Therapy in Georgetown, TX Builds Top 10 Teen Skills to Land a First Job
Teen Therapy Georgetown, TX Builds Self-Confidence and Skills to Support Landing a First Job
It’s summer as I’m writing this. Some teens are off to camp, some are sleeping in until noon, and some of seeking their first job. Here at GTX Teen Therapy, where I provide individual therapy in Georgetown, TX, one of the goals as I work with any teen is to support them in building healthy autonomy. Many parents want to see their teen find internal motivation to engage in tasks such as driving and working as they get into their older adolescent years. Autonomy and teen therapy in Georgetown, TX go hand in hand. As a teen attends therapy, they learn many skills which they can then transfer to life outside of the therapy space, such as work and driving. Below are ten skills teens learn in therapy Georgetown, TX that will support them in landing that first job.
Goal-setting
First and foremost, your teen learns to set goals in while in therapy Georgetown, TX. In fact, setting goals starts even before they get into the therapy room with me. From the very first time I talk to your teen, I ask them, “if you look three months or six months down the road what will be different? How will you know therapy is working?” Many teens aren’t able to answer this question during the first call, and that’s totally okay! Part of the process of therapy is determining those goals together and supporting your teen to set them for themself.
How does this relate to landing a first job? Goal setting is a critical part of the process. To land a job, your teen first has to have the goal of wanting to work or earn money. Once they have this goal, they’ll need to start with the end in mind and work backwards to determine the steps it will take to get there.
2) Planning
In teen therapy Georgetown, TX, my goal is not to have your teen attend therapy forever. To that end, I work to create a plan with your teen about the journey of our work together, check in along the way to get feedback, and go back to the drawing board for additional planning if something needs to change.
The same is true as your teen begins a job search. The plan may require them to think about their likes and dislikes, interests, and earning goals. As they determine those things, they’ll need to plan where to apply, how to complete applications, and when it’s appropriate to follow-up on their submitted application. Just like in therapy, this all takes planning, which is a great life skill!
3) Decision-Making
When I start working with many teens in therapy Georgetown, TX, they often are unable to make decisions. They may shrug their shoulders, say “I don’t know”, or grunt in response. Many teens aren’t practiced in making decisions, because the adults around them are making them all for them! All of our structures are built from an adult point of view: what time school starts, what classes and extracurricular activities are offered, what to eat. Sometimes the issue may simply be too many choices, which can lead to overwhelm, decision fatigue, or decision paralysis, especially in neurodivergent teens. Teens then may simply go along with what they’re told. But most parents I know want their teen to think for themself and build their own internal motivation to decide what they want and how they’ll get there.
Take looking for a job. In a teen therapy session in Georgetown, TX, I support teens to practice the skill of decision-making to determine: how many days a week they’d like to be working, how much money they’d like to earn, whether they’d like to work in food, retail, or something else, what time of day they’d prefer to be working, and more! When they’re not sure, I help provide them with enough information so they can make a choice. And if they still can’t decide, I have some nifty tricks up my sleeve to help their brain reach a decision, like bilateral brain stimulation, where I get both sides of their brain talking to one another to build that cross-brain connection, which helps in skills like decision-making.
4) Prioritizing
All those decisions are great, you may be thinking. But what if a teen makes a lot of decisions that may be difficult to piece together to achieve their goal? For example, they want to work one day a week, earning $20 per hour, and never work weekends. It’s great to have a dream or stretch idea, and part of the process of achieving a goal, like landing a first job, is determining how to prioritize what’s important. As in therapy, where we discuss a teen’s goals for our work together, set a plan, make decisions about what to focus on, we also prioritize what issue feels most impactful and what they want to work on first.
When thinking about landing a first job, your teen will likely have to prioritize what is most important to them: the amount they’re earning, the schedule, the type of job, or the culture of the company. When landing a job, especially if it’s their first job, everything they want may not be possible right away. Figuring out their values, and prioritizing what’s important for them is part of the process and one they’re already practicing in therapy.
5) Persistence
One of the things I tell teens and parents during the very first initial phone call is change in teen therapy Georgetown, TX isn’t always obvious at first. And often, things will get worse before they get better. There’s many reasons for this, which I’ll cover in a different post, but for now, suffice it to say, therapy takes persistence. Showing up every week, even when a teen doesn’t want to, isn’t sure what they’re going to talk about, or may not want to “go there” is hard work. Being in therapy develops persistence by allowing space to sit with what is and move through it at a pace that requires meeting their growth edge. Therapy isn’t always comfortable or easy, and building that persistence muscle by attending consistently, leads to the ability to do so in other areas of a teen’s life.
The same is true in a job search. Your teen may need to apply for five, ten, or even twenty jobs before they land an interview and eventually a job. It can be discouraging to keep applying and not get a call back or get an interview and not land a job. Staying connected to one’s values and finding a right fit is also an important consideration, and the first job offer many not meet the criteria. All those persistence skills built up over time in therapy will certainly help a teen get through the tedious and emotional experience of landing a first job.
6) Time management
Therapy sessions in Georgetown, TX are bound by time constraints. The reasons for this are mainly due to managed care, which require a “45-minute” therapy session to last between 38-52 minutes for billing purposes. Aside from those structural issues that impact the therapy session, being bound by time is helpful in a world where teens are expected to show up on time and learn to manage their time appropriately. For the older teens I work with who are driving themself to sessions, they are learning how to show up at a scheduled time, on-time. During sessions, I often mark the passage of time to support teen clients to manage their session time by prioritizing what they want to spend the most time on during session and then prepare to transition out of session.
Time management seems like a given when you’re talking about landing a first job. A teen has to respond in a timely manner to any phone calls or requests for interviews. They have to schedule their interview and show up at the proper place and time. And during the interview they have to manage their time, so they can share what’s important and relevant to landing the job. Not to mention all the time management skills required once they do land the job!
7) Negotiating their Needs
Teens in therapy Georgetown, TX are constantly being invited by me to negotiate their needs. I want teens to identify what their needs are and learn to negotiate them with the people around them. It starts with simple things, like asking for a snack (identifying the sensation of hunger), using the bathroom during session (responding to bodily sensations), or passing during a card game (giving a respectful “no”). While these might seem insignificant, they are an important part of teen development, because negotiating the big needs (i.e. consent, peer pressure, social media) starts with the small needs (i.e. getting a snack or going to the bathroom).
In a job search, a teen has to negotiate their own needs around energy, schedule, summer routine, and bandwidth for doing new things while balancing the urgency to get a job, be working, and earn money. For neurodivergent teens, they may need to negotiate needs around scheduling of the interview, sensory preferences on the job, or how they receive communication. These are big topics that many adults don’t feel competent in yet! How great that your teen is practicing these things in therapy Georgetown, TX.
8) Self-Advocacy
I do not always do or say the right thing in teen therapy Georgetown, TX. And when I don’t I love it when my clients hold me accountable and call me on it. During a feedback conversation, which occur at regular intervals during the journey of therapy, I invite your teen to let me know what they’d like more or less of during sessions, what they like or don’t like in sessions, and whether they’re ready to decrease the frequency or sessions or move toward completing this season of therapy. When teens use their voice to advocate for themself, it helps them grow confidence from within.
During a job search, a teen has several opportunities to practice these self-advocacy skills they’ve been growing in therapy Georgetown, TX. For example, if the potential employer wants to interview them on Tuesday afternoon, but that’s the same time as their therapy session, they have the opportunity to self-advocate with the employer to meet at a different day and time. If a teen has previous work experience, and they’re looking to land a new job, they may have a foundation to self-advocate for a raise at their current position or to start out at a higher level with the new employer based on their past experience.
9) Communication
From what the pay is, to the required schedule, to the anticipated tasks of the job, there are LOTS of opportunities to practice communication skills during the job search and then in a first job. While teens are constantly communicating (online, nonverbally, and otherwise), sometimes, they lack confidence on talking to strangers, adults, or professional type authority figures.
Teen therapy in Georgetown, TX offers a chance to practice those communication skills with a stranger (their new therapist!), in a new environment, and with an adult in a professional/authority type setting. They will practice skills like making appropriate eye contact, using assertive communication, and being able to ask for help, which are important skills for life.
10) Grit
One definition of grit is having courage or resolve. I think of grit as doing something even when it gets hard. Job searches can be really defeating. It doesn’t feel great to submit twenty job applications and never get a call back. Or how about when your teen finally lands an interview only to hear, “we went with someone else” or they never end up hearing back at all. Talk about discouraging. Even with all the challenges of the job search, continuing the search is totally worth it to arrive at that sweet, sweet reward: landing the first job (and more importantly that first paycheck!).
Just like in life, in the job search, your teen will have to find the courage and resolve to keep trying even when things get hard. And that’s exactly what happens in therapy in Georgetown, TX too! Your teen will be showing up once a week, sitting across from me, their therapist, and having the courage and resolve to talk about what's going on inside. What a great time to practice grit...in the safe space of a therapy room, where they’re allowed to be themself, make mistakes, and learn and grow in a fun way.
A Free Consultation with a Teen Therapist in Georgetown, TX
As you can see, the therapy process helps a ton with the skills your teen needs to land their first (second or third) job!
If you’re ready to connect with me to see if I’m a right fit for working with your teen for individual therapy in Georgetown, TX, call me for a FREE 15-minute consultation at 737-808-4888 or schedule your consult here. We’ll discuss my style, what you and your teen are looking for, and if I’m the right fit to help your teen practice skills of goal-setting, communication, and grit as they navigate the job search process with ease and confidence from within.
Picture Credit: JackF from Getty Images