Troubled Teens Resources

“Once they get in this system, it’s a meat grinder,” said W. Michael Coulson, one of about 25 court-appointed attorneys in the juvenile courts. “For the most part, they’re on a rocket sled headed for TDCJ, unless something really big steps in the way.”

The gentleman above is speaking of the fate of troubled teens who have committed adult crimes in Texas, but the same holds true for any juvenile whose crimes merit the possibility of being charged as an adult. As courts around the country struggle with the increasing number of violent youth offenders, some districts have begun executing harsher sentences, trying more juveniles as adults.

“Texas permits courts to certify juveniles as young as 15 to be tried as adults for murder and other violent crimes.

For the past decade, Harris County has prosecuted more juveniles as adults than Bexar, Dallas, Tarrant and Travis counties combined.

In 1996, Harris County certified 170 juveniles amid a public crackdown on violent youth crime. That number steadily dropped to roughly 55 a year between 2003 and 2005.”

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It makes one appreciate the necessity of early teen crisis intervention when perhaps brat camp programs or some type of training might have made the difference between continuing to break the law or choosing another path. Recently a 16 year old was sentenced to 25 years for aggravated robbery. Is that too severe?

Where do you put such teens if the juvenile system can’t rehabilitate them? It is a debate we will be seeing more and more of as court systems across the country struggle with the most effective methods of saving a teen’s life while keeping the public safe.

Parents in the midst of coping with troubled teens need support, pure and simple. What do you do with your teen who is struggling to beat drugs, or the teen who keeps running away? Should you start looking into schools for troubled teens? Is there anyone you can talk to who has sent their son or daughter to a brat camp?

Well, yes there is. In fact, like all things on earth, the internet can be used for good or ill. On the plus side is the easy and instantaneous contact you can find with folks who are struggling with the same issues. Be it health problems, money problems, or problems with teens, there is usually thousands of people talking about the same problems in a forum or chat room somewhere on the net.

“…here I am, thrilled that there are dozens of online sites for parents of adolescents and teens. On my favorite sites I’ve asked other moms dozens of questions about the roller coaster ride of hormones, the survival techniques for homework blues, and the “is this normal” questions that come up all the time.

Soon I imagine myself once again awake in the middle of the night, worried about my son who is out past his curfew and isn’t answering his cell phone. Who am I going to call at that hour? Why, I’ll go online to Parents & Company or theantidrug.com or Teendriving.com and find some other moms in some other states also up at 1 a.m. worrying over their kids. And I bet we’d all rather be worried about a diaper rash, don’t you think?”
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The consequences of rampant teen age drug abuse reach deeply into the community, spawning an underground economy manned by thugs and the source of endless violence. Drug deals gone bad, turf wars, and drive-by shootings occur on a daily basis in almost every American city. The tragedy is that so much of this bloodshed is committed by teens.

Teens that the public is not permitted to identify because of their age. The question becomes, are we protecting teens or are we protecting murderers? Increasingly there is concern over the new level of brutality teens are now participating in.

This past summer, there were several incidents in Jersey City of teenagers committing violent “wolf pack” attacks… it was reported that a group of girls robbed and attacked a woman in her 20s as she was walking …they pulled her hair, dragging her to the ground.

On Aug. 25, five young persons were responsible for several beatings, including an attack on a Vietnam veteran, which the juveniles also videotaped.
[…]
In June, a woman in her forties was attacked…by a 16-year old male in such a manner that she needs to wear braces and to have a year of reconstructive work on her teeth and jaw.”

These aren’t minor crimes that can be addressed with a stint in a brat camp. Do you have a right to know who these teens are? New legislation in this New Jersey city - and in many cities across the nation - will allow the public to know the names of the violent teens in their neighborhood.

“We believe that knowledge is important and believe people should know who the criminals are in their community,”

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Restorative justice has a noble sound to it but it is yet to be seen if yet another hand-holding approach to juvenile delinquency will make much of a dent on teen age drug abuse or crime.

Restorative justice is premised on the idea that a criminal should not be prosecuted by the state, but, instead the state must work with the crtiminal. In addition the criminal, as much as possible, is expected to work directly with those whom they have victimized or harmed.

“The underlying premise is that people are actually happier, more cooperative and more likely to change if those in authority do things with them rather than to them or for them,” says Ted Wachtel, president of the International Institute for Restorative Practices, who brings restorative practices to group homes and schools.

In traditional criminal justice, victims and offenders become passive players in a system dominated by the courts, lawyers and judges. In restorative justice, they take center stage.

“In the process of focusing on the victim, you end up providing a way for the offender to make amends and be re-accepted back into society,” says Mike Gilbert, associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown Campus who teaches a course on restorative justice.”

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Many parents, no doubt, would rather see a gang banger or a chronic drug abuser placed in brat camps where the emotional and behavioral problems that precipitated their crimes be addressed with equal measures of discipline and education. However, claims are that restorative justice has been successful when applied to juvenile offenders for minor crimes.

Teen crisis intervention programs have been organized nation wide in an effort to stem the tide of teen age crime and drug abuse. One such popular program, Drug Court, has had measurably good success with re-offenders.

The cycle of drug abuse is rarely ended after the first cycle of rehab for many teenagers. A run through a boot camp or brat camp, if there are even any available, is rarely enough in hard core cases. It is difficult to equip a teen to deal with the pervasive influence of drugs if they live in the midst of a neighborhood that is rife with dealers and gangs. Teen programs such as Drug Court give teens a last chance to reform before the system swallows them up.

“Teenagers who repeatedly land in juvenile court for drug- and alcohol-related crimes have a new opportunity to get clean.
[..]
The program aims to reduce recidivism and teach teenagers how to be responsible human beings with no drug or alcohol abuse…
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Drug court, which takes between 12 and 18 months to complete, consists of five phases, each a bit less intense than the last.

Offenders accepted into the drug court program suffer from addiction and, without serious intervention, they risk being taken from their homes and put in a youth center for in-patient treatment.
[…]

Offenders with diagnosed substance abuse or dependency who need treatment with a juvenile record are eligible for the program. The substance abuse treatment is done through the Washington County Health Department, Bricker said.
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“It’s a last-ditch effort prior to going to placement,” said Cherity Shahan of the Department of Juvenile Services.”

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Boot camps and military boarding schools could end up being a parents’ last refuge as the public educational system devolves into some vast playground for psychologists and social engineers. From schools that prohibit the use of the word “failure”, to playgrounds stripped of tall slides and high flying swings, to little leagues who don’t keep score for fear that the loosing team will feel like losers, the latest pop trends in education are ripping the spine out of our nation’s youth.

Constantly buffered from the realities of life, cocooned from ever feeling the consequences of their actions, we are raising a generation of enervated, spoiled and crippled teens. Talk about teens at risk? It’s as if we are programming them to be perpetually at risk.Deprived of the strength of character that hardship and loss teaches, they are utterly unprepared to say no to drugs.

Michael Ungar, author of “Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive”, writes the following:

“In our mania to provide emotional life jackets for our kids, helmets and seat belts, approved playground equipment, after-school supervision, an endless stream of evening programming, and no place to hang out but the local mall, we parents are accidentally creating a generation of youth who are not ready for life,” Ungar writes.”

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You are not likely to find that philosophy being perpetuated in the pristine and orderly halls of a school governed by the same principles and disciplines that have turned boys into men and girls into women for decades.Be it a brat camp for the summer or a or a school for troubled teens, parents will serve their teens well to look into alternatives to a public school system that no longer seems to challenge our teens for fear of breaking them.

And that is a loss of a lot of good minds.

Schools for troubled teens are a tremendous boon and have been a strong factor in the recovery of drug addicted teens and teens with behavioral problems. However, they are often unfairly portrayed by the media as if they were prison camps. When parents are considering enrolling their teen in a troubled teen boarding school or a summer brat camp, it is advisable not to depict the school as punishment, but as a means of ultimately helping the troubled teenagers reach their dreams.

“I know that is why Brooke ran away, sobbed her best friend Diane, ” and if she ever finds out that I told you where she was thinking of going,well, she won’t ever forgive me”

What Brooke doesn’t realize is that she probably saved her friend’s life. What ever reason a troubled teenager may have for running away, they often put their “best friends ” in a terrible position when confiding in them. Brooke finally went to Dianne’s mother who described the school Dianne was to attend, convincing Brooke that punishment was not the goal, but that attending would help Dianne who had been depressed and suicidal. Convinced, Brooke told them where Dianne went.

“Talk with your friend about what’s bothering him or her and put your heads together to find better — and more constructive — solutions. At the same time, speak with an adult you trust as soon as possible, and tell him or her that your friend is talking seriously about running away. If you don’t feel comfortable telling your parents, there are other adults in your life who may be able to help out: another relative, a teacher, a coach, a school counselor, your family doctor, or a religious leader, for example.

A trusted adult may be able to help your friend understand that there are better alternatives to running away.”

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Specialty schools offer a variety of courses and programs for parents with bored or troubled teenagers. Instead of summer time being filled with picnics and baseball games, parents of out-of-control teens find themselves dreading dealing with teens with empty time on their hands. A troubled teen might throw a veritable tantrum at the prospect of attending a brat camp, but he will likely sing a different tune when he comes home.

“At Pine Island Camp, a narrow ribbon of green in a picturesque Maine lake, boys ages 9 to 15 live in tents with no electricity. They leap into the chilly lake first thing every morning, and fall asleep at night to the eerie call of loons. There are no TVs, video games, or computers, and counselors keep the only cellphone on the island hidden away for emergencies.

Six weeks of this might sound like punishment for the average boy today, who lives with his iPod in his ear and talks to his friends in text messages.

Yet this year, for the first time in recent memory, Pine Island sold out for the season six months before it opened. It is one of a number of rustic wilderness camps in New England that are seeing a surge in their popularity , at a time when parents and educators are increasingly concerned that children do not spend enough time in the natural world.”

Countless studies reveal the detrimental effects of teens being “plugged-in” 24/7. From ADD to obesity to depression, nature and shutting out all media has proven therapeutic, with long lasting beneficial effects. Every community offers a similar program. If you can’t find one through school, get on the internet. Do the entire family a tremendous favor; plug into nature and unplug culture.

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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Brat camp for parents may be the next stage needed in teen crisis intervention. Some parents simply do not have a clue. Irresponsible parents, unfortunately, put everyone’s teenagers in danger.

Here is a woman’s description of her neighbor, an irresponsible parent that she refers to as Mr. Milquetoast.

“Throwing beer cans and bottles, pissing on people’s cars just shows the deepest contempt for the community. I guess we’ve earned it.

After a previous incident where Mr. Milquetoast’s son’s friends threw beer cans on my lawn, I talked to a Walnut Creek police officer about what could be done about this behavior and also the son’s alcohol-fueled driving. His response was that his parents had let him and his friends drink when he was underage. When I mentioned the little matter of teenage drunk driving, he said that the kids might have a designated driver. I think my snort could be heard in Lamorinda. Anyway, it’s clear that the problem is not just with the parents. It’s also with a police force that sees teenage drinking as acceptable and normal behavior.”
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Just makes you want to throw your hands up in the air, doesn’t it? Also makes the option of troubled teen boarding schools and military boarding schools a heck of a lot more attractive. These type of parents are in the PTA, on school boards,and may likely be one of your teen’s teachers. You may recall this year the many teachers that have been brought up on charges of improper behavior with their students.

A parent has more control over their troubled teenager’s education in a private boarding school setting. Typically schools in the private sector can attract a higher caliber, more dedicated professional than the public sector. A parent can choose a specialty school that is closely aligned with their values, joining a community of parents that have the mutual goal of turning teens at risk into responsible adults.