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There are no shortage of troubled teen programs.
For example, you can choose from...
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Boot camps.
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Military style camps.
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Self-help style resources.
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In-house residential treatment programs.
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Intensive one-on-one counseling.
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Intensive family counseling.
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Various combinations of the above resources.
Please help! How do I raise my teen or pre-teen?
As a parent, do you have more questions than answers?
Back talk, defiance and disrespect do NOT have to be daily visitors in your home. Start by taking control now.
1. Read through the free short report "Raising Teens". Make sure you are covering the fundamentals in parenting your son or daughter.
IMPORTANT: Don't disregard this information if your child is not yet a teen. A huge secret to successful parenting is prevention. By reading this report and using the behavior log (explained in point #2) you'll be getting a jump on handling your growing child's needs today.
Believe me, solving a seven or ten year old's problems is a lot easier than solving a fifteen or seventeen year old's problems.
2. Print out our Behavior Log. Use it to keep track of your child's behavior for a week or two. Then you'll have a better idea of what you're really dealing with.
3. Is the situation with your troubled teenager still more than you know how to handle? Then take a deep breath and another step towards finding the right solution for you and your teen. Head over to Empowering Parents where you will find an enormous amount of articles and discussion written by common sense experts and other parents who have been in the trenches, too. I have found this can really help.
How do you determine what program or combination of programs is best for your troubled teen?
A lot depends upon...
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your family.
What can you afford? Out of the above options the self-help option is certainly the least expensive.
What will the impact of each of these be on other children in your family?
What are you willing to do? Are you willing to learn and apply new parenting skills? Are you willing to love with
tough love for your teenager? No matter what troubled teen program you choose, family dynamics will need to change in support of the program for success to occur at any level.
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Your teenager.
What are her main challenges? Defiance? Violence? Authority issues? Emotional problems?
Is your teen willing to cooperate? Does he even recognize he has a problem? All the programs for troubled teens in the world won't help a teenager who doesn't want to be helped.
If you are dealing with violence in your home, you'll want to read this article. How to Keep the Violence Out of Your Home
Hypothetically, let's pick one of these troubled teen programs and see what it might look like.
I'm going to choose the self-help approach because that's the one I've used in my family many times.
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Using what you know about your troubled teen's main challenges, do some research on self-help troubled teenagers programs. What you will find is that there is a wide range of types of programs in terms of what results you can expect and what the costs are.
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Look for troubled teenagers programs that specifically address your teen's challenges.
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Look for a troubled teenager program that has proven itself. Testimonials from satisfied parents are priceless.
Look for improvement, not just complete fixes.
Humans are more complex than that. I have learned for myself that even if you cannot make a difficult situation go away, if you can make it better, stress will lower and life will improve.
Of course, if you can actually fix the challenge, all the better.
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Make sure the program honors the values in your home. If you value respect, integrity, truthfulness, then the teen program you choose should honor those values, too.
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Invest in a program that will help you improve your own parenting skills in a measurable way. This will not only help your troubled teen, it will lower your own stress level considerably and improve relations with your other children.
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Look for a self help program for troubled teens that offers a trial period or a money-back guarantee of some sort. This is why I like these types of programs. You can "try it on" a bit.
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Again, I want to emphasize that a program is viable in my estimation when it helps you produce change of some kind for the better. Of course it goes without saying that if you try troubled teen programs of any kind and then don't apply yourself and work the programs you cannot be upset when they don't produce any results for you or your family.
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A program that models many of these ideas is The Total Transformation Program. I recommend it because it's based on time-proven parenting methodologies which are in turn based upon solid core values and it's way less costly than a boot camp! However, it is not the only program for troubled teens available, so do your research!
The self-help program of helping your troubled teen is only one choice, however.
Look hard at what each program for troubled teens promises and what actions on both your part and your teen's part it will take to make these promises a reality.
Learning how to deal with teenagers effectively means being willing to work hard. Another human being's future is at stake!
And remember, you will never regret having educated yourself and tried to help your troubled teen in these ways. Your conscience will be clear. You will have done all you can.
Someday, hopefully, your grown-up teenager will recognize that and appreciate you for it.
More parenting articles for you.
Tough Love for Teenagers
Out of Control Teens
Advice for Parenting Problem Teenagers
Problems of Many High School Dropouts
Colleen Langenfeld is a mother with over 29 years of parenting experience and helps other busy moms around the globe at www.paintedgold.com.
Note from Colleen: Remember, I earn my living making excellent recommendations to you, Mom, so when you choose to click any of the links on this website and make a purchase, I may earn a commission.
Naturally, that means I care about what you think! If you try a product or service I recommend, I'd love to hear from you. How else can I keep my recommendations top notch for all my visitors?
And thank you, for stopping by.
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