Help for Parents and Their Adolescents During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Clinical Director Maria Dahlmann, MA, LCSW, understands the implications this pandemic has for parents and their children. Maria, a parent herself, is juggling an unprecedented level of unstructured time at home like all parents today. She is personally acquainted with the increase in uncertainty and anxiety in her own family life. As a professional working in the mental health industry, Maria understands the difficulties families and adolescents are facing. She also recognizes the urgent need for skills acquisition training, which is the best solution in these trying times.
Mental Health Symptoms to look for during the COVID-19 pandemic in teens are:
- Increased isolation from family
- Not returning phone calls from friends and family
- Increased use in social media
- Irritability
- Inability to sleep, disrupted sleep, or oversleeping
- Low appetite or overeating
- Restlessness
- Agitation / emotional outbursts
- Feelings of loneliness
- Anxiety and panic
- Hopelessness about the future
- Inability to focus
- Loss of interest in things / inability to experience pleasure (anhedonia)
- Poor distress tolerance
Maria knows from professional experience that children learn best when they experience learning as a playful, stimulating, and exciting activity. She is dedicated to making skills acquisition both fun and challenging. In this dynamic program, teens learn to feel and appreciate the satisfactions of profound personal growth in an era of isolation and despair.
Is Your Teenager Struggling with their Mental Health? We Can Help Them Make it Through
Clearmind has specialized in Telehealth since its inception in June 2019. Maria is particularly excited to offer online afternoon programming that will help redirect confused and moody teens to constructive projects and behaviors which result in positive moods and improved mental health. In these uncertain times, every member of the family is impacted as a whole, and we are facing new adversaries: anxiety, self-doubt, loneliness, irritability, poor sleep, fear – even panic, or a sense of impending doom. In order to target these inner conflicts brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, Clearmind is here to support parents and their adolescents.
Prior to her appointment as clinical director at Clearmind, Maria was the program director at Paradigm San Francisco, a teen residential facility where she implemented and ran DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills groups. Before that, she worked at leading New York metro area hospitals, including Yale New Haven Hospital and New York Presbyterian (the University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell). Maria is passionate about working with teens and their families to improve communication and help family members create loving relationships. Maria loves helping her clients experience the life transformation that results from self-actualization and academic performance.
