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.

Military boarding schools, brat camps,troubled teen boarding schools often get a bum rap in a society where progressive theories on parenting have run amuck.

The proponents of the current dogma insist on making children victims, sheltering them from the harsh facts of life by protecting them from competition, by making failure a bad word, by teaching them to blame others rather than to learn accountability. Since military schools and similar institutions follow a code in direct contradiction to progressive tenets, it is no wonder they receive a great deal of self-righteous verbal abuse.

But the stories in the linked article below are worth reading because they describe one of the basic precepts founds in a military schools or any academic institution dedicated to education and not indoctrination. Hard work. self-discipline. Ethics. Tenaciousness. That is the stuff of dreams coming true and futures that are fulfilling and productive.

“Hard work. Not making excuses. Refusing to blame others. Appreciation of this country’s rule of law and its free enterprise system, along with a willingness to accept the consequences of one’s own actions. Or, as our ex-homeless-man turned stockbroker, who now runs a multimillion-dollar firm, put it, “If all of this were to crash tomorrow, I’d get up the next day and get back at it. I’ve been there, OK? The worst thing in the world that can happen has already happened. What’s next?”

(source)

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder can be tackled by many methods besides medication. Recent studies have indicated a correlation between ADHD and too much media consumption. Other studies indicate outdoor activities as a tools for managing ADD. It’s been demonstrated that weight lifting and martial arts programs are excellent for counteracting ADHD. So disconnect the teen from their media, get them outside and enroll them in a sport. All medication free.

In fact there are programs appearing daily all over the world that employ a constellation of therapies that can turn ADD into an asset instead of a stumbling block. Boot camps, troubled teen boarding schools and military schools have success with a combination of structure, discipline, accountability and cognitive self-change.

Parents need not despair if their teen or child has been diagnosed with ADD. First, get more than one opinion. You might find some schools are extremely heavy handed when it comes to demanding a teen be medicated. Stand your ground and seek alternatives if you are uncomfortable with medicating your teen.

Experiment with behavioral modification training that you can conduct at home. About.com has several suggestions along these lines, with links to various programs.

“Behavior Modification programs are an important part of treatment for children with ADD/ADHD. They can be used to improve behavior at home, improve academic success or improve family relationships. They can range from elaborate programs to simple charts.”

Teen help can be obtained from many, many sources, both privately funded or programs initiated by the government or non-profits. Troubled teen boarding schools, military schools and other private institutions are also available if your troubled teen needs a more comprehensive approach to their problems. Yet with all of those choices, some parents still can’t find the appropriate school or program for their kids.

Have you ever felt like getting like minded parents together and starting your own private boarding school? Parents in a small British Columbia town were unhappy with the choices available for their teens and decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We felt it was necessary to start our own private school for many of the same reasons that other parent groups start a school, we could not find a suitable position in a suitable school for our children. We were a group of families that broke away from an established school that offered a great education for our children, but the board approached the parents for more money, and we felt that the money would not dealt with wisely.

We lost any faith we had in the business side of the school.

We had had a taste of what a private school education meant for our children, and we would not give that up. In the process, most parents explored the alternatives that were in the area, and we determined that we were not comfortable with them. We have as one of our founding tenets to be grass roots, down to earth, etc. even though we have a pretty sophisticated parent group–(company presidents, lawyers, doctor etc). In our process, we found that we moved from being consumers of an educational product to being a community.”

(source)

Girls Boarding schools. Alternative Schools. Military schools. Troubled teen boarding schools and charter schools and vouchers and home schooling. Parents in America have choices. While parents may be feeling overwhelmed with their troubled teen or special needs teen’s current acadamic experiences, at least they can explore other programs and schools. There are innumerable options for a parent to consider.

The subject comes up after running ento a blog entry by a home schooling parent about the under reported crack down on homeschooling in Germany. It is worth taking note of.

“Since the late 1990s, scores of these families have been involved in court cases. While there have been a few instances where families have been able to continue to homeschool after or while paying fines, or when the local authorities turn a blind eye, this is by far the exception. In most cases families are fined, in some cases thousands of dollars, or when threatened with the removal of their children by German Youth Welfare authorities, have fled the country. Other families have been (and remain) separated for years–the fathers remaining in Germany to provide for their families and mothers and children living in another country where they are able to safely homeschool. Mothers and fathers have been also imprisoned, had their bank accounts confiscated, their wages garnished, or their businesses ruined by the actions of their local government.
[…]
Although the Court agreed that homeschooling was an exercise of protected parental liberties, it determined that these liberties were overridden by concerns raised by the lower German courts that homeschooling could create a parallel society.

In the United States, such a decision would be tantamount to the Supreme Court ruling that states could outlaw homeschooling.”
(Source)

With public education on a continuing downward spiral, at least Americans have a choice as to how they will educate their children. To loose that ability to choose would be unthinkable.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder is described as having the following “symptoms”:

• Often loses temper
• Often argues with adults
• Often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
• Often deliberately annoys people
• Often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehaviors
• Is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
• Is often angry and resentful
• Is often spiteful or vindictive

This type of behavior used to be referred to as bratty and children who demonstrated such antics were justifiably disciplined as brats. Today, to the amusement of many, this is called ODD or Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

We will shy away from discussing the merits, or lack thereof, in slapping another label on a kid. A label that will no doubt ring the cash registers for psychiatrists and pharmaceuticals.
Focusing instead on the behavior described, what has been the usual method of dealing with it?  Discipline. Anger management. Critical thinking skills. All behavioral remedies that instill life long habits that any functioning adult requires to be a productive and contributing participant in life.

Cognitive self-change is an example of an effective behavioral program, a “discipline [that] is remarkably distinct in that it teaches how to dramatically alter one’s belief that he is the victim of his own feelings and circumstances. In this discipline, excuses are not accepted.”

Now doesn’t that sound a bit more constructive than another prescription? Parents who are truly alarmed at the behavior being demonstrated by their teen can find programs such as cognitive self change in accredited troubled teen boarding schools, military schools and in short term youth camps.

Many parents are fatalistically discouraged before they even start searching for a troubled teen boarding school. Even though recent statistics say that teen age drug abuse has undergone some decreasing numbers, there are simultaneous reports predicting a new wave of cheap variations of heroin and meth flooding the country.

Statistics do not matter, in the end, to the parent of a troubled teen. They just want to hear that sometimes it works out. They want to hear that even though their kid fell, and fell hard, that they can justifiably believe in his recovery.

The fact of the matter is, that is true. Year after year, private boarding schools, military schools and wilderness therapy programs turn kids around, perhaps advancing them further than had they never had a drug problem. Because schools that specialize in addicted and problem teens teach skills and provide cognitive training and critical thinking that public schools do not provide, putting them in a superior position in navigating future challenges.

Psychology Today has an interesting article suggesting that the popular media rendering of the addict is misleading and pessimistic.

“…this fatalistic thinking about addiction doesn’t jibe with the facts. More people overcome addictions than do not. And the vast majority do so without therapy. Quitting may take several tries, and people may not stop smoking, drinking or using drugs altogether. But eventually they succeed in shaking dependence.”

A parent should approach the selection of a troubled teen boarding school with the confidence and anticipation that their teen will resume living a constructive and fulfilling life, all the stronger for having met his enemy head on and walked away the victor.

Why do some teens seem to be able to actually “Just Say No” to drugs and others cannot. What essential lessons can be distinguished as being pivotal in raising a balanced teen?

A study suggests that core competency skills can equip a troubled teen to fight peer pressure as well as guide the teen to finding healthy solutions to pain or anger or sorrow.

“They can combat powerful social influences from friends and siblings to use multiple substances, including cigarettes. Moreover, this research provides important support for drug-abuse prevention programmes that include the teaching of competence skills, including refusal skills and decision-making skills,” she said.”

Core competency skills are described as “good self-management and positive psychological characteristics”. Self- management needs to be both taught and demonstrated. It goes without saying that in a culture that is driven by instant gratification, troubled teens see very little in the way of self-discipline and restraint. Even star athletes, whom you would expect to exhibit exemplary self-discipline, are now notorious for their unrestrained behavior.

We are obsessed with sheltering our teens from adversity and protecting them from predators when an equal amount of time needs to be spent equipping them to deal with exactly those threats and predators.

Military schools, troubled teen boarding schools and many wilderness programs equip a teen with core competency skills.Troubled teens in such programs learn accountability, responsibility and self-management. That is why such institutions are often favored by parents over a public school system that, more and more, mirrors the dysfunctional culture that teens need to be taught to resist.

As parents with a troubled teen, Jan and David had a long list of “disorders” that could be attached to their son’s behavior. They are in the midst of the long and often arduous task of reviewing and researching troubled teen boarding schools and various military schools for their out-of-control teen. They found the ODD “diagnosis” useful only in so far as it facilitated the processing of their insurance requirements.

The relatively recent introduction of oppositional defiant disorder to the lexicon of teen behavioral ailments seem almost meaningless to parents today. They simply want the behavior, regardless of how the professional journals describe it to end.

The following are the symptoms associated with oppositional defiant disorder:

A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:

• often loses temper
• often argues with adults
• often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
• often deliberately annoys people
• often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
• is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
• is often angry and resentful
• is often spiteful or vindictive

The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
(Source)

ODD describes behaviors that professionals at troubled teen boarding schools have long been successfully treating with a variety of teen behavioral approaches and therapies.

They are up at around 6 AM and back to bed by 10. Their day is structured, with each hour allocated either to school work or other program work. They are troubled teens who wanted freedom and their own way and have lost both.

To some troubled teens, being placed in a troubled teen boarding school will be tantamount to being imprisoned. For those teens whose parents never imposed much discipline, this will be classified as extremely cruel and unusual punishment. That is what they will tell parents in the beginning anyway.

Some teens actually believe that they would no longer have to do schoolwork. They are rudely surprised that in the majority of boarding schools and military schools, like Tipton or Meadowlark, that academics are a major part of their day with a demand for an 80% or higher grade in order to progress to each new assignment.

Some teens imagine that they will hang out in cells with their”bro”, shooting the breeze, playing cards, talking smack. These teens are especially dismayed to find themselves at the end of a broom sweeping grounds or at the end of a pair or reins helping out with the horses.

A credible and comprehensive boarding school will touch your troubled teenager’s life in all the areas that they do not want to be touched in. Freedom, authority and discipline.

If all goes well, a good treatment program will have taught the teen that if he masters his behavior in these three areas that he has written himself a very powerful check to cash in when entering back into his regular teenage existence.

Whatever your troubled teen may have imagined boarding school to be, they will find themselves wrong, but ultimately, in the end, they’ll know it was the right place at the right time.