When Reality With Teens Looks Grim
June 17th, 2009 by Sue Blaney
I was scolded yesterday on a blog where I posted a list of guidelines for monitoring your teen. The mom who commented on my post at The Partnership for a Drug Free America’s blog Decoder says
- “All of the touchy-feely advice given throughout this website absolutely does not address the needs of parents such as myself with real problem kids.The list implies a level of cooperation from the teenager that they don’t have to give you. My son is purposely secretive about his friends, their names, where they live, where they go and what they do. I seldom get more than a “I’m with a friends” when I call his cell and if he doesn’t want to give me that much he simply doesn’t pick up the phone. When he was in middle school some of the above was within my power but now as an older teenager he has taken away my ability to parent and control his actions. Frankly, i resent these websites because i believe they are as unhelpful as the “just say no” campaign. Everyone including his therapist gives the same advice; i’ve done it all and it hasn’t worked – now what? I’ve just finished cleaning up the mess in his bedroom caused by his first bout of binge drinking until 3:30 AM, i can’t imagine what the next shoe to drop will be.”
Over this past weekend I received an email with the subject line “Teenage boy locked out of his house.” A crisis was occurring in real time, and the writer was trying to figure out if and how to intervene.
Just this morning I received a note from a Mom with two children in rehab who shares:
- “Yes, mothering teenagers has been the rollercoaster ride of my life–but without the breathing room the rollercoaster offers between big hills and sharp curves.”
Raising teenagers can be really really hard. And when the teenagers ratchet up the bad behavior, guess what? Parents need to ratchet up the response. The stakes are high. You are not dealing with small issues here, but very possibly life itself. And, for parents, risk is involved. Your kids may not act rationally, they may not respond well to your intervention, no matter how well intentioned. It is vital that you work with a professional. And some professionals will be more suited to your situation than others…so if you are not getting realistic input or advice, find somebody else.
I completely understand why the mom who admonishes the advice on the Partnership for a Drug Free America’s site feels it is irrelevant to her. It is. Her situation is now more serious and requires more serious intervention. I am not going to advise her on what action to take because each situation is unique and different. Blogs and websites are wonderful places to get lots of information…but there is a limit. And when you have teens who are using drugs and binge drinking you need personal and professional assistance.
The reader with two kids in rehab shares some of her story:
- I empathize completely with your correspondent’s sense that she is dealing with far more than the usual level of teen trouble, and that the usual responses just don’t work. As it turned out, for instance, my daughter was stealing the family car, driving to houses with older teens/adults, and drinking until she passed out. At one of these “parties” someone burned her with cigarettes. In short, her life was in danger,and it was no longer enough to take her cellphone or ground her. I couldn’t keep her grounded. Instead, I had to arrange an intervention with her therapist and have her admitted the next day to a residential treatment program. (The same happened with my stepson as well, who is in the facility now.) We were lucky, of course, to have insurance that covered much of the cost of their stays, but even then, it has been an expensive–emotionally and psychologically–experience. We reached a point where I had to act on what had once been idle threats. When my teenaged son came home drunk, I called the police. When I recognized that my daughter’s drinking was so extreme, I had her committed to residential treatment. None of these decisions was easy to make, much less to enforce. But I had come to understand that I would lose my children–to serious injury or death–if I did not act. For parents whose children aren’t engaged in this totally over-the-top behavior, it can be impossible to understand or empathize. People tend to think that if only we were better parents–stricter, more involved, more consistent, more something–our children would toe the line. Too often, the reality is that we are dealing with children who have mental illnesses that exacerbate their behaviors. Depression can really manifest itself quite differently in teens than in adults.
If the reality with your teen is looking grim, don’t wait to get help and to take action. Don’t wait for the other shoe to drop.
Here is a link to the helpful resources on the Partnership for a Drug Free America’s website: click here
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Parenting Teens, Risky Behavior, Teens: Alcohol & Drugs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 20th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Great article! Many parents of teens are pulling their hair out trying to figure out what to do about their children’s issues. I agree that the reality of parenting is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Parenting is as complex and different for each parent as people are different. I do believe however, that parents may benefit from the experiences and wisdom of others as to how to go about dealing with similar situations. Sometimes the fellowship of others-as in a support group or forum-dealing with the similar problems helps people to have the strength to know what they have to do. As a parent, sometimes the answer is something you don’t want to do, but that’s where the term ‘tough love’ comes in. To call the police on your child or have them committed somewhere is anything but easy.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Thank you for this article. To the mother who talks about two children in rehab, I applaud you for making this tough, yet crucial decision. We found ourselves in a situation where we could no longer deny our child’s substance abuse and took action.
While we did not go the route of rehab, he did go to a wilderness program for a month, and then off the Hyde School, a boarding school program of family-based character education. It was one of the most difficult and transformational experiences of our life. We recognized that we were no longer in control… in fact it had been quite some time since we were in control of anything he did. When we dropped him off at Hyde, we were among the many parents saying, “Here’s my child. Fix him.” We learned that while he was in this 24×7 environment, it was up to us (with the help of the school) to be working on ourselves — examining our attitudes and values.
It was also time to acknowledge that, while he made choices, we had a lot do with him reaching that point. Parents are the primary teacher, and it is amazing what you teach your children through your actions and attitudes about yourself and life. We know that a lot of the time they are ignoring our words… our lecturing and advising become the blah, blah, blah that teens tune out because they’ve heard it so many times before.
As for the parent who resented the ‘touchy-feely’ advice… well, she is right about it not being helpful for her situation. That child and relationship are beyond simple parenting tips. It is time to reach out for help with what they cannot do alone.
On the smaller, but highly significant issue, I would ask that parent to look at her response to her son’s binge drinking — cleaning his room. Of course it is difficult to step back. But there are natural consequences in life. What is the worst thing that will happen if she doesn’t clean it up? (The room will smell? They’ll have to throw out the sheets?) What is something positive that can come from not engaging? (The young man will be disgusted and clean up his own mess? He will see that his mother has not fixed one more thing for him?)
What incentive do kids have to do things for themselves and become independent, competent, loving adults? None, if we continue to jump in and fix everything for them. When faced with a situation where you want to do it for them, ask yourself, “Who’s issue is it? Mine, or my child’s?”
It is so difficult to let our kids make mistakes. Some mistakes they need to make in order to self-correct. Other mistakes require our intervention. The trick is in knowing the difference.
June 21st, 2009 at 1:14 am
I SO agree with the mom who responded to the mother whose teenage son is out of control. Until you have lived through it, you have no idea of how exhausting, traumatic, and horrible it truly is. Our soon-to-be-14-year-old son has put us through hell the over the past year, and yes, a mental illness was at the root of it. We just learned he has early-onset bipolar disorder, which manifests way differently in children and teens than it does in adults. For our son, the main results have been substance abuse, irritability and anger, risky behaviors, hyper-sexuality, and lack of focus in school. We are on a first-name basis with just about every police officer in our town, and NO, we did not raise our son to be this way. My biggest regret is being too soft in the beginning regarding consequences, but I have discovered it’s never too late to start. (I have also discovered that anti-anxiety medication really helps me to not take his actions so personally!) I would tell mothers with children like this to hang in there, remember the things you love about your child (even if you have to really search hard in your memory banks), and try to stay calm even when things are falling apart around you (that’s where the meds help). As a psychologist friend of mine once said, “You can’t solve a problem when you have two crazy people at the same time.” So if one of you is crazy, the other has to stay sane, or else the problems will never go away.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pm
There was also a question in this post about someone wondering what to do when kids are kicked out of their homes.
What do you do? I am currently tutoring a neighbour’s son who has been in conflict with his parents (well..with Mom, Dad’s usually calm and then Mom and Dad fight (mom yells, dad caves in) and the son feels betrayed). He’s been involved in some unfortunate situations lately where I believe him that he got in over his head and didn’t know how to extricate himself. As a result, nobody trusts him and when he tries to speak all hell breaks loose (sorry – lots of yelling and not listening…no throwing things or hitting).
I know he spent a few nights kicked out, but was welcome back because Mom is away for a week or so with her mom who had surgery. He knows he’s welcome to stay at our house, and I’ve talked with him about how he can try to see things differently at home, but is still in a position with little to no power.
Any suggestions about how to handle this? How to broach it with his parents? These things are always easier when it’s somebody else, eh?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 am
It’s 1:30 AM and I am looking on the internet for some advice or information to HELP me deal properly with my teenager’s defiance. No, this is NOT the only thing I am doing, I am doing all the other steps a caring parent does, including tough love, counseling, caring, etc. Parenting is not easy or simple. I want this person to learn to become a responsible adult and to not cause me or others or himself too much grief. When he reaches legal age I can release a stage of my personal/parental responsibility. It is good to have online as an additional source of information for comparison and to reinforce that I am not alone as a parent, but as an individual who must make and do the best decisions regarding my teen. I feel good knowing that I am TRYING to do my best whether it works or not. Sometimes it does work, sometimes doesn’t. Effort and hope are my main bastions.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you, to those of you who have had the courage to share your painful, difficult and overwhelmingly sad stories about your teenagers. I am in a similar situation as several who have posted; I placed my teenager in a wilderness program at age 15; in a residential therapeutic school at age 16; and now, living home, facing his 18th birthday in a couple of weeks, still struggling with many of the same issues. I feel I have been a very devoted, loving, fair, kind and consistent parent. I have done my best to help my son succeed in life, and honestly don’t know if he’ll be able to become a successful adult. I don’t know why life for us turned out this way- there are certainly genetic factors that come into play- but why he has not been one of the ’success’ stories (so far) is beyond my understanding. I’ll keep plugging along, supporting and encouraging him to do his best to make positive, healthy choices, but I won’t, under any circumstances, enable him when he makes poor decisions. The support and encouragement I’ve gotten from others (friends and professionals) have been a godsend. Without that I would’ve been committed to the looney bin!
June 30th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’ve been reading a lot of different books over the last year and recently I’ve found one I really like:Positive Discipline for Teenagers by Jane Nelsen. She also wrote Positive Discipline. We tried the family meeting in an extremely informal way. One Sunday after breakfast we just started talking about chores and nonchalantly made a list of a few other items. Our kids dialogued for 30 minutes about chores and in the end came up with their own solution. It is really easy for them to follow the plan because they did it. There are other items we want to address, but we’re taking it slow.
I know this is not a solution for hard core problems, but perhaps a resource for ideas to keep things from escalating. I’d recommend the book for those in the trenches because it offers a different perspective.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
When reality with teens looks grim.
Our only child turned 18 this week, so we are half-way through parenting a teen/young adult. For us, mental illness (both sides of the family) is a complicating factors. It surfaced at puberty rather than the early twenties. Fortunately, we have good medical insurance, experience with mental illness and a community of caring and non-judgmental family/friends/educators/medical professionals.
I agree with Kevin that having an on-line community is helpful, as I too was “looking for answers” at 1:30 am for dealing with behaviors that we could not believe were happening in our family (cutting, sex, suicidal thoughts, not communicating–thank God drugs and alcohol have not been added to the mix of “self-medication”).
For Elizabeth the neighbor, continue to do what you are doing–being a sounding board is enough. Teens need someone they can just “dump on” without fear of intervention. If the teen is a danger to himself–tell parents and offer to help arrange medical help if you can.
What have we learned? Developmentally she does not want to talk to us(she’s heard it all before), so we are OK with that, but have tried to make sure she has caring adults, professionals and friends to turn to when she is hurting.
We have had to swallow our personal pain that she does not want our involvement–other than for $ and transportation
.
Professionals have helped us establish “family contracts” to meet everyone’s basic needs–i.e. Parents need to have 15 minutes per day at a meal with her giving a 2 minute update (adult social skill) on her day. Teen needs for parents to not “play doctor or counselor” or “over-react” to things she tells us. (I still do not quite understand “over-reacting” because aren’t we entitled to model consequences for poor behavior?)
As parents, we continue to change our “dance” when things do not seem to be working. When I asked one of her doctors when we could reasonably expect her to start “acting like the adult she thinks she is, ” he replied, “not for a few years”! Hmmm.
She is leaving for college (almost full-ride academic scholarship)in two months and we are praying daily that she will have the sense to use the tools to make the transition.
Letting go of your children is harder than we imagined. Thank God for our friends and family who help us maintain a healthy perspective on this important stage of parenting.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hi:
A New York Times parenting blog ran an article I wrote about trying to confront my children’s addictions. The article is called Snake in the Grass and it ran on New York Times parenting blog on June 25. I think you can google it….I’m going to see if I can find the URL to post it here. I hope that other parents find my/our experience helpful.
My heart goes out to those facing mental illness in children. It is an incredibly difficult and painful journey for all.
Janice
July 15th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
We began to see “the handwriting on the wall” when our 14yr.old started lying about his school work and was basically flunking his freshman year. Since 6th grade he had been home schoolded, in 2 different private schools for “different” learning styles, back to “an excellent” public school and we were at our wits end with much arguing privately between my husband and I about how to “fix” him. We were referrred to a family counselor, who after reviewing our son’s massive binder of school and private tests, etc., suggested we consider military school!!! She felt(from her experience with other boys) that he was a very smart kid (he is) and good candidate for such and that if we didn’t do something he would go down the path of alcohol and drugs. OMG! I couln’t fathom sending my child away at 14! After much anquish and constant crying on my part, he left for military school second semester of his 9th grade year. Flash forward, 13 months. He came home the last trimester of 10th grade and left military school an honor’s student. His goal was to come home once he saw what life was like away from his family. He made the decision to suceed and proved to himself that he could accomplish a goal. He now studies without being told and is devoted to getting good grades. Certainly everything is not perfect, but after all he is 16. I am so thankful that we made a drastic change before he started down “a slippery path”. Maybe this comment will help someone else, having similar problems. Military school was not perfect in any way and although we were told that kids that were into drugs, alcohol, serious behavior issues were not attending the school…..guess what?… parents lie and our son had quite a few experiences with boys that did have problems. However, I also think it helped him to see where he didn’t want to head……I believe our son will thank us in the future for make the tough choice.