Helping Your Child Build Confidence
Making conversation, joining a group, reading the mood in a room. These things can look effortless from the outside, yet for many young people they take real work. If you have watched your teenager hover at the edge of a friendship group, you are not the only parent wondering how to help.
Social skills for teenagers are not fixed traits. They are learned and practised, and they can be supported at any stage.
Why Social Situations Feel Harder in Adolescence
Adolescence changes what friendship asks of a young person. The straightforward rules of primary school give way to something far more subtle, where humour, timing and unspoken expectations all matter. At the same time, the teenage brain is still developing its capacity to hold several perspectives at once.
For neurodivergent teenagers, particularly those who are autistic or have ADHD, this shift can feel especially steep. Social difficulty is rarely a lack of interest in other people. More often, a young person genuinely wants connection and is unsure how to reach it.
ContactSigns Your Teenager May Be Struggling
- Avoiding parties, clubs or group activities they previously enjoyed
- Friendships that start well but do not last
- Physical complaints such as headaches or stomach aches before school or social events
- Depending heavily on one friend, with real distress when that friendship shifts
- Spending most free time online rather than with people face to face
No single sign means something is wrong. Taken together, and if they continue over weeks rather than days, they are worth paying attention to.
Evidence-Based Social Skills Programme
PEERS® is internationally recognised & has over 30 ‘gold standard’ research trials evidencing its effectiveness.
Parents as Social Coaches
While your child is in their group, you are in a parent group learning ways to help your child build their social skills.
Working in Partnership with Schools
We also work collaboratively with schools to ensure the benefits of PEERS® extend beyond the clinic.
Supporting Meaningful Change
Through specialist facilitation and parent involvement, the PEERS® programme helps young people build skills, confidence and meaningful friendships.
When to Consider Professional Support
If social difficulties are affecting school attendance, mood or self-esteem, a psychological assessment can clarify what sits underneath. Anxiety, low confidence and unrecognised neurodevelopmental differences can look similar from the outside, and each responds to a different approach.
At our Marylebone townhouse we work with teenagers using evidence-based approaches including CBT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, alongside the PEERS® programme, which teaches social skills directly rather than leaving them to develop by chance. Some young people also join our therapeutic Dungeons & Dragons sessions, where practising conversation and cooperation happens naturally within the game.
Get in Touch
Please fill out the form below and we’ll get back to you. Alternatively, you can call us on 020 7458 4570 or send us a WhatsApp.
Don’t forget to check our frequently asked questions.