Troubled Teens Resources

My nephew lives in Montana where officials are in a battle against the worst infestation of meth production and addiction in the country. It turns out that teen boarding schools are growing in popularity there. Teen age drug abuse takes on an entirely different and menacing complexion when the drug is meth.

My nephew reported that two neighbors have opted to send their teens to a private boarding school because of the overwhelming prevalence of meth and meth culture in their community.

His neighbor made a very sad observation: “It began to seem like I was sending my daughter off to war every time she drove off to school. These meth addicts are dangerous, violent and they are everywhere.”

“Karen, whose parents were both addicts, grew up around drugs. She recalls as a child picking her father’s used needles off the floor.

She started shooting and smoking cocaine before progressing to methamphetamines.

The first time she shot up she was 16.

As she speaks, she rubs blotches of facial acne.

“This is the drug coming out of my system,” she says, noting meth has also started to burn holes through her nose.

Despite developing pockets of infection throughout her body, she still craved the drug, she says.
[…]
“I’ve been raped numerous times. You’re bought and sold but nobody cares,” she says. “I was sold by boyfriends to support their habits.”

She says she willingly gave up custody of her children because she knew her drug habit was hurting them.

Though not yet 30, she says she felt “too old to change.”

(Source)

That is what has become so unnerving. Addiction is now becoming two and three generations deep, each disintegrating family perpetuating the poison of drugs from one generation to the next, weakening, inch by inch, the social fabrics of entire communities.

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.

Brat camp for parents may be the next stage needed in teen crisis intervention. Some parents simply do not have a clue. Irresponsible parents, unfortunately, put everyone’s teenagers in danger.

Here is a woman’s description of her neighbor, an irresponsible parent that she refers to as Mr. Milquetoast.

“Throwing beer cans and bottles, pissing on people’s cars just shows the deepest contempt for the community. I guess we’ve earned it.

After a previous incident where Mr. Milquetoast’s son’s friends threw beer cans on my lawn, I talked to a Walnut Creek police officer about what could be done about this behavior and also the son’s alcohol-fueled driving. His response was that his parents had let him and his friends drink when he was underage. When I mentioned the little matter of teenage drunk driving, he said that the kids might have a designated driver. I think my snort could be heard in Lamorinda. Anyway, it’s clear that the problem is not just with the parents. It’s also with a police force that sees teenage drinking as acceptable and normal behavior.”
(source)

Just makes you want to throw your hands up in the air, doesn’t it? Also makes the option of troubled teen boarding schools and military boarding schools a heck of a lot more attractive. These type of parents are in the PTA, on school boards,and may likely be one of your teen’s teachers. You may recall this year the many teachers that have been brought up on charges of improper behavior with their students.

A parent has more control over their troubled teenager’s education in a private boarding school setting. Typically schools in the private sector can attract a higher caliber, more dedicated professional than the public sector. A parent can choose a specialty school that is closely aligned with their values, joining a community of parents that have the mutual goal of turning teens at risk into responsible adults.

Boarding schools, troubled teen boarding schools and specialty schools most often offer a superior education to that of any public institution. In fact, more parents are investigating alternate education, giving rise to efforts to make such choices available to a far greater number of parents and their at risk teens.

“Many sources agree that, on the whole, American public schools are rotten. In 2000, a whopping 12 percent of graduating seniors were rated ‘proficient’ in science, and international surveys rank our graduating seniors 19th overall out of 21 nations. In 2002, the Washington Post summarized a different survey: ‘Nearly six in 10 of the nation’s high school seniors lack even a basic knowledge of U.S. history,’” says Gelerneter.”

Talking to parents whose troubled teenagers were turned around in a private boarding school, the question they are starting to ask is, do we need public education at all?

“Why not liberate all the vast resources we spend on public schools to be re-channeled to private schools chosen by the nation’s parents? Any public school offering an education that parents will actually pay for (of their own free will) would presumably be replaced by a private school offering essentially the same thing. But a vast array of new private schools would germinate also. And a vast number of failed public schools would disappear.”

(source)

Take time this summer and investigate alternative educational options for your teenagers. You certainly won’t be alone.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADD, ADHD, and all of the other “disorders” that troubled teenagers are tagged with will continue to be challenged by those in and out of the psychiatric field. This presents the parent of such a teen with the arduous chore of carefully examining both sides of the conflict and seeking advice from more than one source when determining the route they wish to proceed with a teen diagnosed with any one disorder.

“With increasing international concern about the large number of children labeled with so-called psychiatric disorders and prescribed mind-altering drugs, even the pioneer of psychiatry’s billing bible and “godfather of ADHD,” Dr. Robert Spitzer, recently admitted that normal children are being inappropriately labeled by health care professionals. Spitzer, a Columbia University psychiatrist, told BBC2 that children experiencing perfectly normal signs of being happy and sad are being labeled as mentally ill. While admitting this, he stopped short of informing BBC viewers that there is no scientific evidence that any of the millions of children so diagnosed have any physical abnormality that justifies the diagnosis. Nor that because of this, psychiatrists cannot agree on who is sick and who is well. Yet despite this fallible “science,” worldwide sales of psychotropic drugs prescribed to treat “mental disorders,” including stimulants, antipsychotics and antidepressants, now exceed $80 billion annually.”
(source)

Carol is a parent that opted out of a chemical solution, instead choosing to vigorously research alternative educational options for her at risk teen daughter.

“I interviewed staff at troubled teen boarding schools, brat camps and specialty schools. Andrea does beautifully if she is fully engaged. Her love of math and science seem to magically make her ADD disappear. I found a great private boarding school that basically prepares the budding scientist for college. Combined with her regular therapist teaching her how to manage her ADD and use it to her advantage, I think I really made the right choice. She is thriving now without any meds.”

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)