1) Ask others you know about any experience they have had seeking counseling for their teenager. Several sources of first hand experience with counseling and with particular counselors can prove highly valuable.

2) Look in the Yellow Pages under "Marriage, Family, Child, & Individual Counselors". Also, see under "Counselors", "Psychologists", and "Psychotherapists". For drug and alcohol counselors, look under "Drug Abuse", and "Alcohol Information". Psychiatrists are listed under "Physicians & Surgeons - Psychiatry".

3) Call several potential counselors, and find out about their credentials and experience. North Carolina licensure in the helping professions requires a Master’s degree and several years of supervised experience as a minimum. Then ask for a face to face consultation to get a feel for how effective they would be. Some counselors may offer this without cost. Ask about their counseling approach and why they feel it is best, how effective they have been in dealing with your child’s specific concern, and what goals and strategies will be established to inform you about what you will be working on and when you will be finished.

4) Find a counselor with lots of experience working with adolescents. Be sure they are trained in family therapy and will encourage family members to attend, as this approach often proves most effective with teens.

If you are you having difficulty talking to your teenage son, you certainly are not alone. Our culture has taught boys to compete rather than to relate. When they struggle with personal issues, rather than expressing and sharing these difficult feelings, most boys have learned to either push them away, turn them into anger, or act them out aggressively. Nonetheless, boys have an innate need to express their emotions in a more healthy, genuine, and satisfying way than through anger and aggression. If provided an opportunity to express themselves in a safe and confidential setting, most boys will open up and share their feelings. And although some may open up more easily to a woman, I have found that boys also will readily talk to a man if provided the opportunity. To get boys to open up and talk to you, try this six step strategy:

1) Give them space - Boys need to be respected for the genuine difficulty they have in sharing feelings, and giving them space and time when you first sense something is wrong provides essential respect for this need. Don't ask them right away what is wrong, as this will only emphasize their own sense of weakness and inadequacy, and will drive them away. Showing your care and concern with small, simple actions rather than words will go a long way initially in setting the stage for later conversations.

2) Wait for a signal - When they realize they have a sympathetic parent or other adult ready and willing to listen, most boys will let them know they need to talk. Remember, very likely they will not come right out and ask for this. Instead, they will give some kind of signal that they are ready, and you will be expected to pick up on it and move to the next step. Trust your gut feelings to know when they are ready to talk.

3) Join them in a private space - If boys have difficulty sharing personal feelings and experiences, they certainly are not going to talk if anyone else is around. They need private space where they know no one else will be listening. In their room, in the car while on a drive, or at some other non-public place often works well. After you have gotten the signal, invite them to go with you somewhere in a casual way works best.

4) Start with open ended statements - This is where patience and tact come in. Boys will most often respond defensively to blunt, straight out questions, and you can expect them to deny your specific inquiry. Remember, if you are wrong in your initial assumption, your question will instantly turn them off by indicating you don't understand them. Instead, open ended statements such as, "You seem upset today", or "I get a feeling you're not happy about something" leave a lot of room for a boy to respond.

5) Give them time and space to respond - If you expect an instant response, you may be disappointed. Especially if you have not had this kind of conversation before, you will need to provide plenty of space for a response. The immediate response is not important at this point; communicating a willingness to listen and to make an effort to understand without judgments is most central here. They need for you to move along at their speed, not yours. If you get no answer, you can always try again later.

6) When they do talk, listen - This sounds silly to say, but too often as parents we are so invested in helping our children that we forget to stop teaching and directing them long enough to just listen to them. You can assure them that you are listening by: a) not doing anything else except just being there with them, b) making good eye contact and giving short responses that indicate you are still listening, c) clarifying what they have said by paraphrasing such as, "So your saying …", and d) validating the feelings they are expressing with statements such as, "Sounds like you were really upset when that happened".

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