Troubled Teens Resources

A diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder does not instantly sentence your teen to years of Ritalin or Adderall. Many parents are dismayed to contemplate the possibility of medicating their teenager, concerned about possible drug dependencies later in life as well as possible health ramifications.

Parents who wish to exhaust every “natural”, non-medicated alternative choose to work with those mental health professionals who have developed programs that teach the ADHD teen behavioral “tricks”, e.g., harnessing the energy of ADHD, learning to utilize hyper focus and gaining mastery over restlessness and anxiety. Schools for troubled teens and specialty schools have emerged, over the years, specializing in “non-medicinal interventions”.

“A U.S. study shows non-medicinal interventions help prevent behavioral and academic problems associated with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Researchers from Lehigh Valley Hospital… focused on 135 children aged 3 to 5 who showed significant symptoms of ADHD — a mental disorder that makes it difficult for children to control their behavior and pay attention. Early intervention techniques included highly individualized programs that often rely on positive supports to reinforce behavior.

Using a variety of early intervention strategies, parents reported, on average, a 17-percent decrease in aggression and a 21-percent improvement in their children’s social skills. In the classroom, teachers saw a 28-percent improvement in both categories. Early literacy skills improved up to three times over their baseline status.

The researchers suggest a multi-tiered approach to intervention…”Medication may address the symptoms of ADHD, but it does not necessarily improve children’s academic and social skills,” study leader George DuPaul said in a statement.”

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Any parent who has researched Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder will tell you that it can be a depressing venture. Worse case scenarios are that an undiagnosed ADHD teen will be more likely to do drugs, deal with more severe emotional issues and may even end up attending schools for troubled teens, or drug rehab.

Then some speculative research is interesting and, if nothing else, gives food for thought.Much has been said in the last year about the fact that technology exacerbates conditions such as ADHD.

“In his book, Cleary cites research performed Oxford University neuroscience professor Susan Greenfield as noting in part “that the ubiquity of digital technology is altering the shape and chemistry of our brains, and that violent video games and intense online interactivity can generate mental disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder, and hyperactivity.”

Another viewpoint hypothesizes that ADHD might be a “favorable evolutionary adaptation to our tech-centric world…”

“…the increase in ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) among the “Millennium Generation” of younger people could actually be the start of an “evolutionary adaptation” to the increasingly fast-paced world of digital technology.

…video games, texting, and other online applications are best performed by minds with the circuitry to jump at a nanosecond’s notice back and forth from screen to screen and application to application.

Following this proposition forward, the seeming inability of some younger folks to concentrate on just one thing, one thought, one application, could be attributed to a rewiring of neurons to keep up with the herky-jerky pace of life.”

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Brat camp taught the Carter family a lesson that they hadn’t expected to learn. Their teen daughter Amy, diagnosed two years ago with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, had been having a rough time in school. Her parents reviewed all the therapies possible, including Ritalin and Adderal but opted to work with a counselor who coached Amy how to manage her ADHD through behavioral techniques and awareness therapies. Though much improvement was made, the death of a close friend threatened her stability and Amy was still struggling with deep anxiety and anger.

Brat camp seemed like a place Amy could run her energies and exasperations into the ground. The camps location in a mountain ranch seemed an idyllic setting. It proved to be more than that. It turned Amy around. Living in a big city, Amy rarely rode a bike, never climbed trees, never held a fishing pole or had a pet. She fell in love with working with the brat camp animals and felt content after the demands of long days caring for stock.

Her parents are convinced that Amy’s exposure to nature made all the difference. Experts are apt to agree with them. Amy is now happily enrolled in a troubled teen boarding school with an emphasis on agriculture and animal husbandry.

“Richard Louv, futurist and author of Last Child in the Woods; Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, says our actions — and in some cases, lack of actions — have caused our children to become alienated from the natural world, and their resulting disconnection may be contributing to increasing diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression and childhood obesity.

Louv was the keynote speaker at the recent Outdoor Writers Association of America Conference in Roanoke, Virginia. His presentation, adapted from his book, carried a profound and deeply disturbing message, one that every outdoorsman and woman, as well as every parent, must take to heart. It boils down to this: nature, in the broad, sweeping sense of the word, fills a critical need in the human psyche, and we eliminate its influence on our children only at great risk to them and to our society as a whole.”

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Before there was the Internet, Ipods and video games, when television was limited to three broadcast channels and it was safe to send your kids out “to play” for the day, we didn’t seem to hear all that much about Attention Deficit Disorders. Usually an adolescent came home too exhausted from playing ball, riding bikes and roaming the countryside to exhibit any untoward symptoms of hyper activity and cantankerous behavior.

A new study cited by Psychology Today seems to suggest that the great outdoors may be the crisis intervention needed today for teens and children diagnosed with ADD.

“For the 7 percent of American kids who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), relief may come in the form of green fields, leafy trees and open sky.”

The studies adds strength to previous findings that indicated ADD kids improved when exposed to some “green time”.

“The study builds on the lab’s previous finding that adding grass and trees to the grounds of public housing developments is linked to fewer reports of domestic violence and stronger neighborhood ties.”

All parents of ADD teens long for any solution but drugs to “cure” the problem. That the rise of ADD coincides with the attenuated time a youth is outdoors is a correlation that needs even more study. Hard as it may be to do, a parent that can give their teens some “green time” may find the payoff to be a more peaceful and attentive teen and there could be no more benign intervention than fresh air, blue skies, and the broad, green earth.