Troubled Teens Resources

Schools for troubled teens do not give their students the luxury of free time. Teenagers with addictions and behavioral problems are given priveleges based on performance and behavior. One privilege treated like gold in many teen boarding schools is access to the internet. Unlike many naive or indifferent parents, staff is well aware of the inappropriate and harmful information teens can dig up on the net.

If your teen has unrestricted access to the computer in your home, you would do well to monitor their use. Just find some teen chat rooms or go on MySpace and you’ll get an idea why the internet is not the best place for teens at risk to spend their time.

“A new study from the Caron Treatment Centers analyzed more than 10 million online messages written by teens and found a number of conversations about drinking, taking drugs, and having sex. The study was based on a computerized search of blogs, public chat rooms, message boards, and other Internet sites. Research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics said that about 2 percent of posts specifically mentioned alcohol or other drugs.

Common discussions included trading information about using drugs without getting hurt or caught and debates about legalization and the drinking age. Some teens discussed their partying and sexual activities. Often, newer slang for drugs was used to avoid raising red flags among suspicious parents.

Bad information on drugs abounds online. Some teens have found themselves in the Emergency Room after following misinformation regarding supposed safe drug combinations. There is no way for teens to differentiate good vs bad information.”

(source)

Teen boarding schools, specialty schools and brat camps are not a last resort. More and more parents are moving their teens out of the public school system and separating them from an increasingly corrosive culture perpetuated by the media and the corporations who stand to profit from the teenage demographic.

“According to the most recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), private schools have enjoyed a steady increase in enrollment, climbing by 18 percent between 1988 and 2001 — and enrollment rates are expected to continue to rise by at least another 7 percent by 2013! Public school enrollment rose by about the same rate (19 percent) but is expected to continue to rise by only 4 percent.”

Besides superior academics, private boarding schools act as a powerful antidote to the destructive chatter, rap and hip hop that streams from teenagers iPods, MySpace and other cultural reenforcers of destructive life styles.

when you read accounts like the following, you can only wonder what parents can do when, by all appearances, their teenager seems to be doing well. Could the values and discipline that boarding schools bring to the table have made a difference?

“Attractive, vivacious, somewhat irreverent and full of spirit and talent. All these are attributes friends and family gleaned from 17-year-old Tracey.
[..]
But on Easter Sunday in 2004, that determination was snuffed out. Tracey died of a heroin overdose. Her death was hard on family members, but what shocked them even more was that Tracey had begun her addictive odyssey way before anyone ever knew.
[..]
Tracey’s now just a memory. Her mother keeps some of her ashes in a heart-shaped locket around her neck.

“This is not where your parents want you to be, around their neck in a piece of jewelry. They would rather have your arms around their neck, hugging them,” Faye said.

Tracey would have turned 21 this year if she had lived. Her mother now speaks to adult groups and schools about teen prescription drug abuse as often as she can.”

(Source)

Girls boarding schools seemed, at first, an unlikely solution to Sarah’s problems. Could any kind of private boarding school help Sarah deal with her sexual acting out? Would separating her from friends and the opposite sex further alienate her?

Sarah’s mother struggled with these questions when trying to determine the best course of action for her daughter’s future. Abused by her step-father, now in jail, Sarah could not seem to stop presenting herself as a little Lolita online, as if hungering for the only “affection” she could understand. Sarah’s mother feared for the day when her daughter would actually meet some of the men that she now teased by posting provocative pictures.

After discovering her daughter’s MySpace page, Sarah’s mother immediately sought out professional counseling. It led her to choose a specialty school for troubled teens based on her belief that her daughter needed to address her emotional and sexual problems on a neutral playing ground, away from the influence of all the highly sexualized pop culture that teens are inundated with.

“I want Sarah to have the time and space to discover that her worth goes far beyond her physical attractiveness. She is brilliant in math, so I chose a school with an emphasis on preparing young girls for a career in science. They combine their academics with regular therapy and behavioral programs. I’m convinced that once her self-esteem is derived from her achievements and her role models are based on accomplished women in science and business, she’ll come to realize that she need not cheapen herself in order to earn love and affection.”

Do your homework. There are thousands of programs and schools, many with financial aid. You are bound to find a school that will be the best fit for your troubled teenager.

Troubled teenagers hunger for the sound of their parent’s listening. I know, oddly worded, but what they so very much need is the silence of empathy. The listening ear willing to hear them define their world. And as a parent listens and learns the language of their teens private world, they will begin to build a bridge of mutual respect. Bridges run two ways. If your teen feels safe in welcoming you into their world, they may be more prone to listen to your wisdom about the world at large.

“I’ve been parenting for over two decades. I’ve seen a lot of hype and fads come and go. I’m sure you would agree that what stands the test of time deserves our attention. Building relationships is what remains constant. And the number one thing you can focus on to improve any relationship is listening.

I can guarantee you, your teenager is craving for you to listen…really listen to her.

She probably won’t admit it, of course. But take a look at the clues. Your teenager is drawn, like a magnet, to those people who are hearing her. Paying attention to the questions going through her head. Listening to the angst in her heart. Accepting her for who she is.”

(Source)

As is often stated here, teen crisis intervention need not be all that complicated. It is as simple as that teen who is “drawn, like a magnet, to those people who are hearing her”, being drawn to you. Trusting you, rather than the drug culture competing for her attention through her iPod and MySpace. It is obvious who is going to give your teen the wisest counsel.

Teen age crisis intervention programs launched against teen age drug abuse cover several categories of drugs. Some programs concentrate on fighting troubled teenagers‘ fascination with hard drugs, such as heroin,coke, and crack. Some programs seek to intervene where heavy pot use is indicated.

Another type of teen age drug abuse has brought about programs that directly address cough and general over-the-counter medicine abuse. We have visited the “Five Moms ” site before, but the issue is important enough to re-visit many times. They have dedicated an admirable amount of time and resources to getting the word out. After all, prescription medicine seems safer to teens. It also is so easy to acquire and arouses little suspicion. It can creep into your teen’s life without a clue being given.

A place to start collecting clues would be the Internet. A jaunt through MySpace will amaze you.

“Many web sites and online communities promote the abuse of dextromethorphan-containing cough medicines. Social networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, LiveJournal, and Facebook are filled with detailed instructions, user conversations, and videos of kids abusing cough medicine. Users blog and post videos about specific plans to abuse cough medicine, and even describe the effects. Through these outlets and others, kids can compare notes and exchange approaches to abusing these products. There also are a number of sites that provide detailed instructions on how to abuse cough medicine.

In the case of raw dextromethorphan, the frightening reality is that kids have been able to log on to a host of sites, purchase large amounts of the pure ingredient with only a credit card and a shipping address, and receive the drug in its unfinished form at their doorstep—your doorstep. The people who have allowed these sales are a new breed of Internet predator, out to make money, with no consideration of the dangers their sites pose to our kids. There simply is no good reason to allow teens or anyone else to have this raw ingredient.”

Five Moms

One gets discouraged reading about the insane excesses of America’s teenagers, but from two articles that I read this morning, it seems the UK’s parents have more to combat than we presently do here in America.

The first article explains that it is legal in the UK for parents to give alcohol to children as young as five as long as they are at home. They have only recently proposed enacting laws to raise the drinking limit to 15 and to prepare to provide alcohol education in schools.

Now here is an amazing statistic: “the amount of alcohol consumed by girls aged between 11-13 has increased by 82.6% between 2000-2006, while for boys the number has gone up by 43.4% during the same period.”

Which perhaps accounts for this amazing report of the most rabidly abusive disrespect that I have heard of in a great long time. If your teen has a MySpace account, they perhaps should read this. Apparently rock star Annie Lenox’s teen daughter posted an invite to “30 close school friends” to come party while her father was out of town.

“The mayhem happened after Annie’s teenaged daughter Lola innocently let slip she was having a get-together at home while her film producer father Uri Fruchtmann was away.

But the email which was meant to get to just 30 close school friends ended up frenziedly circulating to hundreds of others. It is understood that the information about the party spread on websites like MySpace.

Their £2 million family home in north London was trashed when more than a hundred youngsters forced entry.

Party-goers daubed graffiti on walls, broke pictures and lampshades, tore apart books, urinated and vomited on carpets, flooded the kitchen and had a pitch battle in the garden.

It was not long before it was standing room only at the house and in its grounds and the party quickly got out of hand.”
(Source)

One hopes that there are troubled teen boarding schools, boot camps and other programs in the UK, considering that this MySpace type “call to party” is reportedly becoming a trend.