Troubled Teens Treatments
There are various options available for treating troubled teens. Most of them need someone to care for them and to listen to their problems and hopefully help them with the answers. Teens that have developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol need to receive rehabilitative treatment in order to become drug and alcohol free. This treatment involved placing the teen into a program or center where he/she will get the medical care needed especially when it comes to the withdrawal that comes with drug abuse. The staff needs to be caring and supportive and willing to help the teen combat the addiction.
The main thing to realize is that no one treatment works for all teens. The settings and programs have to match the individual problems. For example, you wouldn’t put a teenager who is depressed into a rehab program for drug abuse. The service that the teen receives is crucial to a successful return to the family as a healthy, functioning individual. All medical, psychological and social problems need to be looked at and treated. Some of these may require prescription medications, while others may need more specialized treatments and counseling.
Many of the treatment facilities, except for boot camps and military schools, take a therapeutic outlook of treating troubled teens. This type of treatment encourages and teaches the youths to talk about their problems. Adolescents are often reluctant to talk about their feelings because they don’t understand them and with the hormonal growth they sometimes think that their feelings are normal, when they are not. For many teens, their problems center around conflicts with their parents over parental expectations and discipline.
In a treatment program, therapists do not do a lot of talking, but rather they try to center the program around activities or experiences, such as play therapy, art therapy or experiential therapy. This type of treatment allows symbolic expression of the internal conflicts that the teenager has. These can be in relation to relationships with family members, peers, teachers or anyone in the community. Family therapy is sometimes necessary when adolescents have behavioral or emotional problems. In these cases, the family also has to learn how to deal with the troubled teen so as not to make the problem worse and to understand the triggers for certain outbursts. A strong, positive family bond is the main thing that is needed to increase a troubled teen’s chances of becoming a healthy responsible adult.
The goal of the treatment is to help both the teen and the parents understand why the teenager acts the way he/she does. It also helps the teenager to control the actions and it helps the parents to respond in an appropriate manner. When parents make an effort to understand what is happening with their child, they open the lines of communication to a healthy relationship. Many parents ignore the warning signs that their teenager is in trouble and needs help. They do not want to admit that there is something wrong. Some of the signs they should be looking for are:
- Physical symptoms such as fatigue, red eyes, persistent cough
- Emotional symptoms such as changes in moods or personality, depression, low self-esteem, irritability
- Family problems such as starting arguments, refusing to accept authority, having a negative attitude
- School problems such as decreased interest, low grades all of a sudden, getting in trouble at school
- Social problems, such as hanging out with a new group of friends who are not good influences, getting in trouble with the law.
Recognizing these as symptoms that there is something wrong will help the teen get the help he/she needs earlier with a better chance of a quick recovery.
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