Senior Year of High School: How to Help Your Teen Thrive

Senior Year of High School: How to Help Your Teen Thrive

Senior year is a transitional period for adolescents when they move from the high school that they’ve known into the adult world. As such, senior year can be the most stressful and difficult to navigate. The good news? They have you to guide and support them during this tumultuous time! If you want to help your teen thrive during their final year in high school and set them up for success, here are some tips on how to make this transition easier for them.

If the pressure feels insurmountable, give them counseling support.

Although many teachers may say that high school is far easier than college, young adults can face a great deal of stress as they work to secure their futures. For some, this stress can lead to serious mental health issues that impact their quality of life. This may come in the form of an anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, or an eating disorder. As a parent, it’s important to monitor their well-being to watch for depression symptoms or anxiety symptoms like being on edge, withdrawing from friends and family, sleeping or eating more or less than normal, or making concerning statements about death (which needs to be addressed immediately).

If you identify symptoms of anxiety and depression in teens in your own child, take the first step and reach out for help. Counselors and psychiatrists can treat teen depression and other mood disorders by utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy, offering them healthy coping mechanisms, and providing them with prescription medication to treat their mental illness (if applicable). With a supportive treatment plan and continued care, your teen will be provided with the tools and help needed to move forward in their lives successfully.

Provide them with the support they need to navigate the future.

In today’s world, we expect high school students to be ready for adulthood as soon as they leave the home. However, a few months in between high school and college simply isn’t enough time to grow up and become independent. It’s the parent’s responsibility to give them the tools they need to navigate adulthood. The most important thing that you should focus on is teaching them life skills like how to manage their time, be financially responsible, and set goals. These may seem obvious to those who have been doing it for a significant amount of time, but most teens go into adulthood without any of these skills.

If college is in your child’s future, you can also enlist the help of top college counseling services to improve their chances of getting into their dream school. College admissions consultants help college applicants with items like their college essay and interview prep, offer test prep so that they can get the test scores they need to get into top-tier schools, and even match them with internship opportunities to get them off to an excellent start. The more support your teen has, the better off they will be.

Help them improve their academics with a tutoring service.

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No matter how many extracurricular activities you have or how smart you are, admissions offices won’t look twice if you don’t have the right academics to prove that you can join the ranks of other college students. If your teen is having a hard time keeping their grades up this year, reach out to online tutoring services that can help them understand the material in the areas where they’re struggling. With a little extra support, they can improve their academic performance over time.

Teens in their senior year of high school have to balance school, work, college prep, and other responsibilities all at the same time. The truth is that the weight of all these expectations can be crushing. If you want your child to thrive as they transition out of this final year of adolescence, use the guide above to give your child all the support they need to succeed.

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