Troubled Teens Resources

Sometimes you wonder if public schools ought to consider implementing some of the programs employed at schools for troubled teens. Listen to a description of Tipton Academy’s “cognitive self change”. Surely the lesson has value beyond the walls of institutions that work with troubled teens. It is a prescription for how to avoid becoming one.

“This discipline is remarkably distinct in that it teaches how to dramatically alter one’s belief that he is the victim of his own feelings and circumstances. In this discipline, excuses are not accepted. Change takes place when a person makes a conscious decision to think differently about himself and the world in which he exists. The program is an integrated, cognitive behavior change program for youth which includes cognitive restructuring, social skills development, and development of problem-solving skills. It is presented in the format of a small group setting”

I’ve seen the same principle successfully employed at a local teen program that I have done volunteer work with. In that program the teen is guided towards recognizing “their story”. Everyone has a story as to why their life is how it is. Too often the stories that teens tell themselves make everyone else the problem. The stories are usually focused on pain, loss and hurt rather than solutions, strengths and hope. The teens were taught how to re-write that story to reflect the facts, not the drama.

Teaching a teen to look for solutions instead of nurse his or her wounds can turn that teen towards constructive behavior , leading the teen to seek solutions instead of looking for someone to blame.

Guess I’m stuck on the meth meme today. There certainly are some compelling stories of how absolutely corrosive and vile this addiction is. One young man, when describing the destruction meth wrought in his life, said something that caught my attention.

“The meth gets you thinking three things. You have a fear of life, fear of success, and fear of self. When this happened I seemed to not have the will to go or ask for help. ”

(Source)

Just as that is the exact formula for a life of failure, it’s opposite is a good description of how schools for troubled teens and military boarding schools turn the addict around.

A good teen boarding school will have teachers and programs that teach teens to embrace life, not fear it. A good teen program will teach a troubled teenager the incremental steps of achieving success - the discipline, the perseverance - all of those little mental muscles that a recovering teen has to ‘work out’ until they are fit and toned.

Fear of self is also part and parcel of addiction. When your life is collapsed around you, friends gone, money depleted, health deteriorating, an addict grows to have a deep distrust of themselves. Unworthiness shrouds the self-image in a veil of self-recrimination and hate.

Fear of self can, however, be transformed into confidence in self. The troubled teen school dedicates much of their curriculum to helping a teen gain mastery over their talents, teaching them skills that the teen can leverage to pursue any goal that they finally decide on.

Teen crisis intervention need not be a huge undertaking. Where often a community effort is needed to galvanize a troubled teen program, single individuals,just everyday people, are making a difference in a troubled teen’s life everyday.

You can only save one teen at a time and that is what Larry Christie must have believed during his career as a probation officer. Confined to a wheel chair for his entire life, he was especially aware of the hardships he endured getting through college and recognized how critical education was to his independence.

“Christie, who used a wheelchair because he had muscular dystrophy, valued the college education he struggled to pay for and believed that education could help wayward youths find a new path, said his sister, Cathy Burd…Christie was especially attuned to the struggles of youth because of his disability and his career choice…”

Unfortunately Christie passed away but his friends and family wanted to honor his dedication to troubled teens by creating a scholarship program in his name.

“After his death, friends and family decided to honor his memory through a scholarship that focused on youths who were interested in college but likely to be overlooked because they had gotten into trouble. The application criteria includes a recommendation from their probation officer as well as references from people in the community.”

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Who knows how many teens will benefit from the scholarship. But it is there for the teen who has the will to change their lives but not the means. It is certainly an admirable tribute to honor the life of a man who honored troubled teens, one teen at a time.

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.