Transitioning to High School presents many challenges, regardless of the student.  Many students worry about the size of the school, the number of students, social dynamics, and increased expectations to prepare for adulthood and college.  Transitioning to High School post COVID-19 pandemic has added some additional challenges such as increased social anxiety or academic challenges related to being out of school for extended periods of time.  While the stress and worry of transitioning often shows up late in 8th grade, the true success of a High School student presents much later in Freshman and Sophomore years.  Some of the most common topics we see at The Mental Wellness Center are making and changing friend groups, separating from the family unit and stressful academics.

Making and changing friends is a normal part of High School years.  With multiple schools blending together in to a larger environment and a mixture of classes and grade levels, there are a lot more opportunities for developing friendships.  Unfortunately for some, changing friend groups happens too much and can cause high levels of stress and low self esteem.  By learning positive social skills such as setting healthy boundaries and identifying areas that the adolescent may have difficulties with communication can increase their social success.  Social development is extremely important during adolescence, as it helps teens to learn more about themselves and who they are becoming.  Parents need to work to foster healthy relationships and allow their teens room to grow and explore.

Parents often have a hard time with the adolescent years, filled with emotions and change and hormones, they aren’t the easiest humans to live with.  But the biggest challenge for parents is that teens are developmentally preparing to separate from the family unit.  They know that at some point in a few short years they will be expected to develop a plan to launch in to adulthood.  This comes with a weird dynamic of having the support of your family, but doing things independently.  They are faced with more mature experiences and expectations such as working, managing money, time management, and keeping up with social lives, extracurriculars and academics.  While they appear to be managing all of these things on the surface, they are still just kids, especially emotionally, under the surface.  The incongruence of expectations versus the emotional self can be dysregulating for teens and can cause them to struggle in areas that perhaps they haven’t before.

Academics are the core of being successful in High School, but it is often not the focus of the students.  They are distracted by sports, peers, relationships, extracurricular activities, home stress, time management, and more.  Many students head to high school without knowing how to study, how to write a paper longer than a page, and haven’t picked up a book in years.  Unfortunately, these skills are necessary and will begin to present challenges immediately.  Other areas that can negatively impact academics are skills such as organization, problem solving, and time management.  The earlier a student can recognize and build these skills, the more successful they can be throughout their High School career.

Individual therapy can help students recognize their emotions, including where their stress is coming from, also known as “triggers”.  They can then learn coping strategies to reduce their stress levels in various ways such as increasing organization and time management skills, increasing social awareness, and understanding what is developmentally appropriate behavior and experiences.  However, they often learn these skills in a bubble and struggle to implement the strategies in their real lives.  Students often learn faster among their peers and with the support and understanding of an adult to coach them through their experiences, while processing those experiences with their peers.

Group therapy can cover transition topics such as making or changing friends, separating from the family unit and becoming successful academically.  Beyond that, students can learn to better identify, communicate and manage their stress.  Learning and understanding in a group setting allows students to feel as though they are not the only one going through their current challenges.  We recognize that many of these topics are things that parents and guardians have already attempted to work with their students to improve.  But remember that developmentally, adolescents are working to be more independent and separate from the family unit.  You may have to think outside the box to get them these tools, even if that is individual or group therapy.