Troubled Teens Resources

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder is said to dissipate to a great degree by exposing teens at risk to the great outdoors. When you think about it, this “disorder” didn’t exist, for all intents and purposes, thirty years ago. Not saying the condition wasn’t perhaps present, or that some of us aren’t wired to proceed through life at 90 miles an hour. Just suggesting that thirty years ago, when a kid jumped on his bike and sailed out of the driveway, that need to go fast, to satisfy restlessness, to get a constant stream of stimuli, was satisfied.

Consider this sad fact, out of Los Angeles.

“In San Diego, 90 percent of youngsters do not know how to swim and 34 percent have never been to the ocean even though it is only 15, 20 minutes away from their homes, according to the organization, Aquatic Adventure, which is trying to change that.

Because kids don’t bike much anymore, either for transportation or recreation, bicycle sales are down 31 percent in the past five years. The outdoors industry is surviving by selling high-end expensive equipment to adults rather than entry-level gear for kids.”

(Source)

Nostalgic though it may be, those days of yore when there were three TV channels and kids preferred the company of their pals over the latest MTV reality show, were days when you rarely heard the phrase teen age drug abuse. Neither did you hear the words ADD, meth labs, or Ritalin.

No, you can’t bring the innocence of long ago back, but you can raise your troubled teen according to the same principles; play hard, work hard. A teen who does that all summer instead of getting down with his iPod won’t need to hear those words either.