Troubled Teens Resources

Schools for troubled teens seem like a throwback to the 18th century for some out-of-control teens. Especially for those teens who are addicted. No, we are not talking about teen age drug abuse and addictions. Add internet addiction to your lexicon of destructive habits that you do not want your teen to acquire.

These kids need to be wired up, connected, plugged-in, online. It is the air that they breathe and, for some, the only type of connection that they have with anyone, ever. In the real world,these are the teens who feel inept, clumsy and despised by their peers and family. They are alienated from everyone, except for those connections, for good or ill, that they make online.

Military schools, boarding schools - none of them allow the internet addicted teen to take refuge in a virtual world 24/7. Use of the internet is considered a privelege. For some kids those rules force them to deal with the social and relationship issues that they fear.

But it is not all on the troubled teen. Parents, as usual play a pivotal and primary role. When the writer, linked below, asked high school students what issues were most important to them, their number one answer was the relationship, or lack thereof, that they had with their parents.

“Independent of the depressing effects of excessive Internet use, the most devastating impact of Internet addiction may be the decreased amount of quality time teenagers have with their parents. Just like other addictions, the Internet addict probably suffers from feelings of emotional and physical isolation from his or friends and family and spends little time involved in healthy relationships which are the basis for positive emotional development.”

(source)

Read the link above for an instructive look at internet addiction and the importance of having your teen connect with you, not the internet.

Sometimes it is good for a parent of a troubled teen to hear another parent describe their experiences. The internet sometimes allows parents to share without ever meeting via blogs and online journals.

Ironically, one of the concerns parents struggle with is their teen’s excessive use of the internet, seemingly a factor in this troubled teen’s life.

Internet Addiction

“I’ve written about my daughter’s success more than once in recent times but have been sadly silent about my son, who will be 18 on Thursday. This is odd, as he has been on my mind a great deal. Perhaps the reason I have not blogged on it is that there is little to boast about and things have been said and done that are deeply saddening.

He spent the last school year, pretending to work and spending god knows how many hours on the internet. His reward was a month-long holiday trekking in Africa. He was supposed to get a job and pay for half, but didn’t (many excuses).

We hoped that seeing the world and then the shock of terrible exam results would help him grow up, and we persuaded the school to let him re-take the year. Yet whilst there has been some improvement in work, it may not be enough and the deception has continued such that we cannot really tell whether anything he says is true or not.
[..]
After much thought we have decided to now cut off the internet altogether. He will object, no doubt, and maybe seek revenge.”
(Source)

Addictive Patterns

The writer goes on to remark that their son’s behavior improved after a time away from the internet and that maybe some kind of addiction pattern was indicated.

If your troubled teen uses any one entertainment, sport or activity to the detriment of all else, it can be cause for concern, The parent here is wise to note a “pattern”, as he was wise to pull the internet.

Learning to live life in balance seems to take an entire life to learn. If these parents can teach their at-risk teen to seek balance, help the teenager learn new patterns, a path that can potentially lead to teenage drug abuse can be short circuited.