ST. GEORGE— A growing number of teens are struggling with the pressures and anxiety of school. Life Launch Center, a local center dedicated to helping kids cope with anxiety, is hosting a dinner seminar Thursday to teach parents how to help kids deal with the issues they face at school.
Dinner will be served at Life Launch Centers, 315 W. Hilton Drive in St. George, and will be catered by Rigatti’s Pizza.
The Life Launch Centers seminar will teach parents how to recognize when their kids are exhibiting behaviors of anxiety and how they can help their teen, specifically discussing how the brain works and an eight-step process to help people go from a highly emotional state of anxiety to a more logical thinking process.
“What they get out of the seminar is some real skills and tools,” said Joe Newman, Life Launch Centers director of business development. “Of all this talk about anxiety, hardly anybody is talking about what do we actually do, what are the skills that we can employ to help cope with these anxieties? That’s what our program does.”
The cost of the seminar is $20, which includes dinner. Parents of kids who are in one of the center’s programs can attend at no cost, and friends they refer can attend for half price. Registration can be done online.
The seminar will be run by Espra Andrus, Life Launch Centers clinical director, and Ben Harris, co-founder of the centers. Andrus worked as a clinical therapist for 24 years, and Harris is a licensed counselor who has worked with youth since 1987. They began their work at Life Launch Centers in an effort to prevent the addiction, suicidal tendencies, eating disorders and other issues they’ve worked with people on by addressing anxieties in teenagers.
“The whole purpose of this program is realizing that there’s pressures facing kids today that are different from previous generations,” Newman said. “We find so many people not knowing what to do, or how to help and we feel very blessed to be able to offer some real resources and help to the community.”
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The Life Launch Centers is a startup that first opened in November 2017. The center holds sessions to help kids talk about and work through anxieties they face, including pressures at home, academic pressure and social pressures revolving around dealing with both peers and social media. The center has peer sessions, individual sessions and parent sessions among others, which aim to teach kids resilience to these pressures.
The center in St. George is the first of what they hope will be a larger movement. Life Launch Centers is opening another center in Henderson, Nevada, in November, and they hope to expand to Cedar City and Draper in the future.
Event details
- What: Life Launch Center parent workshop.
- When: Thursday, Oct. 18, at 6 p.m.
- Where: Life Launch Centers 315 W. Hilton Drive.
- The cost of the seminar is $20, which includes dinner. Register online.
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