Supporting a young person who's struggling

When a young person you love is struggling, the instinct is to fix it — quickly, fully, before it gets worse. That instinct is care. It's also often the thing that gets in the way.

This is a short piece for parents, carers, and the other adults orbiting a young person's life. Not a manual. Just a few things we say often in the room.

Start with presence, not solutions

What young people often need first isn't an answer — it's a person who can stay near the difficulty without panicking.

• Sit alongside, not across from. Hard conversations often go better in the car, on a walk, doing dishes — anywhere eye contact is optional.
• Mirror before you fix. "That sounds really heavy" lands better than "have you tried...".
• Let silences be. Silence isn't failure. It often makes room for the next sentence.

Watch what you say to yourself

A young person reads the adults in their life more closely than we realise. Your tone with yourself becomes a permission structure for theirs.

• Notice when you catastrophise. A bad week is not a forecast.
• Notice when you minimise. "Everyone goes through this" can land as "your feelings aren't real."
• Stay curious about your own response. Sometimes the parts of their distress that are hardest for us are the parts that touch our own.

Look for the small things

Wellbeing in young people is often built — and rebuilt — in small, repeatable moments. The dramatic interventions are rarely the ones that hold.

• A consistent bedtime ritual, even one that's mostly silly.
• One meal eaten together most days.
• A bit of unstructured time outdoors, even fifteen minutes.
• One adult outside the family who knows them well enough to notice changes.

Know when to call in support

You don't have to do this alone, and you don't have to wait until things are dire. Reach out earlier than you think you should if:

• Your young person is talking about self-harm or wanting not to be here.
• Eating, sleeping, or school is shifting markedly over weeks, not days.
• You feel out of your depth — even if you can't quite name why.

If you're in immediate concern about safety, call 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. For ongoing support, a GP is a good first step — they can talk through whether a Mental Health Treatment Plan makes sense, which opens up rebated psychology sessions.

A note for you, the carer

The work of holding a young person through something hard is real work. It needs its own kind of looking-after. You're allowed to need support too — through a friend, your own therapist, or a parents' group.

If you'd like to talk through what's going on, we offer parent-focused sessions alongside our work with young people. Sometimes the most useful thing is to start with you.