The types of friends your teen chooses to have can greatly impact their future. Toxic relationships can negatively affect decision making, slow social development, and increase risky behavior. A healthy relationship can empower your teen with feelings of belongingness, confidence, and even reduce stress. This is why it’s important to identify the aspects of a healthy relationship and make sure your child is developing healthy teen relationships.
What do healthy teen relationships look like?
It’s important to educate your teen on what a healthy relationship looks like so that they can identify when they’re in a destructive one. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, healthy teen relationships include the following aspects:
- Positivity and supportiveness
- Respect of personal space and feelings
- Improve self-confidence and purpose
- Help you cope in difficult situations
- Discourage unhealthy habits, such as smoking
How to identify a toxic relationship
Relationships developed in the teen years can affect the way your teen develops future friendships. A toxic relationship can influence how your child develops emotionally, makes decisions, and performs in school. Aspects of an unhealthy relationship include:

Image source: Flickr user- cernicalo-e
- Pressuring to partake in risky behaviors (drinking, smoking, etc.)
- Lying
- Berating/humiliating/disrespecting
- Manipulation
- Controlling
Intervention
If your teen has been trapped in a toxic relationship or seems to only be able to form unhealthy ones, it could lead to more serious issues, such as depression. If intervention by parents isn’t enough, there are therapeutic programs that can aid in helping develop healthy teen relationships.
Trails Carolina is a therapeutic wilderness program that helps teens develop skills to overcome current and future obstacles. At Trails Carolina, we emphasize on how to build and maintain healthy teen relationships in order to improve your teen’s life. We help teens establish healthy coping methods and habits.
If your teen needs help developing healthy teen relationships and could benefit from Trails Carolina, please call us today at 800-975-7303.
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Trails saved my daughter’s life. Amanda is an amazing human and a brilliant therapist. I am so grateful to her, Science Steve, and the other wonderful people who could reach my daughter at a time when I could not.
Margot Lowman August 2022
Great life changing experience for our son. After becoming addicted to gaming during covid he was very depressed. At Trails he experienced the wilderness, Science Steve, learning survival skills and top notch therapy and support etc… I highly recommend! This gave our son and our family a renewed family bond full of love and excitement about his bright future.
Winnifred Wilson July 2022
Outstanding clinical work and superb staff! There’s a great culture at this company and it shows with how they engage with families/clients.
Kristin Brace June 2022
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