Troubled Teens Resources

Before there were computers or video games or 24/7 television programming and Ipods for entertainment, there was something else responsible for providing adolescents with recreation and mental stimulation. It was called the imagination.

Where did it go and can we bring it back and what does imagination have to do with teen crisis intervention? A new program in Massachusetts has opened up the “great outdoors” to unplug from the cyber and media world and provide a new landscape where teens can reacquaint themselves with the power of their own imagination.

“The Blue Hills Reservation will be the site of the kick-off event in a “No Child Left Inside” campaign being announced today by state recreation officials.
[..]
The initiative — whose website, greatparkpursuit.org, goes online today — is state recreation officials’ response to an epidemic of childhood hours lost to indoor entertainment.”

Exercising the imagination opens doorways and facilitates the development of critical thinking skills. A teen can come to understand how much control they can actually exercise in their own lives by learning to actively participate in creating those lives as opposed to having their identity and choices defined by the media or culture.

A teen who is confident in their ability to make good choices does not choose drugs. A kid who can “imagine” his way to healthy resolutions for the emotional mazes of adolescence won’t be detoured by peer pressure.

“The Department of Conservation and Recreation wants children to “disconnect from cyberspace and reconnect with open space…”
Recreation commissions around the country are awakening to the need to draw children away from electronics and to the outdoors, said Geigis, who pointed to the influence of Richard Louv’s much-discussed book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.”
(Source)

Summer is here. Maybe it’s time for parents to experiment with becoming an “unplugged family”.