You’ve watched the schedule fill up — AP classes, college tours, test prep, activities that look good on paper. The transcript is building. You’re not sure your high schooler is.
Mentor Counseling® is not therapy.
It’s the work of helping a high schooler answer the question every high schooler is answering whether they know it or not: what are these four years for? In sessions, your student gets a trusted adult — outside school and family, paying attention to them, not the resume they’re building. Mentor Counseling is for high schoolers who are overwhelmed, not mentally ill. It often comes after therapy, or alongside it — rarely a replacement. If your high schooler is in crisis, the first step is a referral to clinical care.
What Life Coaching for High School Students Is
Life coaching for high school students is one-on-one developmental work centered on the question high schoolers are answering whether they know it or not: what are these four years for? The work helps them answer it on their own terms — through conversation, decisions, and the life skills the curriculum assumes but doesn’t teach.
High school is the four-year stretch when schedule, grades, and applications feel like the point. The work gives your high schooler a place to figure out what the point actually is.
Sessions are virtual, 50–60 minutes, available worldwide from Jeff’s Marin County, California base. Most premium-tier engagements run six to eighteen months.
How Mentor Counseling Works
Mentor Counseling combines three disciplines one-on-one: life coaching for direction, leadership development for skill-building, and deep listening — the non-clinical foundation that makes the first two land. Applied to high school students, the work focuses on the skills the four-year curriculum expects but doesn’t teach: time management, self-advocacy with adults outside the family, decision-making with imperfect information, communication, and the harder underlying question of what these years are for.
What We Address with High School Students
What the work addresses with high schoolers, in practice:
- The grade-equals-worth spiral — when performance becomes identity and a setback feels like a verdict.
- The college-application tunnel — when “where I get in” is the only measure and senior year shrinks to one number.
- Friend-group lockdown — when school’s social hierarchy becomes a cage and changing it feels impossible.
- Schedule overload — when six classes, three clubs, a sport, and a job feel required and impossible.
- The “what after” gap — when senior year arrives and direction hasn’t.
Why Evolution Mentoring and Life Coaching
High school is built around outputs that can be measured. The work building what can’t — the skills the curriculum doesn’t teach, the direction the calendar doesn’t choose, the judgment no one can transcript — happens somewhere else.
Jeffrey Leiken has worked with high schoolers and their families since 1998 — more than 25 years across 17 countries. He holds an MA in Educational Counseling, is adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco, guest-lectures at Stanford, gave a TEDx talk on adolescent leadership, and authored a book on the subject.
What Parents Commonly Notice
The work shows up in observable shifts. A few patterns recur:
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- The schedule starts answering to a person. Course load and activity decisions become theirs — with reasoning — instead of expected.
- Self-advocacy starts happening in real situations. They email a teacher, ask a counselor a hard question, or push back on a coach without parent intermediation.
- Decisions get made with information instead of paralysis. “I don’t know what to do” becomes a sequence of considerations, then a choice.
- The performance armor cracks usefully. Grades stop being the whole story — and a real conversation about what something means becomes possible.
- The “what’s next” question starts having shape. Post-graduation considerations become specific instead of abstract anxiety.
The Process
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- Start with a 30-minute consultation — a working call that surfaces what’s going on at home and whether this is the right work.
- If it fits, weekly virtual sessions of 50–60 minutes begin within a week.
- Direct reach-out between sessions — when something hard happens, you don’t wait.
- Cadence recalibrates as the work matures.
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Standard agreements:
- No obligation to continue after the first session if the fit isn’t right.
- Confidentiality holds within the bounds of mandatory reporting law.
- No diagnoses, no clinical labels, no treatment of mental illness.
If you are not ready to schedule yet, two no-friction next steps-
Read the Book
Jeff’s book distills 25+ years of practice into a framework for raising capable, grounded young adults.
Watch the TEDx Talk
Jeff’s TEDx talk on what it actually takes to mentor adolescents into capable adults.
About Jeffrey Leiken, MA
Jeffrey Leiken, MA, founded Evolution Mentoring and Life Coaching and developed Mentor Counseling — a methodology refined since 1998, with more than 25 years across 17 countries.
He holds an MA in Educational Counseling, is adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco, guest-lectures at Stanford, gave a TEDx talk on adolescent leadership, and authored a book on the subject.
Sessions are virtual, worldwide from his Marin County, California base. For high schoolers, the work focuses on the four years — the skills the curriculum doesn’t teach, the direction the calendar doesn’t choose.
What High Schoolers say
“It’s not often that you get the privilege of knowing someone like I have known Jeff Leiken. Jeff came into my life at the perfect time. I was entering High School and while I was a very good student and an accomplished athlete, I was struggling to make quality friends and felt like I no idea what to do about it. There were so many nights where I played back situations in my head where I could have done things differently than I did, and I always wished that I could go back and do things differently. If you ever have the opportunity to work with or meet this man, trust me you will never regret it cause there’s no one else like him out there.”
— Keaton, San Rafael, CA
“Words cannot describe what happened to me after the one conversation you had with me Jeff. I truly feel as though I have experienced something totally beyond words. The work you did with me is something I will one day tell my grandchildren about. I feel as though what I felt was a crossroad in my life, now I have made the choice to move in a direction. Where I go from here is not something I question, I truly believe that everything is right again.“
— Zack O, Chicago, IL
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What if my high schooler doesn't think they need it?
Most high schoolers are skeptical at first — “I’m fine.” Jeff doesn’t push, lecture, or ask questions that get their defenses up. The work starts with being heard.
Is this the same as a college admissions consultant?
No. A college admissions consultant helps with the application. This work helps the person applying — the skills, direction, and judgement no application can measure.
Is this the same as a tutor or EF coach?
No. Tutors and EF coaches teach subjects and task management. This work is broader — life skills the curriculum expects but doesn’t teach, plus what these four years are for.
Are sessions virtual or in-person?
Virtual and worldwide. Jeff’s practice is based in Marin County and reaches families in 17 countries.
How do We get started?
Schedule a 30-minute consultation with Jeffrey Leiken. No obligation to continue if the first session isn’t the right fit.
Neighbourhoods we serve in California-
Neighbourhoods we serve in other US states-
- Chicago Teen Coaching
- Dallas Teen Coaching
- Houston Teen Coaching
- Jacksonville Teen Coaching
- Los Angeles Teen Coaching
- New York City Teen Coaching
- Philadelphia Teen Coaching
- Phoenix Teen Coaching
- San Antonio Teen Coaching
- San Diego Teen Coaching
- Austin Teen Coaching
- Fort Worth Teen Coaching
- San Jose Teen Coaching
- Columbus Teen Coaching
- Charlotte Teen Coaching
- Indianapolis Teen Coaching
- San Francisco Teen Coaching
- Seattle Teen Coaching
- Denver Teen Coaching
- Oklahoma City Teen Coaching
Schedule a Consultation for High Schoolers Coaching
Jeff offers a consultation to learn about your family’s situation and determine whether this mentoring relationship is the right fit. There’s no pressure—just a chance to get real answers and explore a different path forward.