Have you ever had a flight attendant say, “Please tuck your bag under the seat for takeoff” and you are thinking, it is under, but according to their standards, it is sticking out?
Think about that analogy when you are thinking about placing your teen in a treatment program. It is sometimes glaringly clear to one parent or caregiver, but given that it is the hardest decision a family can make, most often it is not clear. Here are nine concepts to think about to help your teen get their baggage under the seat in front of them.
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You feel physically unsafe in your home. (If this is one of your debating points, it is already past time your family has needed outside help. Call a professional today! The same thinking covers threats to you or to your child’s safety - if he or she has made threats, gestures or inferences about their own safety, call for help from someone familiar with addressing these self-harm threats therapeutically.)
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You recognize that are a hostage to your child’s behavior or reputation.
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Grades are in the toilet, even their PE class. When a child is not passing PE, there is a serious problem.
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Refusal to participate in any type of therapy.
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If you want them, you must hunt for them. You have learned to have no trust in their stated location.
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You have found incontrovertible evidence of a broken non-negotiable family rule, regardless of its legal standing. (For example, if your home has zero-tolerance for marijuana, it doesn’t matter if it is “legal”.)
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You must safeguard valuables, prescription medication and/or internet access more than developmentally appropriate.
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While all teenage individuation requires some “privacy”, extreme secretiveness may be clueing you to dangerous behaviors. Investigate, respectfully. “Furtive” may not be a phase they’ll grow out of.
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Your child is withdrawing from social contact, at a developmental stage that typically is hyper-social, overly peer-focused.
About the Author
Jenney Wilder M.S.Ed launched All Kinds of Therapy in 2015, as the only independent online directory for the Family Choice Behavioral Healthcare Industry. With an impressive case of ADHD and her starter career in the 90's in Silicon Valley, the dream for creating a website with features like side-by-side comparison and an integrated newsletter was born. Jenney stopped counting treatment centers and all types of schools that she has visited when she hit 500 many years ago. She was the sponsoring author of the only Economic Impact Study of the Family Choice Behavioral Healthcare Industry, which revealed the only true financial figures about this industry (in Utah). Jenney has a Masters in Special Education from Bank Street College (NY) and a Bachelors of Arts focused on History from Wheaton College (MA).