Your teen will likely be scared of the new situation and may also promise to “do better at home” if you’ve discussed the possibility of going to a therapeutic boarding school or residential treatment center.

We never recommend parents threaten their child with this option, since choosing residential therapy is such an amazing opportunity for your teen to develop coping skills they may be lacking, improve self-esteem to make better choices, learn anger and stress management skills and most of all – improve their overall mental wellness.

Most of these programs’ strengths are targeted at emotional growth and wellness – academics are typically secondary, but are important. Keep in mind, without emotional wellness – nothing will work in life.

In many situations, talk therapy at home was not successful. Engaging in a therapeutic boarding school offers your troubled teenager a variety of therapies such as: art, animal, sports, horticulture and more therapies.

In our experience, your child will likely grow from fear and anger they already have — to love and understanding that this decision was made with their best interests in mind.

We are parents, too, and we know this is a tough decision, but it is one of the most loving decisions you can make for your teen’s future. Many parents ask themselves, why will residential treatment work when home therapy has failed?

The majority of parents have to employ a transport service to safely get their teen to a program. Although this can seem deceptive, again, you will be pleasantly surprised that your teen will not hate you.

We encourage you to talk to other parents and teens that have used these services to better understand how they work. Don’t rely on the internet and some stories that are geared towards fearmongering. Be smart, hire licensed and insured teams, talk to references and get your child the help they need.

This is a major financial and emotional decision, it’s going to impact your teen on so many levels in their long-term life. It’s why since 2001 we’ve been educating parents about the teen help industry and finding the best fit for your individual needs.

Also read:

Why Therapeutic Boarding Schools Are Effective

Success Rates of Therapeutic Boarding Schools

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If you are struggling with your teenager that’s causing family conflict or negative behavioral concerns and you have exhausted your local resources, learn more about how residential treatment can help your troubled teen and your family. Contact us today for  a free consultation.

The post Will My Teen Hate Me If I Send Them for Help first appeared on Help Your Teens.

One simple online search for “troubled teen schools” yields over 11 million results! It is overwhelming for parents.

It’s one of the hardest decision you will make, choosing a safe therapeutic boarding school or residential treatment center for your troubled teen.

Not only is it a major financial decision, it is a huge emotional one for your teenager and your family. How do you know what is right for your teen’s needs?

The teen help industry has changed over the years, but what hasn’t changed is parents needing help for their struggling teens and young adults. With the rise in social media and internet addiction, we have seen more and more youth becoming withdrawn, failing in school and some turning to self-harm or using drugs.

Overall teenage mental health has been on the decline for young people and parents are at their wit’s end. Since 2020 teen depression anxiety has doubled — experts have blamed excess screen-time as part of the cause.

Exhausting Local Resources for Teen Help

Before you decide on residential treatment, parents should exhaust all avenues of local resources.

Here are some options to consider:

• Local therapy. Sometimes you need to switch therapists (counselors) a few times to find one your teen can relate to. However, you may get to a point where you realize your child is not going to be receptive (or is being manipulative) and it’s not working. In some cases the teen is refusing to attend.
• Outpatient treatment. This can be beneficial to some teens since it offers more clinical hours weekly. It also gives them group therapy which can be helpful. The one negative is they are still in their home environment and surrounded by their friends (if they are negative influences) as well as with their devices.
• Short-term hospital stays. In some situations, a short-term adolescent psychiatric hospital can give you an evaluation that helps you with a diagnosis for your teen’s behavior and medication to address it. However, it’s the long-term that can be the struggle. Will they continue the medication at home, and will they continue with therapy?
• Teen coach/mentor. Coaching and mentoring are relatively a new trend being used by families to encourage your teen to make better choices. This would be a person that can help your teen navigate peer pressure, social media, friendships, and other issues that sometimes they have a hard time expressing with a traditional therapist.
• Live with a relative. As a last resort, some parents allow their struggling teen to move-in with a relative to see if this changes behavior.

When local resources fail, it may be time to consider residential treatment or therapeutic boarding schools.

It’s time for you to read, Why Residential Treatment Works When Home Therapy Fails.

Reading Troubled Teen Program Negative Reviews

Parents are scared, apprehensive and concerned — this is part of doing your diligence in researching.

“How do you suggest we navigate negative reviews and posts on social media?” – Anonymous parent

Your teen needs help, you have exhausted your local resources and now you’re trying to find the right (best) residential placement for your son or daughter. Every time you think you found the perfect program you also find negative reviews. 

We are not here to dismiss negative reviews as much as we are here to help parents sift through the internet to determine cyber-fact from cyber-fiction (or misinformation). The teen help industry is a big business, there ‘is no doubt, they want your business — so you need to be a smart consumer. It is time to learn to analyze places to send trouble teens reviews to sort through what can be consider as distorted truths and possibly outright lies to discourage parents from getting their child help.

It’s time to read, Helpful Tips for Researching Schools and Programs.

Online reviews are tricky, they are people’s opinions and experiences. As many of you realize, especially if you are business owners or professionals, it can take you 20 years to establish your good reputation and within 20 minutes it can be destroyed with one or two disgruntled client/customer reviews. Maybe they were legitimate complaints, maybe they were misunderstandings — either way you could potentially lose financially for a long time or a lifetime.

The teen help industry is not any different, but we do take it more seriously since it is about the treatment of our children. With this it is also more reason to understand that people will be more extreme and emotional when writing a review (likely a complaint) about a program.

If a parent had a bad experience, it could be a divorce situation that one parent was the custodial parent and moved forward with the placement as the other one did not have a say in the school. You will find that one disgruntled parent starts complaining about things in the program they do not have any knowledge of since the ex keeps them out of the loop. Sadly, it more has to do with poor family relations rather than program issues.

Another point of contention with parent complaints stem from financial reasons. If a parent believes they are owed money or have not been refunded properly, they will find things to complain about in hopes to be compensated. In some cases, a parent will remove their teen early (before graduation) or their teen is dismissed, and they expect a full refund. The contract they signed determines their reimbursement. When it comes to money, we know it can be extremely sensitive – so it is best to dig a bit deeper to find out exactly what the issues were.

When teens are on forums venting or sharing about their negative program experiences, it can be upsetting for potential families to read. I encourage you to consider following:

• When were they placed into a program?
• What program? Is the program still open or closed now?
• Why were they enrolled into a program?
• Do they have a relationship with their parent/family now?
• How does their parent feel today – if you can find out?

This is not to dismiss anyone’s experiences, as much as it is to help parents sort through online reviews. There are usually extenuating circumstances behind each post. Sometimes it is not possible to acquire this information, so ASK the program owner or director directly about this former student’s statement. If you are not satisfied with the answer, move on to another program choice for your son/daughter.

If the teen is alleging abuse or neglect, do a public records search to determine if there is a lawsuit against the program. Not all allegations end up in court so contact the local Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and ask if they have any reports against the school. They may not be able to give you names, but they will know if there are reports filed against the program.

There are many programs and schools for troubled teens in our country, they are not going to please every one of their families. That does not mean they’re allowed to harm children or defraud parents.  

Since we mainly see the negative online reviews, we always encourage parents to ask for parent references to hear more about how a program did help their teenager. You may think the school is only giving good references (which is true) but there are ways to ask questions to get some negative input — such as, “It seems your son had a very good experience at ….., if you could change one thing about it, what would it be?” Or, “Although your daughter seems to have done well, where do you think the school could improve?” Or, “Was there anything that ever concerned you when your teen was at the school.”

Tip: Always remember, you can ask the owner of the program about any of the online reviews. If they do not want to answer it — that is your answer.

Troubling Teen Help Websites

“The program I want to place my son is listed on a beware site.” – Anonymous parent

This gives parents pause and most of all, can prevent them from getting their teenager the help they need. Although these websites may believe they are doing a service to families that need help with their troubled teens, the truth is the fearmongering causes them to hesitate. Most parents, after reaching their wit’s end, realize these sites may mean well, but they can not help their son/daughter. At this point they now are experiencing more troubles with their teen whether it is with the law or emotional wellness. They need outside help — they need help with their troubled teenager.

These sites that are mostly created by people or advocates that were once harmed in programs or know someone that were neglected in a program and although they have good intentions, when it comes to living with a troubled teenager that is in serious need of help — they are at a loss.  If you ask them (these sites) for safe trouble teen programs, they will tell you they are are none. That is troubling. Especially for the parent that has a teen in desperate in of help – and believe it or not, some teens want help.

One of their advocates will consistently remind parents to continue to seek local therapy. How many of you can raise your hand to say that worked? How many of you can say your teen will even attend therapy? The list of local options above are there since many of you reading this have likely tried most of them before making this huge decision of residential placement. The last thing you want is now someone trying to tell you to try therapy — AGAIN. We have!

There are many quality teen help programs in this country. The key is research. Parents can do this – we have a list of tips of how to research and questions to ask schools and programs so you will be on a better path.

You will find sites that say you need to hire an $6000-$8000 educational consultant to find quality teen help. No, you don’t.

You will find sites that say you need a program that is NATSAP affiliated. No, you do not, NATSAP is a self-made organization that is membership based. It’s up to the program to decide if they want to pay their fees. It is part of the political circle that gives the teen help industry a questionable name.

In Conclusion

Be an educated parent. Knowledge is power. This is your troubled teen that is crying out for help with their negative behavior. We all have good teens that might be making bad choices, it’s up to us to now make the right decision. Maybe it is local therapy, maybe it is a teen coach — or maybe it’s residential treatment. Whatever it is — as a parent you are your child’s advocate. Contact us for more information on teen help options.

Also read:

Success Rate of Teen Boarding Schools

 5 Benefits of Boarding Schools for Troubled Teens

Goals of Therapeutic Boarding Schools

The post The Troubled Teen Industry Negative Reviews first appeared on Help Your Teens.

As much as you are trying to ignore or just say it is typical teen behavior, you notice your teen is withdrawing from the family, failing in school, possibly vaping, smoking pot, addicted to their screens and overall have become a child you no longer recognize with a personality that is defiant and totally disrespectful the the family boundaries – what do you do?

Most parents try local therapy – which is a great first step, but when happens when therapy doesn’t work or they refuse to attend?  A parent in a denial can only prolong the evitable and possible cause more harm including legal issues.  Don’t be held hostage in your home by your teen’s behavior.

Making the decision to choose residential therapy is not one that any parents takes lightly. It’s a major financial and emotional choice. It comes following exhausting your local resources, which can include therapy refusal, outpatient treatment has failed, school setting is not working and a short-term hospital stay was unsuccessful.

Usually a teen’s behavior has been slowly escalating and a parent knows that deep down things are not getting better.  As much as you hope and pray that things will change, this is only typical teen behavior, sometimes it just isn’t.

With drug use and substance abuse rising – more dangerous and deadly ingredients being used, such as fentanyl, opioids, parents have reason to be concerned.  It isn’t your marijuana of generations prior – it is so much worse and in many cases – addictive and deadly.  The increase of screen addiction has been the culprit to the spike of many mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, anger, rage, self-harming and more.

If you have reached your wit’s end and now surfing the internet for help, remember, anyone can build a website.  Anyone can put up nice pictures and create great content.

Years ago I struggled with my own teenager.  I was at my wit’s end.  I didn’t realize what a big business this “teen help industry” was.  Yes, my child needed help, but what we received was anything but that.  My story is a cautionary tale – not one to scare you into not placing your child, on the contrary, you have to get your child help, but you have to do your research in getting them the right help.

I had hired an Educational Consultant. This was when they were an hourly rate, so I was able to dismiss them after an hour. The fact is you are your child’s best advocate, you don’t need a middle person — you may not know this big business of teen help, however with these research tips, you can educate yourself and determine what is best for your family.  We also offer informational questions for you to ask schools and programs, and a free consultation with parents that have been down this road before you.

When interviewing many parents that had hired Educational Consultants, like myself, EC’s  immediately suggested they send their child to wilderness program before even discussing a therapeutic boarding school or residential treatment center. The truth is, most teens don’t need that expensive step of wilderness — since the residential therapy are designed to treat the defiant teen. It seems they have the same cook-cutter approach, which brings the parent back for a second free to ask for their next step into a long-term program. As we share with parents — isn’t it smarter to start with one qualified school or program? 

Here are some quick tips for find the right schools for troubled teens:

1. Your child is not for sale, try to avoid those marketing arms selling you a list of programs that are not in the best interest of your child’s individual needs.

2. Always speak with an owner or director – Someone that has a vested in your teen’s recovery.  Their reputation is on the line.

3. Wilderness and other short term programs are usually nothing more than a band-aid that will fall off as quickly as the program lasted.  They are expensive camping trips and in most cases the wilderness program will tell you at about 4 weeks that your teen will need to continue on to a longer term program.  Yes, now you go back to the research board and worse than that, your teen will be deflated when he finds out he/she isn’t coming home in 6-9 weeks as they were lead to believe – and they will be starting all over again with a new therapist – new schedule – and new setting.  Don’t get caught up in this “shuffle.”  Start and finish with the same school/program.

4. The average stay should be about 6-9-12 months, depending on your teen.  Anything less is likely non-effective.  Anything more, you may be creating abandonment issues in our opinion. Consider this, it didn’t take 4-9 weeks to get to where you are today, it’s not going to take this short of time to turn it around.

5. Do you really need an Educational Consultant?  Probably not.  You are the parent and no one knows your teen better than you do – with a few solid and intelligent resources, you will be able to make some sound choices. We have helped parents that have hired EC’s — only to hear that we have given them more valuable information in 15 minutes than their EC gave them at all. We assisted parents where their teen were placed in programs by EC’s that failed, and we were better able to understand their needs — why? Because we have walked this journey — literally.

Read: The Trouble With Teen Help Troubled Teen Reviews.

Read: 5 Goal of Boarding Schools for Troubled Teens.

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For more research tips, please contact us for a free consultation. We help you find the right therapeutic schools and residential treatment center for your teen and family.

The post Do I Need An Educational Consultant for Teen Help Programs? first appeared on Help Your Teens.

If there was a simple way to better the relationship you have with your teen, you would want in on it, right? Well, the simple solution is all around you — nature.

Your brain on nature

Does your family make time to get outside and spend time in nature? If not, you may want to consider it. Spending time outdoors for an extended period of time is essentially like hitting the reset button on your brain. Oftentimes, people just like you and your teen, cite feeling more clear headed, less stressed, more creative and even more alive after spending time outside. It’s true. Spending time in nature is restorative to mental health, and its effect can be described as a psychological process called attention restoration therapy. Spending time outdoors can even change the wiring in the brain, but we will get to that later.

Disorders, illness and their relationship to nature

There are a myriad of health problems that face our children and teens today, from ADD/ADHD, cognition disorders and depression to obesity, stress, Type II Diabetes and even something called nature deficit disorder. And while there is no single remedy to treat many of these ailments, there is something that can help. Now more than ever, kids and teens are widely disconnected from their natural outdoor environment and spending copious amounts of time indoors. A disconnection from nature leads to difficulties concerning concentration, a sadly diminished use of the senses and even higher rates of mental illness.

Even creativity levels, attention spans and desire to explore suffer because of our kids’ limited exposure to the outdoors. But as a parent, you can help to prevent these outcomes by simply getting them outside in a natural environment more often. In recent years, “wilderness therapy” has emerged as a way to help troubled teens and adolescents with disciplinary or psychological problems get back on track. Some of these programs last up to eight weeks, completely emerging your teen into the wilderness. However, these programs are not for everyone and should only be considered after taking other measures first. They are also only recommended for teens dealing with serious drug, alcohol and other serious issues.

Nature combats stress in teens and parents

One of the major draws of spending time in nature is its ability to reduce stress. While you may be thinking “What stress does my teen have?” right now, you should know that your kids are likely under a lot of pressure. From their peers, teachers, coaches and even you. Dating, sex, status, drugs and alcohol, school and other factors are big contributors to stress for teens. However, recent research has shown that our environments directly impact stress levels and our bodies.

The University of Minnesota reports that nature soothes and restores, improving moods from stressed, depressed and anxious to more balanced and calm. Other studies that were also cited by the University of Minnesota claim that nature is all-around associated with a positive mood, meaningfulness, vitality and psychological well-being.

Using nature to connect with your troubled teen

Research out of the Human-Environment Research Lab has shown that time spent outdoors in nature connects people to each other and the larger world around them. If your teen is standoffish and distant, they may just need a little more nature in their routine. Use this time to put your screens away — yes, all devices, phones and tablets — and really connect with your outside environment and kid.

You have to be genuinely invested in this activity and that means that you will have to power down. Whether you opt to take a weekend camping trip or just decide to go for an afternoon hike, being outdoors can help to foster a healthier relationship between you and your teen. When you’re ready to experience the great outdoors, make sure you’re equipped with the right outdoor gear. That way you can ensure you’re prepared for whatever adventure you have planned.

Walking outdoors has big benefits for adolescents and adults

Would you believe that a simple walk in the woods could actually change the wiring in the brain? You better believe it. Sure, people have cited that they feel better after talking a walk in nature, but recently both The New York Times and NPR reported that walking outside is truly beneficial for the brain.

Researchers used brain scans and found that people who walked outdoors, even for a short period of time, actually had changes in their neurological functioning — for good. Something as simple as a walk in nature could change everything.

Read: Teens and Mental Health Concerns.

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If you are struggling with your teenager and have exhausted your local resources, learn more about how residential treatment can help your troubled teen make better choices. Contact us today for  a free consultation.

The post The Nature Effect for Teens first appeared on Help Your Teens.

The post Teen Help Programs for Troubled Teens first appeared on Help Your Teens.