Middle school is a time of incredible challenge for young girls, even under the best of circumstances. You would be hard pressed to find many adults who would willingly revisit their own middle school years, and for good reason. Around ages 10 or 11 the very important developmental process of transitioning from childhood toward adolescence begins, bringing with it monumental changes in both the internal and external worlds of the developing person.
Navigating Adolescence: Empowering Young Girls Through Nature-Based Therapy
Regan Adair, LMSW
Challenges for Middle Schoolers and Preteens
The job of a child emerging into adolescence is to begin to transition from wholly reliant on the parents as role models and guides, toward increasing interest in their peers. Great confusion can come alongside this shift, as young people seek to find balance between their desires to connect with same-age peers, and their need for guidance from healthy adults. Changes in the brains and bodies of middle schoolers complicate matters even further, and the influx of so much change, for some children, can lead to significant emotional and behavioral challenges.
The Transition into Adolescence
I am so lucky to work with girls who are bursting at the seams with talent. They are kind and courageous. They are artists, musicians, athletes. They tell funny jokes and creative stories. They have been great students, helpful siblings, advocates, and animal lovers. They have won awards, broken down barriers, and inspired others. It would be impossible for me to list all of the wonderful qualities I have witnessed in the girls I have worked with, but they all have one thing in common- adolescence has exacerbated challenges in their lives and they have struggled to make a safe and smooth transition into their teenage years.
Nature-Based Therapy
In my group we utilize a wide variety of approaches to work with adolescent girls who need support with emotional and behavioral issues such as anxiety, depression, emotional reactivity, bullying, withdrawal, social isolation or peer conflict, defiance, experimentation with substances, attachment and adoption issues, trauma, academic frustration, autism, ADHD, and more.
I work with many students who have tried traditional talk therapy in an outpatient setting without much success. The wilderness therapy setting offers something new and unique, in that the therapy moves out of the 1:1 talk space, and into a diverse milieu so that students can partake in experiential learning. They have daily opportunities for in the moment feedback and mentorship from peers and healthy, adult staff. We integrate therapeutic art, animals, games, cooking, and physical activity into the fabric of daily living, so that the teens we work with are immersed in learning from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed each night.
Newfound Skills and Resilience
While the students I work with come from varying backgrounds, struggle with different kinds of challenges, and learn in unique and different ways, most find that their experience in wilderness has left them with a few important new skills.
- First, is a newfound ability to communicate assertively so that they may advocate for themselves and have their needs more consistently met in both their home and their academic lives.
- Second, is a new or deeper understanding of their own emotions, which allows for an improved ability to remain regulated in times of challenge and stress.
- Third, is a deepening ability to understand that other people have emotions and needs that are separate from their own, which lends to experiences of deeper and more meaningful connections with both family and friends.
Finally, if we have done our jobs well, our students are leaving us with a renewed belief in themselves as capable, loveable, and deserving of the wonderful lives the adults in their lives have dreamed for them.
About Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness
Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness offers clinically driven wilderness therapy programs encompassing advanced therapeutic skills, a highly flexible immersive wilderness therapy model, licensed wilderness therapy assessment and multiple treatment options for struggling teens ages 12-18 as well as young adults ages 18-29 in the Emerald Arrow program. Blue Ridge’s individualized approach, family support, and commitment to service translate to an unparalleled experience and better outcomes for adolescents and families. To learn more about Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness, visit our website or reach out to our admissions team.