Troubled Teen Programs
It seems like overnight, your child has turned from a sweet and innocent child to a troubled teen. He may show lack of respect toward you and other adults, have problems relating to peers or choose friends that are involved in drugs and alcohol. Her grades may be dropping, or she may seem depressed.
Whatever the trouble, early intervention can make the difference between a teen getting through the difficult time to emerge wiser and smarter, or sliding into a lifetime of trouble and even crime. For some teens, outpatient therapy is all it takes to get back on track. But for others, a troubled teen program with a highly structured environment is necessary in order to get the needed help.
Fortunately, there are many resources for troubled teens and their parents today. There are a multitude of troubled teen programs out there, and knowing a bit about them can help you to make the right choice for your child. Some types of programs are:
- Boarding Schools: Boarding schools are independent educational institutions where your child lives with other teens supervised by a trained professional staff. The traditional boarding school is both challenging and fun, with smaller classes, a more structured learning environment, and a variety of extracurricular activities to develop students' intellectual growth and creativity. Specialized "emotional growth" boarding schools offer individual or group therapy and sometimes recreational therapy to help with emotional and social skill development.
- Residential Treatment Centers: Residential treatment centers are an option for those who are severely depressed, self-destructive, or have other behavioral or social problems such as substance abuse. Here, students live in a home-like setting while receiving intensive therapeutic services, such as individual, group and substance abuse counseling, recreational therapy and behavior modification, as well as academic lessons. Activities are structured so as to help the child learn problem-solving skills, communication and interpersonal skills and also to raise self-esteem.
- Wilderness Camps: Also called outdoor education or outdoor therapy programs, wilderness camps are a short-term approach to helping troubled teens. Once removed from a home environment that is not working, many teens are better able to focus on what they need to do in order to make changes. A plus in being outdoors is that the teen can gain a sense of the larger world and the laws that govern nature. Wilderness activities are structured to be both therapeutic and challenging (in a safe way), as well as help to build self-confidence and skills in interacting and cooperating with others.
- Boot Camps: Either state-run or private, boot camps offer a military-style environment with stringent training, discipline, and sometimes hard labor. Boot camp structure involves "in your face" communication techniques, much like a real military boot camp. Therapeutic intervention such as counseling, while available in some boot camps, is not the primary focus, nor is aftercare. While most boot camps claim effectiveness, research is beginning to show that positive effects are not necessarily long-lasting.