Dr. Ferrara has worked with children and adult survivors of abuse for over twenty years in CT, NY and FL. She is currently in private practice in Tampa, FL and affiliated with the University of South Florida as adjunct associate professor.
DR. F. FELICIA FERRARA: Hello. I'm Dr. Felicia, the parent coach. I've been working with families and children for over 25 years now so I've encountered many different social problems in the family. What we're going to talk about today is how to encourage your teenager to have a social life. This is a very difficult problem if you happen to have a child who is quiet, withdrawn or just wants to stay in their room and read a book. Well, other parents might pray for that. When you see it constantly, you'd become concerned as well. Okay. So some tips to do is, number one, try to get your child involved in an activity. Very often for the very shy child, if they have a task to work on in front of them, it makes talking to other people easier because they're talking about the task versus talking person to person. So if there's a club they can join, if it's Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, if it's a swim team, if it's a sailing club, dance club, whatever that might be, whatever the interest of the child is, try to get that teenager involved in that. Now if the task or joining a social club is too terrifying for the shy child, you can also suggest that they might do community work. Every child in high school usually has to accumulate so many community hours, so perhaps your child wants to volunteer for the hospital. So in fact, they're doing something for someone else. Maybe they want to volunteer to the senior center or volunteer to an orphanage or foster home. So whatever that activity is that they feel needed for, then you want to help them in that activity. What you can do is get information on all the activities you think your child might like and then actually sit down in a casual way with them and discuss each opportunity and see which it is that the child likes. And one last method is you can call a neighbor who has the same age child, a neighbor or a relative, and allow those children to meet one on one first and then both of them join these activities. That kind of gives an extra boost to confidence to children. Remember, all children need is one good friend and it's a heck of a confidence builder, and they're happy to go to school again or at least go out maybe to a movie or to some social event. So remember, select the different activities, it could be work-related, club-related, social activity or one on one with a friend. If you keep that in mind, your child will soon be running out the door, and you'll be sorry you ever started it. So good luck, mom and dad. We'll see you soon.
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