Could an Emotional Support Animal Help Your Teen? === If you had asked me a month ago what an emotional support animal is, I could not have told you. I didn't even know that that was a thing until just recently. And in the past few weeks, I have discovered a whole world of emotional support animals and service animals, and I want to share everything I have learned with you. you might be wondering why I would share about service dogs and emotional support animals on a podcast about parenting teens. And it's a valid question, but as I have looked at the research that has come out over the past year or so on teen mental health, I have seen a trend toward teenagers mental health getting worse and worse. The number of teenagers that are battling anxiety, depression, thoughts of self harm and suicidal ideation are increasing rapidly. And we see this in the research, but I'm also seeing this as I work with clients who have children who are facing these challenges with their mental health. And as a parent, I have also seen this in my own family. And I think that. anything that we as parents can do to support our kids in getting to a place of better mental and emotional health is worth discussing and it's worth thinking about and having a conversation about. And so that is why I want to talk to you about this today. Now, I know that an emotional support animal or a service dog is not the solution for every family. In fact, it's probably only a solution for a select few, but because I didn't even know it existed and it was the perfect fit for what my child needed, I want to make sure you know about it, that you know what your options are and whether or not it would be a good fit for your family. If you have a child who is struggling with their mental health or ADHD or some other psychological issue. This could be a great option for you. And I want you to be able to have the information you need to make that decision. As I mentioned about a month ago, I didn't even know what an emotional support animal was. But we were in Utah visiting our family, and my sister in law was telling me about some ballerinas in a ballet program she runs who had emotional support animals for anxiety. And knowing that I have a child who struggles with mental health, Wondered if that might be a good fit for this child. Now a little bit of backstory My husband and I got a dog before we had kids and our kids have grown up always having a dog in the home. And recently our dog started to get aggressive with our kids and we knew that we would have to rehome this dog. And it had been a really difficult decision because As I mentioned we have a child who struggles with mental health and in his treatment and working with counselors and therapists He has mentioned a number of times that one of the ways that is the best for him to manage his big emotions is to go and snuggle with our dog. And so of course this added another layer of complication to the decision that was already challenging that we had made to rehome this dog. But we knew that it was the right thing to do and We had talked with him and we felt like we could support him through this change, but we were a little worried about how it was going to go. So when my sister in law brought up this idea of a support animal specifically for mental health challenges, I was super intrigued and I just dove in headfirst and started doing some research. The first thing I learned is that there's a big difference between an emotional support animal and a service animal. A service animal is individually trained to do some work or perform some kind of task for a person who has a disability. Now this could include a seeing eye dog, which I think most of us are familiar with, but they also have a classification of a psychological support animal. And they are individually trained to support someone whose psychological challenge or mental illness has a significant impact on their everyday functioning in their life. Some examples of this could include a war veteran who has PTSD and they have a support animal who can support them when those traumas come back up. It could also be someone who has anxiety attacks. And the dog is specifically trained to put pressure on this person's body in specific ways during that anxiety attack to minimize the effects of it. It could also be a dog that's trained to get help for that person or find a safe place for that person when they are having an attack. Psychological support dogs are also very helpful for kids who have autism and they can gently interrupt self harming behaviors or help de- escalate an emotional meltdown before it gets too big. The key with a psychological support dog is that it is specifically trained to do certain tasks that help to compensate for the disability that the person has, so that they can live a more normal life. An emotional support animal, on the other hand, does not have to have any specific training that they perform a certain task. Just the presence of the dog in the person's life is comforting and helps them have better outcomes. Now, another big difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal are the rights that that animal has. They are able to go anywhere that the person goes, and it is illegal to not allow them because they are a key component of that person functioning at the level they need to function. So they're allowed to go in restaurants, they're allowed to go in stores, they are allowed on planes and have to be able to sit right there with the person. So obviously the dog has to be very well trained and well behaved to be able to safely go into all of those situations. And that is part of the training of the service dog. An emotional support dog, on the other hand, does not have all of those rights. They are not allowed in stores. They are not allowed in restaurants. They are not required to be free on an airplane. But the Fair Housing Act does require that a landlord has to allow that emotional support dog to live with the individual without an additional fee. And if you go on a vacation and you are staying in a hotel, the hotel has to allow that dog to stay with you and they cannot charge you an additional fee. So that's really the main right that you have with your emotional support dog. But the other benefit of either an emotional support dog or a service dog is that with a letter of medical necessity from your doctor, the dog can be a qualified medical expense, which your insurance is not going to cover either of those, but you can use hSA and FSA funds typically to pay for purchasing training and maintaining the dog. Now that is a really cool benefit, especially if you're getting a service dog, because they can cost anywhere from 18, 000 to 50, 000. So being able to use pre tax money could be very helpful there. Now, of course, I am not an expert on HSAs or FSAs or taxes, so you will definitely want to consult with someone who is an expert. But we were able to get a letter of medical necessity from our son's doctor, so we were able to use HSA funds to pay for the dog, and we are going to use those funds to pay for some specific training to make sure that this dog will be very gentle and tender with our kids. Now the terminology can get really confusing, as you can tell, emotional support animal, service dog, right? But our HSA actually uses the term companion animal instead of emotional support animal. So just FYI, if you're looking to get it approved with your HSA, you may want to look at some other terminology other than emotional support animal, because that is what ours fell under. Now another term you might come across as you do research on this is therapy dog. A therapy dog is actually a type of emotional support animal, not a service dog, but they are trained to be very patient, to be very tolerant, and to be very comforting and kind. So, with all of this information, of course it makes sense why a service animal could be very beneficial to someone who has a disability and that animal is trained to do specific tasks that help them compensate for that disability. But let's talk about the benefits of an emotional support animal and why it is even a thing. Because they wouldn't make it a qualified medical expense if there weren't a lot of benefits that could come out of it, that can be proven. So research has shown that having an emotional support animal can help to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, increase oxytocin, which is the hormone that helps us feel happy. It can decrease feelings of isolation and loneliness. It can improve the sense of social connection and someone's ability to connect with others and it can give people a sense of responsibility and give them some purpose in their life, which is especially helpful if they are struggling with PTSD or depression. Finally, having an emotional support dog has actually been shown to improve physical health. Of course, part of that is taking the dog for a walk and playing with the dog can get you up and being active regularly, but it also has been shown by just petting the dog to lower your blood pressure and reduce your stress hormones. And owning a dog has been linked with a positive impact on the immune system and children that grow up with a dog in the home have a lower risk of allergies and asthma. If all of this has made you think that this could be a good fit for you and your child and your family, there are a couple of different things you should know about the process of getting an emotional support animal or a service dog. In order to get a service dog, you have to have a qualified ADA disability. And while they don't have a comprehensive list of this qualifies and this doesn't, they do have a list of things that generally do qualify as a mental disability. And some of those that might be interesting to you are depression, anxiety, ADHD, Addiction or substance abuse, PTSD and trauma or stress related disorders, OCD, and autism. If you or your child suffers from one of these disabilities, then you can talk to your doctor about whether or not this could be a good fit for you. And if they approve it as a medical necessity, you could either have your dog trained, As a psychological service dog, or you can get a new dog that is already trained for the tasks that you need it to do. they will have to pass a public access test to make sure that they are okay to be in all the public spaces. If you want, you can also register the dog on a National Service Dog Registry and potentially have it wear a vest or other things to show that it is a service dog, but that is not required. This is just my basic understanding. I have not gone through this process, so that's just what I have read that you can expect. With emotional support animals though, I have been through that process and I will share my experience. experience with that as well. Again, you or your child need to have a qualified ADA disability that an emotional support dog would help you manage or navigate. So you'll need to talk to your doctor or mental health provider to discuss whether or not they think this could be a helpful part of your treatment. And if you determine together that it is, then all you need is a letter from them saying that this is medically necessary as part of your treatment. You will want to keep that letter with you and you will share it with landlords or hotels when you are taking your dog with you and you need to prove that they are qualified to be in your housing without additional fees. And you will also have that letter for the purpose of using HSA or FSA funds if you are doing that. You'll want to check with your HSA or FSA about how they handled that. Mine had me submit that and have it on file on their records, and then they would be able to approve those expenses, but yours may or may not require that in advance. You will want to make sure that that letter is in your hands and obtained and dated before you make any purchases, but that is all you need. There are a lot of internet scams around emotional support animals, so be aware of that. From what I read, there are a lot of people that say you have to register your emotional support animal and that is not required. So if someone is telling you you need to add your emotional support animal to a registry, I would be very wary of that. But I also saw a lot of get your ESA letter same day. You pay like 100 or 200 and they'll have you meet with a licensed counselor or psychologist or whatever, and give you that letter same day. And I don't know the legitimacy of that. We just worked through our provider. You can talk with your pediatrician. You can talk with a mental health provider, counselor, psychologist. So someone that knows your child's. Mental health situation and knows the treatment and is willing to add that as part of a treatment plan is what I would recommend. Just because I don't know the legitimacy of those same day letters. Another thing to know about emotional support animals is that they do not have to be dogs. It could be a dog, it could be a cat, it could be other animals. You'll want to do some research and find out what qualifies and what does not, but it does not have to be a dog. And if you already have a pet that provides emotional support for your family, for your child, you can get that animal qualified as an emotional support animal or trained as a specific service dog. So if you have a pet that you just adore and think, Oh my gosh, I wish I had known this before we got this pet. You actually can get them qualified as an emotional support animal. or trained and qualified as a psychological service dog and start to use all of those benefits moving forward. I hope that this information has been super interesting to you and helpful to you and just gives you another tool in your tool belt to help and support your child in their mental health. And even if a service dog or emotional support animal are not the right fit for your family because you don't have a qualified ADA disability or you don't live in the United States, it's still worth considering all of those benefits that come from having an animal as your child is growing up and considering whether or not that might be supportive for your child's mental and emotional health. If you have questions or insights that you want to share, I would love to continue this conversation over in my Facebook group: teens are not the worst. I will put a link in the show notes where you can go and join that group for free. And if you have an emotional support dog or a psychiatric service dog that you want to share a picture of, I would love to see it and hear your stories over there. So I will see you in the Facebook group.
