What kind of programs for troubled teens are there in Champaign, IL? Will any of them save my child?
Troubled teens want to be with people their own age — their friends. During the teen years, struggling children tend to spend all of their time with their negative peers, away from all parental supervision. When they are with their negative peer group they can away from parents AND seem to be independent (this is a misnomer). Struggling teens, when away from their parents and with their friends, get to live out their new anti-parent ideals. They get to break away from their parents' principles (their parents hopes, dreams, and ambitions for their child), and develop identities of their own. Unfortunately, these identities are fantasies and do not work out well.
Difficult teens, problem teens, troubled teens, rebellious teens are all descriptions of what many parents are using to describe their child, as well as the description of the peers they hang out with. The influence of peers — negative influence — is of critical importance in your teen's life. Whether you like it or not, the opinions of your child's peers often carry more weight than you. With that being said, if your child is hopelessly connected to a bad peer group, the answer is to remove them from the peer group before its too late. Most likely, your child will not "see the light" (recognize that his or her peer group is bringing them down) and remove him/herself from the group. This "removal" is not easy, but it is for their best interest. Connection to negative peer groups can cause tremendous discord, and it usually does not get better on its own. Our recommendation is a program for rebellious teens.
Best programs for troubled teens
Intensive outpatient programs
Residential treatment centers
Wilderness therapy camps
Outdoor adventure camps
Group homes
Therapeutic boarding schools
What are normal "dysfunctional behaviors" of a teenager from Champaign, IL?
Some parents seeking a therapeutic program for troubled boys or troubled girls overact. Meaning, they look for programs when their child behaves as a normal typical teenager. But what behavior is "typical", and what behavior is "non-typical" (meaning dangerous)? If your teenager is like most, he or she is pulling away from the family, and spending more and more time with friends. He or she is isolating, secretive, and mysterious. Obviously at this point, they have more interests in common with peers than they do with parents, so don't take it personally.
The truth is that typical teenagers are in a struggle for independence from their parents... so they want to be with their peers, who are in the same exact struggle. Its a typical subculture and very normal. However, this attempt at independence is not always simple or smooth. The difference between normal teenage defiance (separation from parents - becoming their own independent person) and "abnormal scary defiance" is the peer group your child belongs to. If the peer group is a negative group (sex, drugs, and anarchy) then your child's normal separation from his or her parents will not be so normal. It will be the opposite, filled with trauma, turmoil, and lots of loss and regret. The friends your child hangs with will matter.
Famous QuotesThe whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues. Terry Pratchett
Famous QuotesYou can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place. Sarah Dessen The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. C.S. Lewis Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. Willa Cather
