Troubled Teens Resources

There have been reports for decades that additives can cause hyperactivity in kids. But it is information parents with kids diagnosed for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder have come to take quite seriously.

A friend whose son was diagnosed with ADHD has been researching private teen boarding schools and was surprised to find several that many have menus available for ADHD kids who do not use medication. Besides eliminating sugars and fats, they offer foods without additives.

“Research…found that artificial food additives can trigger hyperactive behavior in children.

The study tested a range of E-numbers and a common preservative found in foods popular with kids - soft drinks, sweets and ice cream - on a group of three-year-olds and another group of children aged eight and nine.

Those who consumed a cocktail of these artificial nasties became loud, boisterous and were unable to concentrate on one toy or task.

The additives even affected kids with no history of hyperactivity or attention deficit disorder.

The Foods Standards Agency now recommends that parents with hyperactive kids should cut the additives used in the study out of their diet. But it stopped short of proposing a complete ban, which has enraged those who believe additives may explain the explosion of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Dr Sue Baic says: “The study supports what we dietitians have known for a long time - that feeding children on diets largely consisting of processed foods, which may also be high in fat, salt or sugar, is not best for health.”

(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)

Teen boarding schools seem an unlikely refuge, but that is how Adam felt about his school. It was a refuge from the bitter, drawn out divorce between his parents. It was a place where he wouldn’t have to see his younger sister’s sadness and tears.

Fortunately for Adam and his parents, it was a school staffed by professionals and mental health experts who knew how to recognize and deal with teen depression. Not exactly a troubled teen boarding school, it seemed to have a high percentage of students who had little or no family life.

Though perhaps “privileged”, these teens had no contact with jet hopping parents and divorce was a commonality that they all seemed to share along with the depression and emotional upheaval that troubled teenagers in the midst of a divorce have to master.

Adam pushed through the depression for the sake of his sister. He wanted to be the one “sane person” she could talk to. He went so far as to confront his parents about how their screaming matches and hostility was hurting everyone. With support from his school and a few referrals, all of the family ended up receiving counseling to help them through the trauma.

MyWellnessDiary.com offers some good articles on depression and divorce. A few are excerpted below.

“Here are some steps to decrease the chance of your divorce and child depression

1. Honesty is the best policy: Be honest with yourself about the potential for emotional trauma in your individual children.

2. Communication: Allow your children to communicate openly with each parent.

3. Choices: By offering your children choices, whenever possible, will increase their sense of control over their lives.

4. Support: Get the proper support for yourself and your children, It may differ for each individual.

5. Normal Activities: By keeping life as normal as you can with the same routine, same activities.”

(Source)

Teen boarding schools have often proven to be the right environment for the depressed teen who is also emotionally alienated from their family. Such a teen has often erected defenses that even the most loving parents cannot permeate.

Often a teen can better come to grips with their depression away from the family . Enrolling a teen in a specialty school or troubled teen boarding school allows the teen to gain perspective and view their family from a safer place emotionally.

If you suspect that your teen son or daughter is suffering from depression, you will want to become familiar with some of the symptoms. The links following this abbreviated list will give you some guidance.

• Myth: It is normal for teenagers to be moody, because teens do not suffer from real depression.
• Fact: Depression can affect people at any age or of any race, ethnic, or economic group, so each mood change should be monitored.
• Myth: Teens who claim to be depressed are weak and just need to pull themselves together, so there is nothing anyone else can do to help.
• Fact: Depression is not a weakness, but a serious health disorder, and both young people and adults who are depressed need professional treatment. A trained therapist or counselor can help them learn more positive ways to think about themselves, change behavior, and cope with problems. The physician can prescribe medications to help relieve the symptoms of depression, because for many people, a combination of psychotherapy and medication is beneficial.

(Source)

Teen boarding schools offer parents an alternative to the agenda driven public schools where often the talented, but emotionally troubled teen, receives little support or recognition of their gifts or skills. In fact, it is often that combination that can prove incendiary; intelligence and emotional problems. If the intelligence and uniqueness of an individual teen is not nurtured, they often fail to recognize it themselves, emphasizing only what they view as their failures.

“Just as everyone is born with a different finger print, every person needs to feel there is something unique about their existence. As a counselor, I try to help teens at risk …to find out where the “jewels” in their personality can be found.”

Troubled teenagers who are educated to deeply regard the value of life will also value their own life more. And if their education teaches them how to use their gifts to create a life they want, they are less likely to start down the road of teenage drug abuse.

“Even in the darkest of teenage minds, counselors and parents can uncover unpolished pearls. Just like diamond mining, jewels are sometimes hiding below the surface while others can be found by digging down deep. To reach out to a teenager, you need to act like a metal detector hovering over the sands of a beach, listening for the sounds of lost change or other treasures.”

(Source)

They park their gang colours at the door, handing over bandanas from the Crips and Bloods and Gators to teachers every morning to put in a drawer, then getting them back at the end of the day in case they need them for protection going home.

That is the opening paragraph of an encouraging story about a troubled teen program being conducted in Canada.

It reminded me of a friend who worked for a very small, experimental troubled teen boarding school. It was actually a micro study of teen behavioral therapies that resulted in substantial progress for the subject teenagers. The troubled teen population numbered only 40 and every one of the teens housed there came from gangs from several states away. All were far from home and any possible triggers. Outside those walls they were sworn enemies. Inside those walls, they became the teenagers that drugs and gang warfare had all but obliterated.

And so it is in this “last chance saloon for students.”

Members of three different gangs are enrolled in this class of 16; sitting together over breakfast cereal, learning Grade 9 math together, washing lunch dishes side by side and playing afternoon “ice-breaker” games that get them talking about feelings that sometimes boil over.

“When I’m out on the street, sure I’ll talk to someone from this class who’s in another gang,” says one student. “It’s all about respect.

“If I respect them here, why wouldn’t I respect them on the street?”

My friend normally observed these teens behind a one way glass in her part-time capacity as monitor and athletic trainer.I recall her being so profoundly moved by the transformations of these young men and women from hard, brazen punks to expectant young people with an interest in living, creating and excelling.

It is simply heartening to see the same results replicated in Canada.

Boarding schools, military schools,brat camps and boot camps are standard and trusted listings in the menu of choices parents have when seeking professional help for their out of control teenagers.

There is also a variety of differing therapeutic programs that are designed to serve the wider community. Some offer a spiritual emphasis, some a militaristic approach, some follow more esoteric or specific treatment models. Some very effective but smaller programs are regional in scope,with little exposure or dissemination outside their immediate area.

Th multi-systemic therapy or MST, available in North Carolina, is an interesting and seemingly less disruptive means of redirecting out-of-control teens, by allowing the troubled teenagers to remain in their homes and schools, yet adhere to a regimen.

“I don’t know where we would have been today without MST,” said her grandmother, whose name is being withheld to protect Aja’s identity. “She was lost in grief, with no role model in her life. She would have been locked up by now.”

Aja’s family is one of more than 90 that have participated in MST since it was established in Bergen County five years ago. Only two other counties — Essex and Camden — offer it.

Those involved say it’s a proven model for dealing with some of the most troublesome juveniles.

“Beginning at age 11 or 12, many of these children get arrested about 25 times before they turn 18,” said Lucien Duquette, director of Bergen County’s Division of Family Guidance.

Unlike detention centers, boot camps or some other youth programs, multi-systemic therapy doesn’t isolate the teens. Rather, it deals with them in their own environment.

Therapists visit the juvenile’s family, relatives, neighborhood and school several times a week, keeping the youths away from undesirable peers and making sure they stay in school. The therapists also help the parents set rules.

It’s a tough job that puts them on call 24 hours a day. Sometimes they respond in the middle of the night, often in unsafe neighborhoods.
[…]
Shortly before Christmas 2005, Aja walked out of her grandmother’s home in the middle of the night following a bitter argument. School officials called the livid grandmother a few days later.

“I told them I don’t want her home,” she said. “I will relinquish custody. Let DYFS take her. Let them take her to [a shelter].”

Both women were skeptical when a therapist from the MST program got involved. But after weeks of interviews, they settled on a plan that included counseling for the grandmother.

“That made me realize how I was grieving myself, and how I was contributing to Aja’s behavior,” the older woman said.

Through several sessions, both learned to control their anger and avoid provoking each other.

Soon, things quieted down. Aja eventually got a part-time job at a local clothing store.

She opened a bank account and obtained a driver’s permit. She stayed in school and out of trouble.

Accepted at six different universities, Aja eventually settled on Livingston College. She now chats with her grandmother by phone three times a day.

“That was our goal in the program, and we certainly achieved it,” her grandmother said.

Aja agreed.

“It’s a great program for someone who wants to change,” she said. “And I wanted to change.”
from North Jersey.com/Kibret Markos

Allow me to bring to your attention a very candid,thorough account of one parents search for a teenage treatment program, boarding or military school.  As health professionals, they bring a different and valuable perspective to the process of evaluating various teen academies.
It’s a long piece that you can click over and read. We reproduce some key excerpts below:

“Parents of children and youth with severe emotional and behavioral problems soon discover that there are numerous roadblocks to seeking effective treatment. Most states have laws that restrict parents’ ability to deal effectively with their children’s serious behavior problems. Parents are legally and civilly responsible for the actions of their children, but they have very little legal authority to intervene in a serious way In most states, for example, parents can neither have their child drug tested nor receive the results of a drug test unless the child gives authorization. Additionally, in most states, parents must receive the child’s permission before placing him or her in a treatment facility. Parents can go through complex and lengthy legal proceedings to have their children hospitalized, but emergencies usually demand immediate action. Add to this the difficulties with managed care, where treatment often benefits the bottom line rather than the patient, and you have a very difficult situation.”

[..]

“Once we made the decision to place Jamie in a residential facility, we began an intensive and systematic search to identify the facility that would best meet his needs. We researched residential programs whose orientations ranged from medical to wilderness survival. We wanted specific information about their educational and treatment programs, average length of stay, and — most important — outcomes experienced by people who had completed their programs.

The information we received was at best confusing and very general. Very few facilities had any real information concerning their program’s effectiveness. Many institutions indicated that their programs were highly effective, and we were provided with testimonial evidence, but when we pressed for specific numbers, we discovered that virtually none of the institutions had any data on program effectiveness or outcomes of the youth they had graduated.

Equally disturbing were the answers we received when we asked how youth progressed through the treatment programs. In most cases, the answers suggested that there was little if any organized system of program advancement. There were some programs that had well-thought-out plans that were specifically linked to improvements in the youth’s behavior, but these were few and far between. What was abundant across institutions was the barrage of mail, videos, advertisements, phone calls, and promotional offers that we received.”
from Difficult Decisions: Lessons Learned From One Family’s Story of Residential Placement/William H Evans

The authors also produce a questionnaire - Questions to Ask When Considering Residential Placement - that will help a parent structure their own search for a troubled teen boarding school.

Liz was numb. She glanced at her 13 year old teenager. The forbidden tattoo was defiantly blazoned on his forearm, holes from the removed piercing still were visible on his nose. Those things would fade, she pondered, but would the hatred and sullenness in his eyes and face and words ever go away?

They were waiting for their therapist who was going to accompany Liz and David to the military boarding school where David’s out of control behavior and burgeoning drug abuse had led them. Liz couldn’t help but remember the last time she had sent her son anywhere it was to summer camp when he was 10. His joy and animation seemed like memories collected from another life, a life when they were a happy young family and her son a bright and enthusiastic child. How could that only be three years ago, she mused. What had they done so wrong in three years?

Liz of course is not alone. Thousands of parents have gone through the painstaking research on residential treatment programs, teen boarding schools and brat camps. Thousand have stood with their insides torn apart, waiting to deliver their child into the embrace of the boarding school or military school that research and counsel had led them to select.

And perhaps that is the hardest part. Getting rid of denial and getting down to doing the research that will save your troubled teens life. Military schools, or boarding schools that embrace the disciplines and structure that military schools are noted for, are most often the institutions parents of troubled teens decide upon. Lack of structure and discipline are very often the key factors in an at-risk teens descent into drug abuse and out of control behavior.

In exploring boarding school options, parents hope to find programs that not only embrace discipline but also employ innovative and empowering programs as well as providing a continuum for their teen’s education that will place them well when they graduate. Tipton Academy for boys and Meadowlark Academy for girls are two such institution that offer a comprehensive package of programs and exemplifies what the parent of the troubled teen should seek out.

There are so many ways for a troubled teen to harm themselves, so many negative influences that a parent has to be aware of that, often times, a beleaguered parent is well advised to seek a residential treatment program at a teen boarding school. At an accredited boarding school, at least the parent can trust that a trained professional can attack the debilitating depression and desperation that hound the at-risk teen on an even playing field, away from all the seductions of drug abuse and the attendant ills that accompany addictions.

Listen to this cry for help.

“i cut myself and i cant stop. i do it every day. and i love the feeling but i know its wrong. i cant do it anymore, but i have to. PLEASE HELP ME.”
(Source)

Could you answer that question if your struggling teen were to cry out to you? Not many parents can. That is, however, the type of questions mental health experts and treatment counselors at a brat camp or military school can address.

As a parent of a struggling teen you are dealing with life and death issues and no matter how competent you are in your given field, no matter your education, a parent is wise to defer to the experts that can be found in a reputable teen boarding school.