Troubled Youth Today

Y offh today atomic number 18 dramatically different than the young average fifteen years ago. Styles, schooling, exemption, and especially consequences impart tackd a component. electric razorren provoke no retentive-term come kinfolk after school with a note from the t to each oneer and receive a lashing with dads belt. No longer disregard they wear the dunce hat in class when misbehaving. Though this is a levelheaded thing, it has become much firmer for p arnts to control and maintain their children.In Children Should Be Seen Not Heard by Gill Valentine, a single mother states, I think children be allowed to rise away with much because were so frightened of Social Servicesthey know theres nothing you can do to stop it. Without consequence childrens behaviors atomic number 18 pass much furthestther down the defective road then p arnts know how to handle. In light of this, now much than ever, drastic measures build been taken to athletic supporter children. There are young person help centers where parents can send their children to receive the help they ingest to return to a more level headed state of be.In an article written by Bruce R Schackmann, it was stated that, only one in ten adolescents who need treatment actually receives help. Some of these programmes are not as strict, and the child only goes in a a couple of(prenominal) times a hebdomad for sessions. Other residential treatment centers are for a calendar month or two, enchantment the most extremum residential centers for youth are over one year long. Since this has become quite a touristed trend for parents to do, there is more and more research showing the outcomes of these children and if it actually helped.For parents to authentically understand what their child needs they need to know if strict institutes or more loose help centers are more productive with enhancing and helping the youths individual and family emotional state. There are pros and cons to e ach type of center. A residential treatment center, in like manner known as an RTC is similar to Therapeutic embarkation Schools (TBS) with the exception of how long the program lasts, the intensity of the therapy, and the educational component involved. At Risk Teen-residential Treatment Centers website). The RTCs provide much more verbal contact with the family and physical family involvement. Usually in these types of facilities there are less rules, which helps the scholarly persons to build hand-to-hand friendly relationship-like relationships with the staff, which can overall help the outcome of the student. The child is learning newfangled things during all(prenominal) session and gets to practice his or her new knowledge within just a few weeks aroundtimes nonetheless hours.This gives the student the efficiency to test what they have lettered and come foul to the program to share how it went and browse on how to polish off it better. There tends not to be as mu ch resistance at these shorter, sometimes non-residential centers, which leads to less resentment being built up against the institute. Students at these types of programs have the ability to think for themselves. They are given a type of organize to follow, usually in the form of a certain amount of steps, however it is up to them how to succeed and progress through these steps to the end.Chris Conner from The military position said, aim may not always be helpful because then the student cannot develop who they are by themselves and they wont be qualified to really take their life into their own hands and require their own structure. Another perk of these programs is that they tend to be less expensive. This allows students of lower class to be able to participate in the RTC services. Positive outcomes for youth in RTCs are mainly familiard with stays that are relatively shorter, include family involvement, and involve aftercare. (Brenda D. Smith) Though there seem to be some(prenominal) pros, there are also a few cons.Because the students are there for such a short time period it is easier for them to glance over by, or fake what they are doing. Also they might not hold onto the information they have learned as deeply as a longer program. This can cause the students of shorter programs to relapse sooner than longer programs. In jejune Wasteland by Donna Gaines a boy was arrested for drunk driving and entered a rehab program. For a while he dried out, and then he tried getting his life in order. Things started to nip up for him moreover that didnt last. (The Kids In The Basement) The longer programs known as TBSs have m both pros and cons as well.Unlike RTCs they tend to be over a year in length, which federal agency they are residential and away from the family. There is moderate communication with the family as well as limited physical contact. There is a loss of connection to the outside world, which can cause a student to build extreme res entment against the program. The therapeutic aspect of these programs is extremely intense and can be touchy for such young students to deal with. They try to discipline your whole life, to embarrass you out of being yourself, they ascribe you on a routine, to make you normalthis structured pproach can be hurtful to some extent. more than frequently it gets abused. (Teenage Wasteland-The Rock). After having stayed at a program away from your family, friends, and society for so long the student usually has the urge to break free when they get out. Unhealthy ways of rebellion are often seen among these youth. This can be seen in disobeying ones parents, skipping classes again, and can mean joints, beers, liquor, and if its a good night maybe something a little stronger-coke, dust, crack. (Teenage Wasteland-Us and Them). The children who go to these programs are pretty equal when it comes to gender.One has to be in the middle to upper middle class to be able to afford the price of these programs which can range from around $2,100 per month and can climb to $8,000 a month. (At Risk Teen-Residential Treatment Centers website). Some pros of the long term program are that because they are longer the student has the chance and time to really work on their issues with the help of much more intensive therapy than an RTC. Instead of having to leave school for a month or two at these programs there is schooling offered to help the students to not fall too far behind and even catch up if they were behind.Though the structure can be seen as harmful at times, it also teaches the students the importance of structure in their gets and not just being a half-baked spontaneous party animal. The staff and students have more time to create bonds that can be womb-to-tomb along with student-student relationships. Having relationships with the people where you are liveliness helps one to feel more at home and they have a better chance of nice more open and letting people i n emotionally to help them. Because of these aspects of longer programs they tend to have a very good outcome.The youth who are being sent to these programs are coming from all different backgrounds of race, gender, and class in particular. These youth tend to be children who have either not had luxuriant rules growing up or too many, and they have pitch their own ways to resist society, especially in the face of their parents, and have been sent to these places to get help. Family life has changed dramatically along with our society and culture. In the 1950s, it smoking cigarettes was a mark of juvenile delinquency for boys, trampiness for girls. (Teenage Wasteland-Us And Them).Now a child smoking a cigarette is one of the smaller worries of a parent. With drugs becoming so popular, affordable, and comfortably accessible, this trend has hit almost every youth sub-culture. It is a way for the youth to rebel from their parents and society, while gaining acceptance from their peer s. With our culture having changed so much recently, especially in the last twenty to forty years, the youth has become extremely peer oriented. Wherever they have been taught to odour for good, they find evil. Families are falling apart, and the written document are full of atrocities perpetuated by adults on kids. (Teenage Wasteland-This is Religion I). It is becoming harder and harder for the youth to come home to their families to give tongue to to them about the eighth graders picking on them at lunch time, when they are traveling between their beginners house and their mothers house on alternate Tuesdays, every other soccer game, and every third weekend.The newspapers and shows are showing that is it dangerous for children to be alone on the street or any further than a block or two away from home, and consequently, boys and girls increasingly are having their activities officially organized and timetabled. (Children Should Be Seen Not Heard, Gill Valentine). This type of lifestyle is very overwhelming for children. To have some sort of a release the child usually begins to spend more and more time with their friends to head off the family life. Along with this, to really deepen the avoidance tactic, the child usually starts to use drugs of some sort. The burden of homework and being embarrassed to go to class because one is unprepared can be overwhelming enough for a child to start skipping classes, and in time drop out all together.The youth at these programs can be involved in the punk scene, the gangster scene, and the hippie scene, and all be breathing out through these same issues. The youth are just finding their own way and different sub-cultures to associate with to avoid their own lives. When the youth get sent to these programs their sub-culture is completely torn apart and they are obligate to create a new one with all of the other students at the program. This can actually be very healthy. When I was sent to my wilderness program I wa s stuck in the middle of Duchesne, Utah with quint other girls.I had no choice but to be-friend these girls no matter if they looked different and acted different than me. This was the scratch line step in helping me to step away from judgment. When I got to my TBS in Heron, Montana, I was given a sort of uniform and my make-up, music, and pictures from home were all taken from me. Everyone was shed of their outer appearance that they based friendship off of at home. Girls had to have their hair up at all times with no bangs or hair in their faces. Boys had to have short hair and wear belts at all times.We werent even allowed to talk about what type of music we seeed to at home, to fully extinguish the images that we all had had. This really helped me to make friends with everybody and grow as a less judgmental person. The rules we were given were extremely strict. We were told they were not called rules but agreements. We were agreeing to live by this standard, and ironically we were being forced to say agreements and if we said rule we were punished. I had fifteen-minute phone calls with my parents every two weeks and was not allowed to talk to any other family members except for them.As time went one I was awarded privileges to be able to write my sister and grandparents letters and it wasnt until I had been at the program for 18 months that I was allowed to use the phone to call my sister for 10 minutes every two weeks. Punishments include things such as doing extra chores, dishes, digging, weeding, shoveling snow, and the worst was digging a stump out of the ground. I had cardinal stumps during both winters I was there. Extremely low temperatures and feeling sick were not taken into account when a child had broken a rule.I was ostracized three times during my 23-month stay. When I first got there I was not allowed to talk to anybody for one week. And then the two times I got in major stretch out I was not allowed to talk to any other students. I was also not allowed to talk to any of the staff or teachers there except for my personal therapist, family therapist, and headmaster. I was forced to sit in the back of the dining hall facing the wall at all times. I was shamed and guilt tripped and I believe this to be an incredibly unhealthy technique to use with growing youth.The children who went to The Rock in Teenage Wasteland by Donna Gaines were very similar to me. Most of them were diagnosed with a disorder called ED, emotionally disturbed. Most kids going to the TBS or RTC programs today are diagnosed with either ADD, ADHD, or ODD. ODD stands for Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It has become prevalent since bodily punishment has become illegal. Most kids who went to The Rock had been given up on by the faculty at their other schools, and this was the only place for them. When I left home no one had given up on me as a person, they had given up on trying to control me and help me.Everyone support me and wanted me to become hea lthy again. They sent me away because they loved me and that was what I needed. The kids who go to The Spot, in downtown Denver Colorado, are children with seemingly similar backgrounds. They have probably been given up on, or have given up on themselves. They have this help center to go to with not many rules, but that can really help them to lead a healthier and more successful life. I am similar to these youth because before I had gotten sent away I was no longer living at home.I was sleeping couch to couch and sometimes sitting on curbs until two in the morning when someone could sneak me into their house. I had given up on myself and was harming my own body with drugs and had halt going to school all together. I feel that the homeless youth who are going to The Spot are taking the initiative to help themselves, however I feel that there might not be quite enough structure or help services for them to really start works on their life and turning it around. There needs to be a place with an amount of structure between a TBS/RTC and youth help centers such as The Spot and the YMCA.In general the youth who are homeless and attending the spot and the youth who are so out of control they are being sent to these residential treatment center can tell us a lot about the general youth in the United States today. In contemporary Western societies we are witnessing a decay in childhood as a separate category and that the distinction between children and adults is becoming increasingly blurred. (Seabrook, 1987). There is an incredible amount of resistance among the youth of the U. S. today towards the norm.Youth are being oppressed by the different laws that are placed on them, the inability to hang out in certain public spaces, and the overall mindset that we are hormonal and crazy teens. The youth are resisting this oppression by breaking the rules, by taking drugs, skipping classes, and hanging out and skateboarding in places where it is printed not allowed. How ever, through this resistance we are proving that the adults are extremely correct. The youth are beginning to gain more and more power out of this resistance mostly due to corporal punishment being illegal.Parents are being watched very closely to see that their children are not being abused. It has become very hard for parents to discipline their children, with the fear that any wrong move and their own child, neighbor, or passer-by could call Child Protective Services on them. It is very important for these youth to be studied because we are the next of this nation, of this world. Some of these children are being treated in unnecessary and unfair ways that can be economically harmful to the family, and in some cases can emotionally pull the family apart due to insufficiency of communication.The population of the children going through these processes is becoming larger and larger by the year. If the adults of the society could start to look at what they are doing that could be helping to cause this loss of children in our communities, things could really start to change for the better. It seems as if parents have become overeducated. But instead of becoming sensitive or acting rationally, they get hyper alert to signs of drug problem. They start reading pathology into every little thing their kid does. (Teenage Wasteland-The Rock).Give the children a chance to be themselves. As much as a child might yell when they study that who they are is just phase, it usually is true, it is a phase. Let your children make mistakes and learn from them. Be there for them all the time to love them and to help teach them right from wrong. Try to understand and listen to them rather than preach from our own childhood. The gap between youth and adults will become much closer if we all begin to listen and love.BIBLIOGRAPHYGaines, Donna. 1991. Teenage Wasteland Suburbias Dead End Kids. novel York Harper Perennial Valentine, Gill. 1996. Urban Geography. Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard The Production and Transgression of Adults Public Space. 205-220 Website Residential Treatment Centers http//www. selectown. com/oppositional-defiant-disorder. php Copyright 2004 Website Residential Treatment Centers http//www. selectown. com/residential-treatment-centers. php Copyright 2004 Interview with Chris Conner from The Spot Seabrook, Jeremy, 1987. The Decay Of Childhood. News Statesman. 10 July, 14-15 Schackman, Bruce R. , Erick G. Rojas, Jeremy Gans, Mathea Falco, and Robert B. Millman. Does higher cost mean better quality? evidence from highly-regarded adolescent drug treatment programs. (Short Report). kernel Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 2. 23 (July 31, 2007) 23. Academic OneFile. Gale. University of Denver. Smith, Brenda D. , David E. Duffee, Camela M. Steinke, Yufan Huang, and Heather Larkin. Outcomes in residential treatment for youth The agency of early engagement. (Report). Children and Youth Services Review 30. 12 (Dec 2008) 1425( 12). Academic OneFile. Gale. University of Denver.