Troubled Teens Resources

That drug abuse among troubled teens is rampant and an ongoing problem certainly isn’t news though it still has the simple power to stun. You wonder when and if it will ever end. How can any one person staunch the flow of pain and loss that stems from addiction and teenage drug abuse?

One program and one person at a time.
One teenager at a time.
All that we can do is what is before us.

Parents can look out over at their own small circle of neighbors and family. Engage in conversations with your at-risk teenager’s friends. Be genuinely interested in their lives. You may, sad as it is, be the only adult to recognize them, to acknowledge them.

An individual with clear, uncomplicated concern and simple well spoken advice can, and often does, make an impact on a troubled teen’s life.

Influencing a teenager’s life and helping them navigate a path away from drug abuse can be likened to the efforts of a tug boat nudging a huge ship into safe harbor. It is not accomplished in one sweeping maneuver but in a combination of several strategic nudges. Your touching an at-risk teen’s life constitutes such a nudge.

Read below about a single gentleman who has spent his career providing passage to safe harbor for at-risk teens, one teen at a time.

“Sit up. Look me in the eye. I’m going to tell you where you’re headed if you don’t straighten out and make better choices.

Those words, or a close proximity, come from Mike Force, Lake Saint Louis police chief.

Three or four times a year he speaks them to a young man, typically 14 or 15, brought to the police station by a parent.
Usually it’s a single mom. Sometimes it’s a father. Recently, it was a grandfather doing his best to raise a grandson.

The problem might be fistfights at school, a bag of marijuana under the bed or money missing from mom’s purse.

Parents come to see Force because they’ve glimpsed the future, or at least one version of it, and as a result lie awake at night.

When they arrive, they are led to Force’s office in the inner sanctum of the Police Station/City Hall.

Why Force? There’s no listing in the Yellow Pages.

Parents come because he’s been holding these meetings since he started as chief 15 years ago. Word gets around.

He does it because he believes it’s important; because he knows how easily his own life could have turned out differently; and because helping people is at the core of law enforcement.

Here’s what happens.
…continue reading at The Suburban Journal