental Health Treatment

There are several reasons why teens may be resistant to treatment, including the following:

Stigma

Going to therapy or treatment may feel like an acknowledgment that they have a “problem” and something is “wrong with them,” separating them from their friends and putting them at risk of judgment or alienation from their peers.

Time

Attending counseling may take time away from their preferred activities, such as sports, clubs, or spending time with friends. Many teens would much rather be at home, outside, playing games, or online than being in a counselor’s office. This is especially the case if a treatment program is needed — a prolonged time away can mean missing out on certain events and not seeing friends, even if a reset is just what they need.

Lack of Trust / Unfamiliarity

Many teens, especially those with trauma or difficult experiences in their past, may not be keen on the idea of sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings with a strange adult. A sense of trust has to exist for teens to be comfortable working through their challenges with a treatment professional.

Unclear Benefits

Healing from a mental health issue is different from healing from a physical health issue — you don’t always know what’s working, when to expect to feel better, and what still needs to change. The benefits of mental health therapy can feel abstract and unclear to many teens.

Tried It Already and It Didn’t Work.

If your teen has already been in therapy or a treatment program and didn’t feel like it helped, they may be resistant to trying again.

Strategies for Resistant Teens

When your teen won’t accept help, you may need to employ a variety of strategies to encourage them to receive treatment. Here are a few:

Be Objective

Your emotion concerning your teen’s situation, whether it’s worry, fear, or frustration, may complicate your appeal and affect how your teen responds. If you try to coerce or manipulate your teen into therapy, their experience will be stunted and short-lived. They will get the most out of treatment when they are internally motivated, which means they need to be part of the decision. Explain what you’ve been seeing in their attitude and behavior in a nonjudgmental way, expressing empathy and a desire for them to thrive again. Then provide some options and help them weigh the pros and cons of attending treatment for their own sake.

Be Ready with Examples

Mental health awareness and treatment are becoming less stigmatized in popular culture. Find examples of celebrities (especially some that resonate with your teen) who have spoken up about their mental health struggles or treatment journey. Talk to them about how therapy is normal and helpful, because everybody has problems, and our problems do not have to define us.

Find Options

As a parent, you can do the legwork of finding therapists that are trustworthy and credentialed or treatment programs that specialize in treating teens. Provide these options to your teen and let them choose. Your teen may benefit from therapy that involves the outdoors, walk-and-talk sessions, or activity-based sessions that build rapport. Not every therapy session has to be talking to a counselor in an office. Different options can be especially helpful for the “tried it and it didn’t work” teens.

Explain the Upside of Therapy and the Downside of Waiting It Out

Be clear about the benefits of going to therapy and how your teen may start feeling better or be able to develop positive coping skills. Without frightening your teen, be honest about how things might get worse without help, and how you don’t want them to suffer.

If your teen is engaging in substance use and/or exhibiting signs that they are a threat to themselves or others, it’s worth getting treatment professionals involved to help encourage your teen to go to treatment. Highly resistant teens may benefit from an intervention, and treatment professionals can provide guidance and support for that event.

Tips for Connecting and Having the Conversation

Engaging teens in therapy is not always an easy task. Your support can go further than you think in improving their receptiveness to treatment and their overall mental health. Teens can interpret their parents’ reprimands and rules as disapproval—not just of their behavior, but who they are. Here are some ways to communicate in a positive, affirming way:

• Create a Safe Space. Ensure your teen feels safe and comfortable discussing their feelings without fear of judgment or criticism.
• Listen Actively. Show genuine interest in what your teen is saying. Use active listening techniques, such as nodding and summarizing their points, to demonstrate understanding.
• Validate Their Feelings. Acknowledge your teen’s emotions and experiences. Let them know it’s okay to feel what they’re feeling, and that their feelings are valid.
• Use Open-Ended Questions. Encourage dialogue by asking open-ended questions like, “What are your concerns about seeking treatment?” or “Is there anything that we can do to ?”
• Be Patient. Understand that your teen may need time to open up. Avoid pushing them to talk before they’re ready.
• Share Your Own Experiences. If appropriate, share your own experiences with mental health or seeking help to normalize the conversation and reduce stigma.
• Educate Yourself. Familiarize yourself with mental health issues and treatment options so you can provide informed support and guidance.
• Discuss the Benefits of Treatment. Talk about how seeking help can lead to positive changes and improved well-being, emphasizing that it’s a sign of strength to seek support.

Why Adolescent Mental Health Engagement Matters

It’s important to help teens understand that their feelings are not who they are and their problems do not determine their identity. They need to realize that they can still make choices that can improve their well-being. Additionally, they need to know that healing is possible, and that they can overcome the challenges they are facing.

As a parent, you can provide the support, encouragement, and fortitude that may turn the tide in a teen’s battle for positive mental health. You can show them that it’s not about having a perfect life and never struggling with problems. Rather, it’s about building resilience and learning how to respond to whatever life throws at you.

Empowering Teens to Take Control

Empowering teens to take control of their mental health is one of the most meaningful ways parents can support their child’s growth and well-being. When it comes to mental health issues, it’s important for teens to know that seeking professional help is not a sign of weakness, but a courageous step forward.

It’s normal for many teens to feel hesitant about opening up, but reminding them that mental health professionals are trained to help young people navigate these challenges can make a big difference. A mental health professional can work with your teen to develop a treatment plan tailored to their unique needs, helping them learn new strategies and skills to manage anxiety, stress, or other mental health issues.

In addition to professional help, encourage your teen to practice self care and develop healthy coping skills for managing stress and develop healthy habits that support their overall well-being. Activities like exercise, mindfulness, creative hobbies, or spending time outdoors can help reduce stress and improve mood. Remind your teen that taking care of their mental health is just as important as caring for their physical health.

Teen Mental Health Treatment at Newport Academy

If your teen is experiencing mental health issues that are disrupting their relationships with friends and family and impacting daily functioning, it’s time to get treatment professionals involved.

At Newport Academy, we understand the needs of teens and provide research-backed therapeutic modalities to help them grow and thrive again. Our compassionate approach focuses on getting to the root of your teen’s challenges and gives them tools to recover and cope with the everyday stressors they face. Contact us today to learn more.