Troubled Teens Resources

Parents are already likely aware of the newest and startling report detailing the state of teen age drug abuse and the rampant amount of prescription drug abuse by teens at risk. The most startling aspect of the report, however, was not the alarming numbers of offending teens but that parents are either, for the most part, unaware or indifferent.

“Despite indications that most parents have their heads firmly planted in the sand (if not buried somewhere even less pleasant), 4 out of 5 high school students say they are regularly exposed to drugs in their schools.”

Those whose duty it is to collect the collapsed and comatose bodies of overdosed American teens are not very surprised and offer very basic counsel that parents need to start heeding.

“For those of us in the EMS fields, this may not come as much of a surprise. Even in my supposedly protected rural area, I am always taken aback by the number of overdose calls we get at local schools. The most important warning that comes from this report is that the parents seem to be completely unaware of the this increasing trend in their children’s schools. We can do two things:

1. Take care of our own first. Talk regularly and often with your own children about drugs in their schools. What drugs do they come in contact with?
2. Get involved in your community education projects. Talk to your local police agencies about what drugs they are seeing more commonly on the street this year. Arrange to provide assistance to their school outreach programs with a demonstration of the life-saving techniques we will have to use in the case of an overdose.”

(Source)

Do you need an argument to convince yourself and your husband that looking into schools for troubled teens is the right decision for your Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder teen. After all, he has already abused his Ritalin by selling it to make enough money to buy pot, combining the two. He’s admitted to drinking. He is remorseful, you are angry and his Dad places a great deal of blame on the public school system. And Dad would be right.

Consider this excerpt from the just released National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XII: Teens and Parents conducted by CASA.

“This fall more than 16 million teens will return to middle and high schools where drug dealing, possession, use and students high on alcohol or drugs are part of the fabric of their school,”…“Too many of our nation’s high and middle schools have become marijuana marts and pill palaces. Parents should wake up to this reality and realize more likely than not, your teen is going to school each day in a building where drug use, sale and possession is as much a part of the curriculum as math or English and do something about it. For many of our middle and high school students, school days have become school daze.”

(Source)

A retiree acquaintance moonlights as a limo driver during prom season. A hard and fast rule with limo drivers during prom season is to make sure that their teenage passengers do not sneak in any alcoholic beverages to drink before arriving at their prom. He was amazed at the ingenuity some teens are capable of in disguising alcohol and other contraband.

He speculated that the revealing prom gowns worn by today’s teenage girls mixed in with alcohol consumption created a dangerous combination that has transformed a night meant as celebration into a night of temptation and danger.

Statistics support his concerns.

• Nearly 25 percent of drivers ages 16-20 involved in fatal automobile accidents had been drinking (NHTSA, 2005).
• Half of all persons who die in traffic accidents involving underage drivers who drank are people other than the drinking driver (NHTSA, 2003).
• About one in three high school students say they have ridden in an automobile with a driver who had been drinking (NHTSA, 2003).
• Forty-seven percent of high school seniors drank during the past month (NIDA, 2006).
• More than a quarter of 12th graders drink heavily, while more than 20 percent of 10th graders do so (Johnson et al. 2005).
• Girls 16-19 are four times more likely to be the victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault than the general population (National Crime Victimization Study, 2000).
• Twenty-five percent of high school students said they were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they last
• Twenty-five percent had used alcohol or drugs the last time they had sex (YRBS, 2004).
• Alcohol or drugs influenced 29 percent of 15-17 year-olds and 37 percent of 18-24 year-olds to engage in sexual activity (Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, 2003).

Prom season has become another arena in which teen crisis intervention tools and programs must be in place. The data above was provided by just such an intervention program known as BuzzFree Prom. It is a site that you and your at-risk teen may want to explore.