Trusted Adults: Finding A Grown-Up You Can Count On

Here’s how to identify a trusted adult in your life:

When we experience difficult feelings - anger, fear, stress, worry, loneliness, sadness, and so on - it really helps to have trusted adults to speak to. Those trusted adults have the life experiences and the access to resources kids and teens don’t.

Who counts as trusted adults?

✓ They can be people in our families: our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, even older siblings if they are older enough to have solid life experience.

✓ They can be people at school: teachers, coaches, nurses, guidance counselors and school psychologists.

✓ They can be trained health professionals like therapists, pediatricians and psychiatrists.

✓ They can be family friends whom we can count on to give us good advice.

Take a minute and make your list of trusted adults. If you feel comfortable, share that list with your parents or the adults in your house or keep it in your desk, journal, or backpack for a future day when you might want to look at it again.

Your list of trusted adults might change over time and that is OK. It’s normal to feel close to someone one year and the next year not feel comfortable sharing private information with them. Just because you felt close with an adult in the past does not obligate you to feel close with them forever!

Who Are Trusted Adults?

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