Troubled Teens Resources

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 the circle of your care.

And then there is the first car.

National Fatality and Injury Statistics

Leading Cause of Death for Teenagers

* Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among American teenagers, killing between 5,000 and 6,000 teenagers every year for the past decade (through 2003, the last year for which complete NHTSA data is available)
* From 1994 to 2003, a total of 57,142 teenagers were killed in motor vehicle crashes.
* Teenage drivers account for only 6.4 percent (12.5 million) of the total drivers in the United States , but account for 14 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes and 18 percent involved in police-reported crashes.
* No other kind of hazard comes close to claiming as many teenage lives, including teenage homicides (14 percent) and suicides (11 percent).
(source)

It has been said of the so called boomer generation that they too often attempt to be buddies with their teenagers. A certain nonchalance towards alcohol abuse can often be observed. Perfectly sincere but ill advised parents allow teenage drinking in their homes. For some, alcohol is somehow not a substance as menacing as pot, a six pack is less threatening than a crack pipe.

Stories such as the tragic account of Jacqueline Saburido, pictured above, belie those notions. Alcohol is an addictive substance, easily subject to abuse, with the ramifications often more immediate and severe. Teen age substance abuse can be curbed if consequences are not hidden and responsibility is taught.

If your teenager is unfamiliar with the Jacqueline Saburido story, the Austin American Statesman has written a remarkable piece that delivers the message home painfully well. I’d suggest that it be required reading for every teenager.

Here is an excerpt:

At a distance Jacqui looks old. Up close, ageless.

She has a baggy neckchin and thin crumpled lips. Her cheeks are splotchy and rough in places, smooth in others.

Where her right ear should be, she has a slender crescent of cartilage around a pea-size black hole. On the left side, she has only a hole.

Her nostrils are ragged, torn. A flap of skin hides her left eye. For more than two years, the eyeball floated naked in the socket, mostly blind but perpetually staring behind a clear plastic goggle. Her right eye sees behind a veil of scar.

Her burned skin can’t sweat or protect her from heat and cold. It feels hot and tight, like having a sunburn.

Scars run down her body, halting at her knees and before her size 7 1/2 feet, which the fire never touched. She has learned to use her feet like hands — her toes stroke a blanket’s softness and test shower water.

Her fingers are amputated between the knuckle and the first joint. On her right hand, they are fused together like a mitten.

Nerve damage has left parts of her body numb. She can make out some texture with the bottom of her right palm. Her left hand feels only pinpricks — “like a thousand needles,” she says. Her hands hurt every day, but Jacqui doesn’t take painkillers.

She likes to touch, clasping strangers’ hands with her palms. With friends, she steps forward.

“Hug me tightly,” she whispers. “I won’t break.”
David Hafetz
American-Statesman

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