Common teen problems and where to start

This page is grouped by what you are seeing at home, so you do not have to read all of it. Start with the safety check below. If nothing urgent applies, pick the group that sounds most like your family and read the first step. If several things are happening at once, go to where to start when several problems overlap.

MSPAX · Updated 2026-10-13

First, check whether this is an emergency

If your teen talks about not wanting to live, has already hurt themselves, has been threatened or hit, or cannot be reached, deal with that before reading anything else. Find them, put away anything dangerous, stay with them, and call your local emergency number; in the US you can also call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For what to do in the next few hours, see safety help.

School and grades

Grades, homework and school refusal are usually stages of the same slide: a couple of subjects get away from your teen, homework runs past midnight, mornings get harder, and then they stop going. Before you decide why, find the step where they get stuck — starting homework at night, getting out the door, walking through the school gate, entering the classroom, or one specific lesson. The step they name is the one to work on, and it is usually narrower than the whole school day. Swap the question too: instead of asking why they will not go, ask which part of tomorrow is hardest. Then call the homeroom teacher and listen first, without asking for anything yet. If your teen has already missed several days, ask the school how the absence is being recorded and whether half days are possible for a while.

Phones and gaming

With phones, the useful question is what your teen is getting away from: homework they cannot do, a lunch break where nobody talks to them, a dinner table that turns into an argument. Taking the phone works very differently depending on the answer, which is why the same rule helps one family and starts a nightly fight in another. Track three days: when they pick the phone up, what happened just before, and what they do when they put it down. If mornings and school attendance are already affected, fix the hour before sleep first; that moves more than any daytime lecture. Agree one handover time and let your teen hand the phone over, rather than taking it from the bedroom at midnight.

Mood and emotions

For anything in this group, check three things: how long the change has lasted, which ordinary parts of life have stopped working, and whether weekends and holidays bring clear relief. Nerves that spike at exams and settle afterwards need a different response from two weeks or more of low energy, avoiding people, broken sleep and dropped interests. Physical changes usually show up before your teen says anything, so watch sleep, appetite, weight, headaches and stomach pain, and have a doctor rule out physical causes while you note when the symptoms appear. When your teen does talk, hear the whole thing out before you correct any of it.

Friends and bullying

What these situations share is that teens rarely raise them first: they expect to be told they started it, and they are afraid a parent will storm into school. Separate two cases. If someone is shoving, insulting, taking money or spreading rumours, that is bullying and it needs action the same day, with dates, places, names and how often it has happened written down for the school. If nobody is targeting them and they are simply not getting in, or staying home more and more, that is a different path. Either way, ask who they had lunch with rather than why they have no friends. Keep a dated note of each incident; you will need it if you have to involve the school.

Dating

When your teen is dating, three things decide whether you need to step in: whether sleep and schoolwork are being squeezed out, whether there is control or threat in the relationship, and whether physical boundaries and safety are involved. If all three look fine, simple opposition mostly moves the relationship somewhere you cannot see. Pick a calm moment, ask what they actually do together, and keep your rules to a few things you will hold to: when to be home, say where you are going, no private photos, and tell me if anyone asks for money or threatens you.

Parents and family

Most family rows run on a handful of fixed lines: do your homework, give me the phone, how did the test go. The opening sentence escalates and it ends in a slammed door or silence. Find the time of day it happens and the line that starts it, and change that line before you try to explain anything. Saying less at that moment, and coming back to it after dinner, ends more rows than any better argument does. One more thing to settle first: if the two of you say different things, your teen knows who gives way, so agree two or three rules you will both hold before you talk to them.

Doctors and assessments

Three things tell you whether to get professional help: how long the change has lasted, which parts of daily life have stopped working, and whether any safety signals are present. Once you decide to go, appointments are short, so bring one page covering the last two months: what changed, sleep, appetite, school reports and attendance. If you and your teen describe things differently, bring both versions rather than settling who is right first; the gap itself is useful information for the clinician. If your teen will not go, do not force the appointment; a parent can attend once alone and ask what the next step should be.

Several problems at once

When school refusal, phones, mood and arguments all arrive together, most parents push on all four and nothing moves. Order matters more than effort: check safety first, then find the one thing that is holding everything else still, and start there. Write down each problem with the date it began, see which came first and which would loosen on its own if the others eased, then work on one for a week and leave the rest alone. Pick the one your family can realistically do something about this week, not the one that looks worst.

One assessment, four steps to a plan

Grades, phone use, mood and family conflict are often different exits from the same problem, so the group that fits what you see is not always where the cause sits. The Youth Behavioral Structure Assessment and Support System takes about 20 minutes, reviews 10 areas of your teen's state alongside 8 family settings, separates the leading cause from amplifying and maintaining factors, and sets out what to act on first, who coordinates and what can be deferred.

About 20 minutes · Free assessment · Paid report

Parents · Professional supportHelp my family find answers →View the full sample report →

If your teen talks about self-harm, hurts someone, goes missing or is severely out of control, go to Safety help and contact local emergency services now.

What the assessment does not do

This system supports family behavioral-structure assessment, risk flags and decisions. It is not an online medical service; diagnosis, psychotherapy, prescriptions and crisis response are provided by qualified professionals.