Everybody has been there. Everyone knows how teens think and what they’re up to. Being a teen is stressful, but so can having one in the house too.
Dr. Silvina Irwin will be tackling the issue with her talk, “Managing the Stress of Having a Teen in the House” this November 19, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. as part of Fusion Academy’s Open House & Speaker Series.
Irwin is a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery, relationship distress, depression, and anxiety. In her Pasadena practice she works individuals, couples and families.
After completing her clinical training at Harvard Medical School, Irwin received her PhD at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She then did her post-doctoral training and then remained as a staff psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco.
When it comes to living with teens, Irwin says, “It can be challenging, maddening, confusing, and scary. Yeah, it can be a difficult time for families and parents and also for adolescents themselves.”
Irwin explains that she has goals in her upcoming talk. “One, I want to impart some information to parents about what is happening under the hood of the adolescence experience. So literally, what’s happening neuro-biologically to help us understand some of the changes that parents see in their kids,” she says.
By offering information that parents can hold on to in order to understand the changes in adolescents from a neuro-biological perspective, Irwin hopes that all the research and information available today will help parents “understand some of the emotional changes, the mood changes, the impulsivity, the behavior changes” of teens today.
The second of Irwin’s goals, is to “offer some approaches and strategies to deal with crisis and conflicts with their teens.” She says, “I want to discuss the general parenting style and what we know is the most effective type of approach to working with teenagers.”
Finally, Irwin will also tackle parent self-care. By “recognizing that when you have a teen in the house, oftentimes parents are hitting mid-life, medical issues come up, they aging parents; so many other things are happening in their lives.” Parents must realize how important it is to acknowledge and pay attention to all the other things happening and take care of themselves “so that you can be a resource more for your kids and have more gut in the tank to be able to do that at home.”
The talk can also help parents become emotionally attuned to teen children. According to Irwin, can help the children become close and feel safe with parents.
“It’s about the safety in the relationship and that’s what they gravitate to,” she explains.
The series is free but space is limited, so please RSVP at http://www.fusionacademy.com/outreach-events/open-house-speaker-series-2/.
Fusion Academy is a fully accredited, private, middle and high school where all classes are taught one to one. After more than twenty years of helping students succeed in the San Diego area, Fusion opened its Pasadena campus in 2012. To learn more about why one to one works, please contact Candace Siegle at (323) 258-2012, or [email protected].
