Home - Best Programs for Troubled Teens

What kind of programs for troubled teens are there in Great Falls, MT?  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 Great Falls, MT?

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 Quotes I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us were still alive. Stephen King, Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. William Hazlitt

Famous Quotes The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Steven Covey The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke. Holly Black, Red Glove

Home - Best Programs for Troubled Teens