How to Correctly Identify Troubled Teens to Help them Better
The research into the science that deals with understanding human development certainly doesn't seem to get here quickly enough to help parents get some kind of relief from worrying about their teens. They could be dealing with teens acting withdrawn or pensive, ones who reply to everything in clipped responses, who want to spend as much time as possible by themselves and ones who avoid family gatherings of any kind. Even the things that once really excited them, their favorite foods, the games they loved, barely seem to register anymore. Usually, this kind of worrisome behavior takes a parent a few months to digest well enough to begin to be concerned. Sometimes it could be nothing more than a temporary phase; at other times, you could have your hands full with the problem that plagues all of America, the problem to do with troubled teens.
For a teen to be somewhat nettlesome and withdrawn is one thing; for them to let their problem devolve so much that they need to lose themselves to truancy, violence or substance abuse is quite another. How do you tell if your child's problem is heading for something serious? The thing is, a single isolated undesirable or rebellious act, does not point to troubled teenhood. Even habitual rudeness doesn't really point to a serious problem unless the case is shored up with other kinds of worrisome behavior. If a teenager is habitually rude, seems moody and depressed, is always in bed or always outside, and seems to be falling behind in school a bit, all put together, they do fit the classic profiles seen with troubled teens. A pattern is what you are looking for, not a single instance of trouble.
You could usually expect to see the changes that lead to a problematic adolescence, somewhere around the time a teen gets to the eighth grade. The first step would be to try to have a talk with your child, with the teachers at school, or with close peers. If the usual cajoling and scolding did not seem to get anywhere, or if you hear some worrying information from your child's friends, rudeness with teachers, fighting, or a preoccupation with dark thoughts or suicide, that would be your tipoff to run to a psychiatrist for suggestions. But it would be a good idea to do a little rundown of the most telling signs to spot the problems of troubled teens by.
There are no absolute standards; but change for the worse is the key to spotting problems that your child might be having. There is quite nothing else to effectively prey on your mind like your kids' choice in friends. You do know the friends your child usually hangs out with, and has done so for several years now. To see old friends drop away, and new ones take their place that you're somehow not quite comfortable with - this can often be a good sign that there is trouble afoot. If your child ever lied to you about anything, that would be a real source of stress to you. This could happen for a number of familiar reasons. Your child might have a lot of money sometimes, or none at all others; and might not have a reasonable explanation for it. You get a phone call from school that you child has not shown up in class.
Well, there were all kinds of sources of innovative help for troubled teens. And just to hear about them might give you some really good ideas for how to help your child. A retired Hollywood screenwriter called Jill Gurr runs a nonprofit in LA, to help violent children in LA's ghettos, overcome a tendency for disruptive behavior. Under her guidance, the neglected children learn how to be creative in the arts, with painting and music. All you need to do is look around; troubled teens are a national epidemic, and there are surprisingly effective and well-meaning programs out there for everyone.
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