community spirit

There are many troubled teens today and thankfully, many places and resources where they can find help. And help they need and the sooner the better. If a young person develops bad habits or a destructive personality, the sooner they are cured the better. It’s most important that their problems are sorted before they reach adulthood. Taking emotional or addictive behavior into one’s adult years is certainly something to be avoided.

So if your teen is troubled and you are seeking professional help, the main decision may center on day care or residential treatment. Sometimes residential treatment is the only option and that’s where one of the pros comes in. Your teen may be in trouble and his or her environment is not helping. There may be clashes with parents and siblings and there may be confrontation with teachers at school. The environment in this case is not helping, but placing the teen in a new environment may be a really good move. The bad influences on the troubled teen are removed and everyone including the teen’s family gets a break from the trouble at home.

Then there’s the benefit of mixing with other teens that have problems. Your teen sees they are not unique; they are not the only kid in the world who has problems. With a community spirit encouraged in the residential center, every teen gets to be part of new family. The members of staff are friendly and want to help. The other kids in residence can mean new friendships. All these things can happen in such a center.

But it’s important the parent chooses wisely. It may be that your child doesn’t mix well, is a bit of a loner and feels threatened in a large group of people. That’s a disadvantage of these centers. They may have individual case files for every resident but they do encourage the troubled teens to work together to build friendships which are healthy and helpful. A loner may not fit in.

Then there’s the cost. Obviously a full time stay as a resident means all the costs of your teen’s education, the therapy, activities and full board and lodging will not come cheap. And that’s especially so when there are teams of therapists on hand so that the residents can get immediate attention at any time of the day or night. For some parents the cost may be prohibitive. There are insurance policies which cover residential therapy centers and the matter should be thoroughly investigated to do what is your best for the child.

Reading this article will give you certain facts but to get the complete story, contact some of the centers. They are willing to answer all your questions. Some centers even have a questionnaire which assists both the parents and the center determine if the troubled teen would do well to enroll. It’s a big decision for any parent to make and one which should only be made once as many of the facts as possible have been discovered and considered. Your teen deserves nothing less.