Resilience-Building Activities for Arizona Teens Recovering from Trauma
FACT CHECKED
The Nexus Teen Academy editorial and clinical team is dedicated to providing informative and accurate content to help families who are struggling with adolescent behavioral health problems. The editorial team works directly with the clinical team to ensure information is accurate and up-to-date.
To do this, our team uses the following editorial guidelines:
We generally only cite government and peer-reviewed studies
Scientific claims and data are backed by qualified sources
Content is updated to ensure we are citing the most up-to-date data and information
Clinically reviewed by Executive Director Hannah Carr-Unquera, LPC
Executive Director Hannah Carr-Unquera, LPC
Hannah graduated from Arizona State University with her Bachelor’s in Psychology and Master’s in Counseling and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Arizona. She began her work as a therapist 12 years ago in South Phoenix with an intensive outpatient program for teens and their families. She joined Nexus in the residential program as the clinical director, eventually being promoted to the executive director, creating and building the clinical program structure and a strong culture focused on redirecting the trajectory of young lives.
The Nexus Teen Academy Editorial Staff is composed of writers, editors, and clinical reviewers with many years of experience writing about mental health and behavioral health treatment. Our team utilizes peer-reviewed, clinical studies from sources like SAMHSA to ensure we provide the most accurate and current information.
According to studies, up to 43% of teenagers experience at least one traumatic event, with 5% developing PTSD. Trauma can occur at any age. However, it usually has more profound effects during adolescence due to the ongoing development of the teenage brain. If left unaddressed, traumatic events can lead to adverse effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the best ways to support adolescent trauma and prevent the occurrence of such conditions is through resilience-building activities.
Our teen mental health treatment center aims to help teens, parents, and families overcome mental health-related challenges. If your teen is struggling with trauma or PTSD, contact our team today and learn more about the treatment options offered at our residential health facility in Cave Creek, Arizona. Let’s learn more about trauma and resilience-building activities you can use to address these problems.
Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts on Adolescents
The American Psychological Association defines trauma as an emotional response to a terrible event. Traumatic events often leave teens feeling terrified and helpless. They also cause intense physical and psychological distress, this is because a traumatic event threatens the perceived safety of an individual’s life. Some common types of trauma experienced by teens include
Physical Trauma: Teen physical trauma arises from injuries sustained during accidents, bullying, sports, or violence. It has both physical and psychological effects.
Emotional Trauma: Emotional trauma from things like harassment, significant loss, grief, and more deeply impacts a teenager’s emotional well-being. It is common among teens subjected to abuse, violence, or neglect.
Sexual Trauma: Sexual trauma arises from uninvited sexual advances and acts. Such acts can cause intense emotional distress and overwhelming trust issues in teens.
Medical Trauma: Medical trauma is usually associated with serious illnesses, chronic conditions, and surgeries. It can cause problems such as fear and anxiety.
Consequences of Trauma on Adolescent Development
Experiencing a traumatic event can lead to many effects that impact your teen’s well-being, including:
Cause or worsen teen mental health conditions. These include anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Impair the teenager’s stress response system. This can cause future health challenges.
Make a teenager more vulnerable to risky behaviors and substance abuse.
Hinder cognitive development. This can lead to impaired problem-solving and decision-making skills.
The Role of Resilience in Trauma Recovery
Resilience refers to a person’s ability to cope with tough or stressful events. It allows individuals to stay strong when facing pain, grief, or uncertainty. Here are a few reasons resilient teens can overcome traumatic events easily:
Increase their capacity to bounce back from adversities.
Foster strong problem-solving and emotional regulation abilities.
Help teens maintain a positive outlook on life, making it easier to reframe experiences for personal growth.
Resilience empowers teens to navigate challenging experiences.
Key Resilience-Building Activities
Resilience, however, is not always an innate ability. Sometimes, a teen will naturally adopt a resilient mindset, and other times, activities will be required to develop a resilient framework. Let’s examine how teenagers can build physical, emotional, and social resilience.
Building Physical Resilience
Here are a few ways traumatized teens can enhance their physical resilience:
Engage in sporting activities. Besides building physical resilience, team sports foster teamwork, discipline, and social skills.
Engage in mindfulness and stress-relief activities, such as yoga, running, and martial arts.
Manage physical tension and stress through activities such as progressive muscle relaxation.
Eat a balanced diet rich in lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Avoid harmful substances such as drugs and alcohol.
Seek medical care for illnesses and injuries.
Monitor the body for any signs of illnesses or physical distress.
Building Emotional Resilience
Teens can build emotional resilience by improving their emotion regulation skills and cultivating a positive mindset.
Improving Emotion Regulation Skills
Reframe negative or irrational thoughts.
Engage in mindful exercises such as body scans and deep breathing.
Anticipate and prepare for emotional reactions. This requires early identification of triggers.
Use relaxation techniques, such as visualization exercises and progressive muscle relaxation.
Adopt healthy coping mechanisms. These include exercising regularly, exploring creative activities, and spending time with supportive friends.
Embrace self-care activities, such as adequate sleep and hobbies.
Teens can also improve their emotional regulation skills by openly discussing their emotions.
Cultivating a Positive Mindset
Practice gratitude. A good practice is keeping a gratitude journal and noting whatever they are thankful for daily.
Practice positive self-talk. Teens should replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations.
Spend time with positive and supportive friends.
Engage in activities that bring joy and fulfillment.
Identify and nurture positive attributes and strengths.
Perform acts of kindness towards others.
Limit exposure to negative influences.
Building Cognitive Resilience
Skills needed for improved cognitive resilience include problem-solving, decision-making, adaptability, flexible thinking, and goal-setting. Here are a few activities that can help teens build their cognitive resilience:
Journaling is a form of reflective writing that helps teens process emotions, understand challenges, and improve self-awareness, ultimately fostering cognitive resilience.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
During teen CBT sessions, teens learn techniques such as problem-solving and cognitive restructuring. These techniques are important in reframing negative thinking patterns and developing adaptive coping strategies.
Reading & Learning
Teens can improve their emotional resilience by pursuing courses, reading books, and exploring emotionally stimulating topics. Reading and learning activities not only expand knowledge but also improve mental resilience.
Brain Games and Puzzles
Teens can sharpen their cognitive skills through activities such as sudoku, logic games, and crossword puzzles. Such activities are great for memory, problem-solving, and attention.
Goal-Setting
Setting realistic goals and working towards them can help teens improve their cognitive resilience by offering a sense of purpose, motivation, and achievement.
Creative Activities
Activities such as painting, drawing, and writing encourage innovation, imagination, and cognitive flexibility. All of which can help teenagers develop and strengthen resilience.
Building Social Resilience
Traumatized teens may avoid certain social situations and interactions out of fear of triggering traumatic memories. Here are a few ways of helping them build their emotional resilience:
Building Healthy Relationships
Building healthy relationships requires excellent communication and conflict-resolution skills. To build such skills, traumatized teens should engage in activities that allow them to connect with others sharing similar experiences. These include team sports, volunteer work, and collaborative projects.
Developing a Support System
Teens can develop a support system by:
Identifying, joining, and participating in peer support groups. These offer a sense of belonging and shared experiences.
Engaging in the right mentorship programs for guidance and role modeling.
Teen’s Trauma-Focused Activities for Successful Recovery
Here are a few trauma-focused activities that can help traumatized teenagers build resilience:
Trauma Focuses Narrative and Expressive Therapies
Narrative therapy allows individuals to externalize their problems by talking about them. It can help teens gain perspective on their trauma and develop a sense of agency over their lives. By giving individuals a chance to construct positive, empowering narratives, this therapeutic technique can help adolescents process and integrate traumatic memories.
Expressive therapies encompass art, music, and movement therapies. They offer creative, nonverbal avenues for teens to explore and express their thoughts, emotions, and memories. Expressive therapies play an important role in resilience-building by providing avenues for enhanced emotional regulation.
Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) uses CBT techniques and trauma-specific interventions to address trauma-related thoughts, abnormal behaviors, and negative emotions. This therapeutic technique helps teens develop resilience in the following ways:
Teaches effective coping skills, including emotion regulation and problem-solving.
Fosters a sense of safety and empowerment.
Encourages adaptive cognitive restructuring.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing uses rapid rhythmic eye movements and other bilateral stimulations to help teens safely process and reprocess traumatic memories. It promotes resilience by empowering teens to develop healthier coping mechanisms and cultivate self-efficacy and mastery over traumatic memories. EMDR therapy for teens has been shown to improve PTSD diagnosis and reduce PTSD and trauma-related symptoms.
Implementing Resilience-Building Activities at Home and School
You can further support your teen and encourage them to build resilience in the home and school environments. This ensures that your teen is internalizing their coping strategies and using them in each setting they find themselves in.
At Home
You can implement resilience-building activities in your home environment by:
Teaching healthy and effective ways of coping with emotions. These include mindfulness, journaling, and deep breathing.
Allowing and encouraging your family members to express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns through non-judgmental listening.
Involving your children in problem-solving activities. Encourage them to weigh options, brainstorm solutions, and address challenges proactively.
Organizing and actively participating in family bonding activities to foster supportive family relationships.
Encouraging your family members to engage in self-care practices. These include getting adequate sleep, pursuing hobbies and interests, eating healthy, and exercising.
Helping your family members reflect on the positive aspects of their lives. This helps cultivate a sense of gratitude.
Challenging how your family members view failures. Encourage your teenager to view setbacks as resilience-building or personal development opportunities.
Helping your teens set realistic and achievable goals.
At School
Educators can implement resilience-building activities in the school environment by:
Sparing time for resilience-building activities such as mindfulness.
Integrating resilience concepts into subjects such as health education and literature.
Introducing comprehensive life skills programs. Recommended focus areas include coping strategies, problem-solving skills, and emotional regulation.
Encouraging teen support systems by establishing peer support or mentoring programs within the school.
Ensuring students’ participation in physical education classes. These can lead to reduced stress, a better mood, and improved resilience.
Creating opportunities for students to engage in volunteer work or community service projects.
Educating parents on the importance of resilience and how they can help their children improve it.
Providing counseling services for additional support in improving or developing mental resilience skills.
Providing opportunities for students to reflect on their experiences, challenges, and successes. Opportunities for self-reflection promote self-awareness and can help teens develop a growth mindset.
The Role of Treatment Centers in Arizona
Sometimes, your teen will require more than these resilience strategies, and you may wish to reach out for professional assistance and support. One such support option is a residential treatment center. Here are a few ways Arizona mental health treatment such as Nexus Teen Academy help teens navigate or overcome traumatic events:
Offering Comprehensive Trauma-Informed Care
Teen treatment centers strive to understand the teenager’s past and present life during mental health treatment for safe and effective healthcare services. Potential benefits of trauma-informed care include:
Improved patient engagement.
Enhanced treatment adherence.
Better overall outcomes.
A reduction in avoidable and excess costs.
Provider and staff wellness.
Individualized Treatment Planning
Treatment centers employ individualized treatment plans to address the nature and extent of a teenager’s trauma. Such plans also consider the teenager’s family dynamics and any existing maladaptive coping mechanisms. Evidence-based therapies, such as CBT and EMDR, are usually chosen during individualized treatment planning to address unique needs and preferences. Additionally, adjustments are made regularly for enhanced outcomes.
Provision of Experiential and Adventure-Based Therapies
The inclusion of experiential and adventure-based therapies in teen trauma treatment promotes resilience, self-reliance, and problem-solving. Such therapies may involve activities such as hiking, rock climbing, ziplining, and horse riding.
Ensuring Family Participation and Support
The family unit plays an important role in teen trauma treatment. At Nexus Teen Academy, we administer family therapy to enhance the teen’s support network. This therapeutic technique allows teens, parents, and family members to identify and address issues within familial patterns and dynamics.
Nexus Teen Academy’s Response to Resilience Building
At Nexus Teen Academy, our teen residential treatment center in Arizona helps clients improve mental resilience and overcome trauma through our PTSD and mental health treatment programs. Our expert clinicians offer evidence-based and holistic treatment methods to ensure that your son or daughter is getting a comprehensive approach to treatment and developing the skills they need to overcome their current challenges.
At Nexus, we understand the importance of parents’ and caregivers’ involvement in treatment planning, monitoring, and adjustment. We offer family psychoeducation sessions to help family members learn more about their teenager’s condition. We also offer scheduled family time every week in a non-clinical setting to ensure that you and your teen can spend quality time together during the healing process.
At Nexus Teen Academy, we offer adolescents and families struggling with mental health disorders personalized treatment, support, and resources. Most importantly, we recognize the prevalence of trauma in teens. Therefore, all our interventions and programs are trauma-informed for improved treatment outcomes. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need help with teen trauma.
Resilience can help teens recovering from trauma navigate adversity, bounce back easily from setbacks, and rebuild their lives. In the long run, it enhances emotional well-being and self-confidence during trauma recovery.
Teens have no set duration to engage in resilience-building activities before seeing results. However, they should be consistent. Results may be visible within weeks to months.
No. Resilience-building activities should be used alongside therapy. Remember, while such activities prepare individuals for challenges and adversity, teenagers still need therapy to address underlying issues.
Here is what you should do if your teen shows disinterest in resilience-building activities:
Strive to understand the reasons behind their reluctance or disinterest. Give them time and space to explain themselves and listen without judgment.
Gently reiterate the benefits of resilience-building activities. Highlight how such activities may help them recover from traumatic events and adversities.
If they are hesitant even after talking to them, do not pressure or coerce them. It’s advisable not to undermine their autonomy and decision-making.
Explore alternative ways to help them heal and improve. These can be therapy, support groups, and creative outlets. Ensure that whatever you choose aligns with their interests and preferences.
Gently but persistently encourage them to explore new growth and healing opportunities.
You can also seek professional help if their disinterest persists or upon noticing signs of significant distress.
Here is how you can encourage your teenager to continue engaging in resilience-building activities:
Be a good role model. Consistently engage in relevant resilience-building activities, such as self-care practices.
Support your teen in their resilience-building journey. Start by creating a safe and open environment where they can discuss their needs, concerns, and preferences.
Help them set realistic and achievable goals for their resilience-building journey. If they meet such goals, they will be more motivated to continue.
Acknowledge and celebrate their progress, efforts, and achievements in their resilience-building journey.
Furnish them with appropriate resilience-building resources.
Support their evolving needs and interests. This requires a high degree of flexibility and adaptability.
Continuously remind them of the long-term benefits of resilience-building activities. Help them understand how they can help them navigate challenges and thrive in the future.
Here is how we customize resilience-building activities for different teens at Nexus Teen Academy:
Assessments and evaluations to understand their strengths, challenges, and interests. This often involves working closely with parents and caregivers.
Create personalized treatment plans based on a thorough assessment. Such plans incorporate resilience-building activities aligned with the teenager’s needs and goals.
Offer a range of activities to act as alternatives in case of disinterest. These include outdoor experiences, therapies, skill-building workshops, and group discussions.
Adapt activities based on their evolving needs and feedback.
Integrate resilience-building activities into alternative therapies and holistic treatment approaches.
Monitor progress and make necessary adjustments.
Prepare age-appropriate skill-building programs and resilience-building techniques.
Executive Director Hannah Carr-Unquera, LPC and Nexus Teen Academy
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Resilience-Building Activities for Arizona Teens Recovering from Trauma
FACT CHECKED
The Nexus Teen Academy editorial and clinical team is dedicated to providing informative and accurate content to help families who are struggling with adolescent behavioral health problems. The editorial team works directly with the clinical team to ensure information is accurate and up-to-date.
To do this, our team uses the following editorial guidelines:
Clinically reviewed by Executive Director Hannah Carr-Unquera, LPC
Executive Director Hannah Carr-Unquera, LPC
Hannah graduated from Arizona State University with her Bachelor’s in Psychology and Master’s in Counseling and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Arizona. She began her work as a therapist 12 years ago in South Phoenix with an intensive outpatient program for teens and their families. She joined Nexus in the residential program as the clinical director, eventually being promoted to the executive director, creating and building the clinical program structure and a strong culture focused on redirecting the trajectory of young lives.
Published By Nexus Teen Academy
Nexus Teen Academy
The Nexus Teen Academy Editorial Staff is composed of writers, editors, and clinical reviewers with many years of experience writing about mental health and behavioral health treatment. Our team utilizes peer-reviewed, clinical studies from sources like SAMHSA to ensure we provide the most accurate and current information.
Published On May 3, 2024
Table of Contents
According to studies, up to 43% of teenagers experience at least one traumatic event, with 5% developing PTSD. Trauma can occur at any age. However, it usually has more profound effects during adolescence due to the ongoing development of the teenage brain. If left unaddressed, traumatic events can lead to adverse effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the best ways to support adolescent trauma and prevent the occurrence of such conditions is through resilience-building activities.
Our teen mental health treatment center aims to help teens, parents, and families overcome mental health-related challenges. If your teen is struggling with trauma or PTSD, contact our team today and learn more about the treatment options offered at our residential health facility in Cave Creek, Arizona. Let’s learn more about trauma and resilience-building activities you can use to address these problems.
Understanding Trauma and Its Impacts on Adolescents
The American Psychological Association defines trauma as an emotional response to a terrible event. Traumatic events often leave teens feeling terrified and helpless. They also cause intense physical and psychological distress, this is because a traumatic event threatens the perceived safety of an individual’s life. Some common types of trauma experienced by teens include
Consequences of Trauma on Adolescent Development
Experiencing a traumatic event can lead to many effects that impact your teen’s well-being, including:
The Role of Resilience in Trauma Recovery
Resilience refers to a person’s ability to cope with tough or stressful events. It allows individuals to stay strong when facing pain, grief, or uncertainty. Here are a few reasons resilient teens can overcome traumatic events easily:
Resilience empowers teens to navigate challenging experiences.
Key Resilience-Building Activities
Resilience, however, is not always an innate ability. Sometimes, a teen will naturally adopt a resilient mindset, and other times, activities will be required to develop a resilient framework. Let’s examine how teenagers can build physical, emotional, and social resilience.
Building Physical Resilience
Here are a few ways traumatized teens can enhance their physical resilience:
Building Emotional Resilience
Teens can build emotional resilience by improving their emotion regulation skills and cultivating a positive mindset.
Improving Emotion Regulation Skills
Teens can also improve their emotional regulation skills by openly discussing their emotions.
Cultivating a Positive Mindset
Building Cognitive Resilience
Skills needed for improved cognitive resilience include problem-solving, decision-making, adaptability, flexible thinking, and goal-setting. Here are a few activities that can help teens build their cognitive resilience:
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation exercises allow teens to stay strong and resilient by enhancing their present-moment awareness. They also help with emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility.
Journaling
Journaling is a form of reflective writing that helps teens process emotions, understand challenges, and improve self-awareness, ultimately fostering cognitive resilience.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
During teen CBT sessions, teens learn techniques such as problem-solving and cognitive restructuring. These techniques are important in reframing negative thinking patterns and developing adaptive coping strategies.
Reading & Learning
Teens can improve their emotional resilience by pursuing courses, reading books, and exploring emotionally stimulating topics. Reading and learning activities not only expand knowledge but also improve mental resilience.
Brain Games and Puzzles
Teens can sharpen their cognitive skills through activities such as sudoku, logic games, and crossword puzzles. Such activities are great for memory, problem-solving, and attention.
Goal-Setting
Setting realistic goals and working towards them can help teens improve their cognitive resilience by offering a sense of purpose, motivation, and achievement.
Creative Activities
Activities such as painting, drawing, and writing encourage innovation, imagination, and cognitive flexibility. All of which can help teenagers develop and strengthen resilience.
Building Social Resilience
Traumatized teens may avoid certain social situations and interactions out of fear of triggering traumatic memories. Here are a few ways of helping them build their emotional resilience:
Building Healthy Relationships
Building healthy relationships requires excellent communication and conflict-resolution skills. To build such skills, traumatized teens should engage in activities that allow them to connect with others sharing similar experiences. These include team sports, volunteer work, and collaborative projects.
Developing a Support System
Teens can develop a support system by:
Teen’s Trauma-Focused Activities for Successful Recovery
Here are a few trauma-focused activities that can help traumatized teenagers build resilience:
Trauma Focuses Narrative and Expressive Therapies
Narrative therapy allows individuals to externalize their problems by talking about them. It can help teens gain perspective on their trauma and develop a sense of agency over their lives. By giving individuals a chance to construct positive, empowering narratives, this therapeutic technique can help adolescents process and integrate traumatic memories.
Expressive therapies encompass art, music, and movement therapies. They offer creative, nonverbal avenues for teens to explore and express their thoughts, emotions, and memories. Expressive therapies play an important role in resilience-building by providing avenues for enhanced emotional regulation.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) uses CBT techniques and trauma-specific interventions to address trauma-related thoughts, abnormal behaviors, and negative emotions. This therapeutic technique helps teens develop resilience in the following ways:
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing uses rapid rhythmic eye movements and other bilateral stimulations to help teens safely process and reprocess traumatic memories. It promotes resilience by empowering teens to develop healthier coping mechanisms and cultivate self-efficacy and mastery over traumatic memories. EMDR therapy for teens has been shown to improve PTSD diagnosis and reduce PTSD and trauma-related symptoms.
Implementing Resilience-Building Activities at Home and School
You can further support your teen and encourage them to build resilience in the home and school environments. This ensures that your teen is internalizing their coping strategies and using them in each setting they find themselves in.
At Home
You can implement resilience-building activities in your home environment by:
At School
Educators can implement resilience-building activities in the school environment by:
The Role of Treatment Centers in Arizona
Sometimes, your teen will require more than these resilience strategies, and you may wish to reach out for professional assistance and support. One such support option is a residential treatment center. Here are a few ways Arizona mental health treatment such as Nexus Teen Academy help teens navigate or overcome traumatic events:
Offering Comprehensive Trauma-Informed Care
Teen treatment centers strive to understand the teenager’s past and present life during mental health treatment for safe and effective healthcare services. Potential benefits of trauma-informed care include:
Individualized Treatment Planning
Treatment centers employ individualized treatment plans to address the nature and extent of a teenager’s trauma. Such plans also consider the teenager’s family dynamics and any existing maladaptive coping mechanisms. Evidence-based therapies, such as CBT and EMDR, are usually chosen during individualized treatment planning to address unique needs and preferences. Additionally, adjustments are made regularly for enhanced outcomes.
Provision of Experiential and Adventure-Based Therapies
The inclusion of experiential and adventure-based therapies in teen trauma treatment promotes resilience, self-reliance, and problem-solving. Such therapies may involve activities such as hiking, rock climbing, ziplining, and horse riding.
Ensuring Family Participation and Support
The family unit plays an important role in teen trauma treatment. At Nexus Teen Academy, we administer family therapy to enhance the teen’s support network. This therapeutic technique allows teens, parents, and family members to identify and address issues within familial patterns and dynamics.
Nexus Teen Academy’s Response to Resilience Building
At Nexus Teen Academy, our teen residential treatment center in Arizona helps clients improve mental resilience and overcome trauma through our PTSD and mental health treatment programs. Our expert clinicians offer evidence-based and holistic treatment methods to ensure that your son or daughter is getting a comprehensive approach to treatment and developing the skills they need to overcome their current challenges.
At Nexus, we understand the importance of parents’ and caregivers’ involvement in treatment planning, monitoring, and adjustment. We offer family psychoeducation sessions to help family members learn more about their teenager’s condition. We also offer scheduled family time every week in a non-clinical setting to ensure that you and your teen can spend quality time together during the healing process.
At Nexus Teen Academy, we offer adolescents and families struggling with mental health disorders personalized treatment, support, and resources. Most importantly, we recognize the prevalence of trauma in teens. Therefore, all our interventions and programs are trauma-informed for improved treatment outcomes. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need help with teen trauma.
Frequently Asked Questions
Resilience can help teens recovering from trauma navigate adversity, bounce back easily from setbacks, and rebuild their lives. In the long run, it enhances emotional well-being and self-confidence during trauma recovery.
Teens have no set duration to engage in resilience-building activities before seeing results. However, they should be consistent. Results may be visible within weeks to months.
No. Resilience-building activities should be used alongside therapy. Remember, while such activities prepare individuals for challenges and adversity, teenagers still need therapy to address underlying issues.
Here are a few signs you’ll observe when your teenager starts benefitting from resilience-building activities:
Here is what you should do if your teen shows disinterest in resilience-building activities:
You can also seek professional help if their disinterest persists or upon noticing signs of significant distress.
Here are a few resilience-building activities teenagers can do on their own:
Here is how you can encourage your teenager to continue engaging in resilience-building activities:
Here is how we customize resilience-building activities for different teens at Nexus Teen Academy: