That hyphenated word, “self-esteem”, seems almost meaningless today. We all know that we need it to function as healthy adults and there are thousands of books on how to build it. It is no mystery that teens struggling with drug abuse issues invariably suffer from low self-esteem.
To esteem someone is to value who they are, […]
Putting the Pieces Together:Toward a Motivational Understanding of Change
• Miller and Rollnick suggest that one way to put together
this puzzle is to “think of motivation as fundamental to
change.”
• There is reason to believe this, since clients’ motivation
to change is often a good predictor of outcome.
• Motivation can be influenced by many naturally
occurring interpersonal and […]
Which boarding school or residential treatment program or wilderness therapy that you choose for your troubled teenager is predicated on many factors. Not the least of which is correctly assessing how deeply troubled your teen actually is. There is quite a bit of difference in temperament and severity between the rebellious, moody, bored teen who […]
Sweet sorrow. A parent understands that term well. The day you put your 5 year old on the bus for their first day at school. The first swim lesson, the first athletic competition. The first dance.
Every milestone brings joy, gratitude and sweet sorrow of knowing that each step taken is a step taken away from […]
“Unfortunately, many adults do not really believe that young people possess the quality of “greatness,” which is perhaps not surprising since youth seldom are provided with opportunities to display their true human potentials. Positive Peer Culture is concerned with setting expectations high enough to challenge the young person to do all he is capable of […]
“Sara allowed A&E to film her struggle with her methamphetamine addiction. Despite her pleading parents, Sara refused to seek meth treatment to help with her problem. Although she was a meth addict who had temporarily lost custody of her daughter, the negative effects of meth weren’t enough to stop her. When Sara’s parents noticed the […]
Your teenager:” Tonight’s gonna be hot. I’m having some cupcakes and, I think my body needs some Vitamin K”
Teenaged friend: “Dude - you stacking it? Man that’s gonna take an interplanetary mission. I’ll just stick with number 9. Glad I just got an ice cream habit, I’d be broke dude.”
If you overheard your teenager […]
Sometimes an intervention can be a simple thing.
I ran into a story about a simple kindness that resulted in saving the life of a depressed teenager.
It is a story that you may want to share with your own teenagers who may often feel powerless when they are witness to the cruelties of school yard bullies.
[…]
Guilt can sometimes be a good thing. Painful, but if it forces the parent to examine his parenting skills, than it may be an anguish worth enduring. If you take away the right lesson from it. Conversely, guilt can often propel the parent to spoil their children, depriving them of the emotional maturity they […]
Of all the various treatment therapies available for the parent of a troubled teen, animal assisted therapy has long been found to be highly effective in breaking through the angry teen’s barriers.
“The integration of animal-assisted therapy into clinical psychology was first credited in 1962 to the child psychologist, Boris Levinson, with his paper published […]