Introduction

Adolescents are susceptible to stress and adjustment difficulties because of the high risk development stage. Therefore, effective strategies need to be considered to counter the social pressure that comes with the stage. The strategy should improve the cognitive and emotional abilities to cope with stress and adjustment disorders. In this article, I highlight interventions that are effective in addressing this issue affecting young people.

Evidence-based intervention

The main issue in the discussion is an adolescent who is trying to adjust to a new life with physical changes in her body. Simply the adjustment issue is associated with low self-esteem. In this case, it is vital to consider cognitive behavioral therapy to the kid. This therapy helps one to identify and overcome unhelpful thoughts and to learn new self-help strategies to overcome overwhelming thoughts. The strategies will bring in positive changes to the life of the Person involved.

For this scenario, the child involved need to accept her looks without outing into consideration what people and other children think about her. For this kind of therapy both the child and therapist are required to come up with goals that they should target throughout the treatment with the help of a parent. Cognitive behavioral therapy is divided into different categories including CBT with parents, CBT with medication, individual CBT and group CBT. This child needs to understand that the physical factors should not interfere with her daily activities. She also needs to be put together with other children with the same issue.

Therefore, group CBT will be the most effective intervention since it will open her to other children trying to cope with the same problems. Also as a counselor, it is vital to involve the parent when giving therapy to the child. This will be helpful since it is the parent who spends most of the time with the child. They will gain knowledge on how to deal with the child and learn what advice is suitable to make the child accept their current situation. Henceforth this will serve as the best intervention method to deal with this child to raise her self-esteem and gain self-love. She will gain more confidence to face the world.

Addressing family, culture or social factors

CBT is a susceptible form of intervention when it comes to families, different cultures and other social factors. This is because different people have different beliefs depending on their origin. The way you address a certain issue in one family will be different from how you do it in another family. In this case, the culture involved lacks good moral values; simply the culture is not healthy.

There is a lot of improvement required for this culture to accommodate people with disabilities or other physical issues comfortably. No matter how the family supports one strongly, it is stressful for that child to cope in such a situation where the people around her are more likely to judge on her looks. In my CBT intervention, I would address the social factors to be very weak and not favorable for adolescents. The main reason is that adolescents are very sensitive to changes around them; most have low self-esteem when affected physically. Families should take the initiative of educating their children on how to deal with such issues in society as this will make it comfortable for children with esteem issues cope in the environment.

Ways of educating parents

As a counselor, it is vital to ensure that the parents are doing well in ensuring that their children cope with stress. This is because children tend to spend most of their time with their parents. Firstly I will print guidance materials and give them to the parents. These printed materials will include all the information that the parents need to know about dealing with adolescents who are under stress. This will help the parent to be ahead of the happenings around their children. With a well-outlined material, the parents will have an easier time to check for information from the handouts rather than visiting my facility all the time. Secondly, I would focus on offering free training to the parents. In most incidences, you will find that parents are not able to cope with the changes experienced by their children. In training, I will focus on inspiring parents on how to stay strong and how to recognize behavioral changes in their children. Solving issues facing adolescents begins by educating parent and the community on how to deal with children since they are very sensitive to petty issues.

Conclusion

Indeed, evidence-based approaches such as the cognitive behavioral therapy avail a platform that allows the counselor to address family, cultural and social factors that affect the individual is a crucial first step to address the issues that affect the adolescents. The involvement of parents in the intervention is a more effective strategy as it allows the arising issues to be solved from home.