Healthy Coping for Children and Adolescents

Available with English captions and subtitles in Spanish.

Kids and teens experience all kinds of feelings, but may not necessarily know how to deal with them or how to cope with when they come up. It’s important that we help them learn the skills to manage their emotions, thoughts, and reactions in healthy and productive ways.

By doing so, we can help them build skills that increase well-being into adulthood and prevent unhealthy coping strategies as they get older.

Audience Questions

Join us as Maggie Gorraiz, PhD, explores different types of coping strategies for children and adolescents, shares age-appropriate ways to teach coping to our loved ones, and answers audience questions about the mental health benefits that healthy coping can bring to our whole families.

  • What is considered healthy coping?
  • What are some of the signs that someone may be coping in an unhealthy way?
  • If our kids aren’t “reporting” changes in thoughts/feelings, but we’re noticing them, how can we address this with them?
  • How can we encourage teens and young adults to change patterns that can worsen mental well-being like excessive screen time, sedentary lifestyle, and so on?
  • What are some of the common coping strategies that we can teach kids? How early of an age can we start teaching kids coping skills and strategies?
  • Can you please talk a little more about “wise mind?”
  • Can we talk a bit about introducing coping methods when there are different parenting strategies or it’s a blended family? For example, if one parent takes a conversational approach, but the other tends to use discipline.
  • How can we help young people whose coping leans toward self-harm or suicidal thoughts?
  • Can you talk about helping control anger?
  • Any tips for parents and kids for coping with a situation like financial difficulties, where an adolescent is blaming the parent for not having the money to give them what they need?
  • How can I get my teenager to be nicer to their younger sibling?
  • At what point should I reach out to my child’s care team if I think they’re not coping well with life changes or big emotions?

The information discussed is intended to be educational and should not be used as a substitute for guidance provided by your health care provider. Please consult with your treatment team before making any changes to your care plan.

Resources

You may also find this information useful:

About Dr. Gorraiz

Maggie Gorraiz, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychologist and a DBT-Linehan certified DBT clinician. She participates in the supervision and training of clinicians in personality disorders and DBT.

Dr. Gorraiz is the director of McLean’s School Consultation Service, a multidisciplinary team of providers with expertise in child and adolescent mental health which provides consultative services in therapeutic program development, individual student challenges, and training and dissemination of evidence-based mental health interventions.

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