Reply to Gap year ideas and recommendations for anxious/depressed teen?

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[quote=Anonymous]Op, we have a teen who took a gap year due to mental health issues. I don’t have lots of “this works” ideas, but some things to really consider for the year to be successful.

We thought a job would offer enough structure to the day, and it did in the sense that DC was able to get out of bed and get to work every day, and once they were there, the employer was happy with their performance. Unfortunately, DC was not able to get up without help on non-work days, and then struggled to get up for class when they went back to school. In hindsight (and what we are trying to convince our DC to do) is to work part-time and take a class at community college so they get in the habit/build the skill to get out of bed while still in a supervised environment. Part of the issue is that DC is not fully accepting that their was a “still” a problem because they were able to get up for work and told us they were just “tired” on the weekends.

DC continued to see their therapist weekly and psychiatrist monthly during the gap year, and no one ever recommended going more often. But I wish we had pushed for more therapy/PHP program/something more intensive to try to get a better handle on the mental health issues. I am not sure (from the mental health perspective) DC made as much progress as I would have hoped during the gap year. Even though we were uncertain about sending DC back after the gap year, at their university you can only defer for one year, so DC went back and then had to take a medical leave of absence. In hindsight, since the gap year was largely due to concerns about mental health (not maturity, necessarily) I wish we had more explicitly had DC work on that.

DC was pretty socially isolated during the gap year because their high school friends were off to college and (because they have motivation problems due to depression) they didn’t motivate to join any interest groups where they might have made friends. And then the lack of friends perpetuated the cycle of not getting out of bed/socializing. We have a good community, so made lots of connections for DC, but ultimately they didn’t motivate to do anything other than work.

In hindsight (and because we have the resources), I probably would have tried to get DC into a gap-year program which has some sort of therapeutic support - not even sure if these exist, but I felt like it would have been a better use of the gap year.

Wishing you and your DC the best! [/quote]

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