Troubled Teens Resources

Though there are reports that teens are doing less illegal drugs, the same reports indicate that teens’ have simply replaced them with illegal prescription drugs. Teen age drug abuse remains an ongoing challenge to parents and communities.

Drugs, of course, introduce a host of other possible dire consequences. The teen’s education is trashed, sexual promiscuity, long term health problems and emotional trauma. There is no cease fire or treaties with narcotics. At least not in the foreseeable future.

More than ever, parents need facts regarding exposure to addictive drugs faced by their children, according to ASAP (Adolescent Substance Abuse Program). The program offers the following data:

• Teenagers who drink or use drugs are much more likely to be sexually active, starting sexual intercourse as early as middle school.
• Teens who start drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to be become alcohol dependent than those who begin drinking at the legal age of 21.
• As the use of marijuana among young people has steadily increased, the perceived risk of marijuana use has decreased.
• The number one killer of teens is alcohol-related car crashes.
• The most important factor in protecting children from drug abuse is parents, but children spend more time watching TV than they spend interacting with their parents.

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Teen age drug abuse has become a concern for many parents, but many of these parents don’t know where to turn for help and answers. There are many resources and information for parents needing teen crisis interventions, treatment centers, and the signs and symptoms of drug abuse. Some major companies are stepping up and campaigning for teen drug abuse awareness in the hopes that parents and teens can change the staggering numbers of cases that seem to be rising every year.

“MetLife Foundation will begin the next phase of its award-winning parenting skills campaign, airing education messages created in cooperation with the nonprofit Partnership for a Drug-Free America(R) on radio stations in 11 markets nationwide through November. The radio campaign is backed by web resources and a free brochure for parents.
The campaign features radio messages, in both English and Spanish, which stress to parents the importance of talking with kids about drugs and alcohol, and staying involved in their children’s lives in order to keep them healthy and drug free. Disturbingly, at a time when teens are faced with new threats such as the intentional abuse of prescription (Rx) painkillers and over-the- counter (OTC) cough medicines, the number of frequent discussions between parents and teens about the risks of drug abuse has decreased significantly.”

Many feel that school is where teens are learning about saying no to drugs, but that isn’t enough, parents need to stay on top of teaching the morals and values their children need to make the right choices in life.

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Teen crisis intervention is hard to implement in a community where parents and citizens tend to be in denial. Wealthier communities may have a particularly hard time understanding that drugs and drug problems are no longer confined to certain demographics. Troubled teenagers come from both sides of the track.

And what is true in America is apparently also true in Great Britain. One mother, desperate for her son’s life, lashes back at her wealthy neighbors for failing to take the problem seriously.

“One local mother says it’s time for parents to wake up and realize all youths are at risk of becoming drug addicts.

Peggy Strife, who lives in a $400,000 home in a good neighbourhood, has been grappling with her 20-year-old son Brad’s crystal meth addiction for the past several years.

“I’m waiting for him to die,” said Strife about her son…Strife and her spouse lived through their own period of denial about what drugs were doing to Brad. She doesn’t want to see anyone else ignore the problem.

Strife disapproves of recent letters to the editor in the Herald where people have expressed opposition to building a youth treatment centre here.

“We have a high drug rate here and people don’t want to admit it,” Strife said.

When Strife was cruising the streets with a baseball bat, attempting to stop her son from finding and using meth, she rarely tracked down her son in areas like the West Flat, which she says tend to be associated with substance abuse issues.

“A lot of the houses I was at were on the East and West hills,” said Strife. She estimated that there were six youth drug dealers within a five-block radius of her upper-class home.

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Maybe there would be far less need for teen crisis intervention if parents would just sit down and talk to their kids on a regular basis. Parents had no trouble talking to their teens when they were five and six about the dangers of strangers. It has been proven that parents who are just as adamant about warning their teens about the dangers of drugs exert a good deal of influence on their teens behavior.

“Jill Spineti, the president and chief executive officer of the Governor’s Prevention Partnership, said in the release, “Numerous studies reveal that parents’ attitudes and beliefs are a factor in a teenager’s decision making. Parents who talk to their teens often about the threats of substance abuse are less likely to use than those who don’t. There’s no minimizing the importance of parents staying informed about existing and new threats and relaying their expectations in a clear, forthright manner. For parents, the risk isn’t in speaking up; it’s in staying silent.

The most recent partnership survey also showed that parents are looking for guidance. Nearly one-third say they have a need for more information about drugs; 30 percent say they need tips on how to start a discussion about drugs; and 37 percent report they want information on how to tell if a child is using drugs.”

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Other important influences are parents who demand to know where their teens are at all times. Teens at risk need to know the rules and the consequences of breaking them. Another important factor is having those family dinners together at least twice a week.

Troubled teenagers appear to have a common complaint. Parents are often surprised to learn that their teens would do a lot to get their attention. Psychologists will say that in some instances, teen age drug abuse is a cry for recognition.

Where are the parents? What are they doing?

The answer will throw you. School counselor Susan Karney explains over at Suite 101.

“I am always astounded by the number of kids who tell me that their parents don’t have time to hang out with them. Not to eat dinner, not to play a hand of cards, not to sit and talk about how their day was. What are the parents doing that is taking up all of their time? The answers vary: talking to their friends on the phone, playing video games, hanging out in chat rooms, watching TV, hanging out at bars. Kids are starving for our attention, and we have to find time in our lives to give it to them. It has to be a priority.”

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Playing video games? Hanging out in chat rooms? Parents?
Sorry, but that borders on the inexcusable. Parents who work more than one job or whose careers demand constant travel at least have a valid reason for “having no time”. It would be a tough task to maintain respect for a parents who “hang out” online.

Teens at risk long for inspiration and leadership. Parents can provide both by creating family activities that demonstrate how to extract the best out of life, both in work and at play.

Schools for troubled teens are very much on the mind of a close associate’s family. Unfortunately, it took the attempted suicide by her teenage daughter Alice to wake Carol up to the reality of her ongoing depression. Coming from a strict family that disciplined her severely, Carol swore that she would never deal so harshly with her own children.

Thus when finally confronted with her daughter’s drug abuse and cruel and hostile behavior, later diagnosed as Oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), she became convinced that her leniency and denial helped bring her daughter to the brink of death.

Carol is being too harsh on herself. It isn’t unusual for parents to miss signs of teen depression. By the time Carol became alarmed, much damage had already been done.Two arrests, suspension from school, and now the suicide.
Schools for troubled teens now appear as the best solution, one Carol wish she hadn’t delayed.

Fololwing are the symptons parents will want to look out for that could indicate that their teen is fighting depression.

• Withdrawal from friends and family
• Preoccupation with death
• Personality and mood changes
• Difficulty concentrating
• Decline in quality of schoolwork
• Changes in eating and sleeping habits
• Persistent boredom
• Frequent complaints of headaches, stomach aches or other physical symptoms
• Late warning signs might include:
• Talking about suicide
• Violent or rebellious behavior
• Refusing help
• Not tolerating praise or rewards, complaining about being a “bad” person
• Giving away favorite possessions.

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Teens at risk and troubled teens in general typically report little or no communication at home. Home has become a convenient pit stop. It as if families no longer have a “home hearth” where the art of conversation is learned and family games are played and family traditions are grown and developed. The need for so much effort devoted to teen crisis intervention did not arise in a vacuum. Family break down is seminal to the rampant behavioral problems exhibited by today’s teens and key to any healthy family is communication.

“…Researchers at the Emory University Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life studied the conversations of Atlanta-area families and came across some noteworthy findings. Parents who encourage their children to talk about feelings, like anger and sadness, were more likely to raise resilient kids.

The researchers took special note of family conversations concerning negative events such as a death. In these instances, kids struggled to understand what happened. When parents didn’t shut them down, children felt accepted and acknowledged. More than that, these children also had better self-esteem and were more socially adept.”

If communication is sorely lacking in your family, it will take conscious effort and family commitment to change the routines that families have allowed to develop over the years. Follow the link to a Psychology Today piece that discusses the issue in more detail.

Teen crisis interventions would certainly not have become the norm if parents , over the years, had not slowly abdicated their power and authority over their own kids. Be it the result of misguided theories espoused by “progressive parenting” pundits or simply by falling for the erroneous teaching that advocates treating children as if they were too fragile for criticism and discipline, parents have become a door mat that their teens carelessly walk on daily.

If you recognize the problem in your own immediate circle of parents, schedule a workshop with Dr. Janet Edgette, “an American psychologist who specializes in adolescent and family counselling.” Be pro-active and take any problems that teens are presenting in your community and tackle it.

“Heather Parker, executive director of AMCAL Family Services, said her organization is constantly “searching for people who have written on the topic of dealing with youth, and parents’ difficulties with youth.

“I knew [Edgette] had written a book [Stop Negotiating with Your Teen: Strategies for Parenting Your Angry, Moody, Manipulative, or Depressed Adolescent] within the last year or so, and when I contacted her she said she does a workshop… And she agreed to come up,” Parker said.”

Edgette counsels parents to take back their ground and assert the authority that teens absolutely need to see expressed in their lives.

“Some of the things [Edgette] is going to be talking about, I think, is very relevant to families… “Most parents we see here have lost their authority as parents. Kids basically don’t listen, do what they want, and are running the household. So she’s really going to give parents some strategies on how to regain control again,” she said. “Especially for those who feel they are being held hostage in their own home by some angry teenager.”

Parker said a major issue AMCAL social workers and therapists encounter is parents seem to have “abdicated” their authoritative role.”
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Teen help usually is sponsored or initiated by schools and government agencies and non-profits, but perhaps the most powerful source of teen help comes from parents themselves. Parents whose family or community has been impacted by teen age drug abuse, drinking and driving and other destructive behaviors.
Five Moms is a group that emerged as a result of the rising abuse of over-the-counter drugs, such as cough medicine.

We are five moms—a pediatric nurse practitioner, an accountant, a D.A.R.E. officer, an educator, and an author—from different backgrounds and from all over the country. We’ve come together with a common concern: teenagers abusing cough medicine to get high. We worry not only about our own kids, but about those of our friends and neighbors, too.

So when the Consumer Healthcare Products Association asked us to spread the word to parents, we stepped forward. The idea is a simple one. We will each tell five more moms about this nationwide problem, and they will tell another five, and another five beyond that. Soon, we hope to reach every parent in America with this message: that we must work together to educate our teens about the dangers of cough medicine abuse.

Visit their site for more information. (H/T: Save Our Youth Taskforce)Here are some of the warning signs that your at-risk teen may be abusing cough medicine:

• Empty cough medicine boxes or bottles in the trash of your teen’s room, or boxes or bottles missing from the medicine cabinet
• Visiting pro-drug web sites that provide information on how to abuse dextromethorphan
• Changes in friends, physical appearance, or sleeping or eating patterns
• Declining grades
• Loss of interest in hobbies or favorite activities
• Hostile and uncooperative attitude
• Unexplained disappearance of household money
• Unusual chemical or medicinal smells on your child or in his or her room

Sometimes the first step in teen crisis intervention is addressing the parents themselves. If parents do not model behavior that reflects self-discipline and restraint, the troubled teen typically has no other role model that they can turn to.

It is simply not enough to blithely shrug irresponsible adult behavior off by saying ” do as I say, not as I do,” That isn’t sufficient to stop a teen from taking a few pills when they have witnessed Mom or Dad popping pills and “drinking socially” for their entire lives.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a list of questions that parents can ask themselves.

1. Do you usually offer alcoholic drinks to friends and family when they come to your home?
2. Do you frequently take medicine for minor aches and pains or if you are feeling sad or nervous?
3. Do you take sleeping pills to fall asleep?
4. Do you use alcohol or any other drug in a way that you would not want your child to?
5. Do you smoke cigarettes?
6. Are you proud about how much you can drink?
7. Do you make jokes about getting drunk or using drugs?
8. Do you go to parties that involve a lot of drinking?
9. Do you drink and drive or ride with drivers who have been drinking?
10. Has your child ever seen you drunk?
11. Do you let minors drink alcohol in your home?

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Parents have got to understand what, if any, complicity that they have had in their teen’s problems and address it honestly if they hope to have an honest dialog with their troubled teen.