Teen therapy in Laredo, Texas.

This page is for the parent who is reading it at eleven at night after everyone else has gone to bed. Something is off with your teenager, and you cannot quite name what. Maybe they have gone quiet. Maybe they are more irritable than they used to be. Maybe the grades have slipped, or the friends have changed, or a spark you used to see has dimmed and you do not know where it went.

You are not overreacting. Adolescence is genuinely harder now than the adolescence most parents I work with grew up in, and that is not a talking point — it is what I see in this office. Teens today are carrying more, being watched more, and comparing themselves to more people than any generation before them.

What I work with

Most of the teens I see are struggling with some combination of the same handful of things. Anxiety that has stopped being useful and started running the day — a knot in the stomach before school, a mind that will not switch off at night, worries that loop long after the phone is put down. Depression that shows up as flatness rather than sadness — nothing feels fun, nothing feels worth the effort, and everything takes twice as long. Self-image that has become a war — with mirrors, with photographs, with food, with a phone that never stops offering comparisons.

And then there is the particular pressure of being the first. The first in the family expected to go to college. The first who speaks English as easily as they speak Spanish. The first who is supposed to translate the world back to the parents who gave them everything. Many of the teens I see on this border are carrying a version of that, whether it has ever been said out loud or not. Being handed everything is not the same as being free.

About self-harm — gently, and directly

If you have seen marks on your teen’s arms, or found something that worried you, or heard something in a conversation that will not let you go — take it seriously, and please do not panic in front of them. Self-harm is more common than most parents realize and it usually has less to do with wanting to die than with trying to manage feelings that have nowhere else to go. It is treatable. It responds to therapy. And it does not mean you failed as a parent.

What it does mean is that your teen needs a room that is not their bedroom and a person who is not you, in addition to you. That is the room I try to be.

How sessions work

Sessions are 60 minutes, in English or Spanish, by secure video anywhere in Texas or in person in Laredo. The first session usually includes you. After that, most of the work is between me and your teen, with periodic check-ins so you are not in the dark. We set the privacy rules together, out loud, at the start, so nobody is surprised by them later.

Your teen does not need to know what is wrong before we start. Most of them do not. They only need to be willing to sit down once and see what it feels like. From there, we go slowly.