Troubled Teens Resources

Teen crisis intervention starts long before your teenager reaches adolescence. Reports indicate that kids as young as nine and ten are choosing to play around with drugs. For good or ill, celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and the thoroughly disgraced Britney Spears can serve as a lesson for your young teens. It’s obvious that they can no longer serve as role models but they can teach teens at risk that drugs can destroy even the best and brightest.

That is one mother dealt with her daughter’s disappointment with Lindsay Lohan.

“I thank Lindsey Lohan for forcing me giving me the opportunity to talk to Ellie about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. It’s a conversation I might have saved for later, when she was a bit older, but thanks to the widely reported exploits of this girl, Ellie now has a basic understanding of addiction and the difficulties of recovery.

I am not sure exactly how Ellie found out about Lindsay Lohan’s troubles, but she did. And the look on her face as I explained what happened to her broke my heart. I know Ellie has to grow up sometime and learn about these things, and common wisdom has it that the earlier you begin these conversations, the better off your kids will be. But try as I might, I can’t put a positive spin on the reality that Ellie’s childlike adoration of Lindsay Lohan turned into an innocence-shattering lesson about poor parenting and bad choices.”

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And that is the best thing you can do when your teen’s idols are busted for drugs - use it as a life lesson, a demonstration of how drug addiction can ruin the lives of young people who have everything to live for.

Girls boarding schools can go a long way towards helping a teenage girl develop an identity free from the current idolization of the frivolous and destructive lifestyles exhibited by the current crop of celebrity teens. It isn’t as if a young teens entering private boarding schools are cut off from all outside influences. Far from the case, but for many teenage girls it is the first time that they are exposed to possibilities for young women shed of all the pop culture hype. And perhaps the first time that they are given an opportunity to think of themselves in terms of their intellect and skills, not their looks or other superficial measures.

Talking about teenage girls and depression, Julie Danielson, a counselor at a California high school, makes a very striking statement. Striking in that it is not said enough.I have put it in bold.

“One of the biggest problems Danielson deals with is relationships in which, often, one person (usually the girl) becomes co-dependent on the other.

“I have seen girls become so despondent they want to hurt themselves,” she said.

She noted that she also comes across teenagers who are “looking for love in all the wrong places” and believe happiness can be achieved by having sex.

“One of the biggest problems Danielson deals with is relationships in which, often, one person (usually the girl) becomes co-dependent on the other.

“I have seen girls become so despondent they want to hurt themselves,” she said.

She noted that she also comes across teenagers who are “looking for love in all the wrong places” and believe happiness can be achieved by having sex.

“In all my years, I’ve never had a girl come to me and say, ‘I’m so glad I had sex in high school,’” she said.

“There’s a lot of pressure to have sex, but it’s not always the answer to having a good time in high school. Sometimes, it can be the opposite,” she added.”
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Girls boarding schools must be experiencing quite a bit of business these days if a close friend of a teen age daughter serves as a barometer.

“I don’t care what she calls me, she will not have girl friends who think oral sex is just a form of affection. I will not have it. I caved for her nose piercing, I caved in and let her have a tattoo but I am not going to cave on this. She going to an all girls boarding school and learn something more valuable than how to shake her booty.”

Jan was incensed to find graphic materials in her daughter’s room depicting oral sex. She was even more enraged upon discovering that her daughter’s best friend’s mother had supplied the material in the hopes of “being open.”

If today’s sexual climate causes you grave concern, your apprehensions are not misplaced. Study after study records the debilitating effects on teens who pursue sexual activity that they haven’t the least maturity to cope with. And this recent study confirms that peer influence is a strong factor in a young teens sexual activities

“Young people select friends whose attitudes about sex are consistent with their own attitudes. The effect of friends’ attitudes on sexual behavior was stronger for females than for males.

High-risk sexual behavior in adolescents appears to be influenced by the sexual attitudes of peers, and young people select friends whose attitudes about sex are consistent with their own attitudes.”

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Troubled teen boarding schools for girls are designed to provide programs that inculcate a sense of pride based on accomplishment, not sexual prowess. If an all girl’s school is not an option, do not put your head in the sand regarding your teen daughter’s sexual activities. Ask questions and be absolutely firm aboput the standards that you expect her to keep.