Summer jobs and summer schools aren't the only options for teens over the summer. Teens who have struggled with behavioral, academic or emotional challenges during the academic year can benefit from have some additional – and very effective – options.
Giving your teen "a summer off" after a particularly challenging or difficult school year can be especially tempting, but it’s important to remember that any extended vacation – especially summer – can be particularly risky for teens who are already struggling. Without the structure of an established daily routine, summer’s abundant "free time" is often a catalyst for susceptible teens to fall into even riskier behavior patterns. Wilderness programs can help turn this summer from time wasted to time spent changing behaviors, learning from past mistakes, and growing emotionally.
Call (888) 972-7736 to learn about therapeutic wilderness programs for children exhibiting behavioral and emotional issues, learning differences, and social problems.
Planning for the Prom
Prom night is so significant, it is second only to high school graduation for teen drinking, drug use, and the crimes and accidents that come with these preventable behaviors. It can feel like Prom is such a large-scale event spanning your teen’s social scene that there is little that can be done to affect it. Taking a few steps back from Prom night, however, options begin to appear. Understanding the symbolic and pivotal role Prom plays in the minds and lives of so many teens is the first step to reframing these rights of passage in safer and more stimulating ways, making Prom itself less significant to your teen. On top of this important first step, there are lots of tips and tactics you can use to help your teen pull off the healthiest Prom possible.
Growing up is confusing. Cultural mile markers are fading away, leaving families, communities, and teens at a loss about how to know when teens have became ‘adults.’ In this respect Prom serves three primary functions. First, it makes teens feel like leaders in their community, dressing in their finest and putting on an event that does not need an adult audience to validate its importance. Second, it confirms that they are now ready and encouraged to begin to be romantically involved. Third, it formalizes each teen’s status in the class system of cool. Who is Prom King will likely be utterly trivial a few years down the line. Yet, the long-term impression of seeing someone so openly placed in a delineated class system is definitely part of growing up today.
Making the Most of Therapeutic Programs
Therapists, counselors, and educational consultants agree that students who first complete a reputable therapeutic wilderness program are more successful in entering and completing a boarding school. To facilitate continuity of care, having a plan of action that involves both the wilderness therapist and the chosen boarding school counselor is recommended. That way your child’s progress is communicated between both programs and the boarding school program can pick up where the wilderness program left off. Typically, students travel directly from one program to the next to eliminate any distractions or time to get into trouble while back at home.
Programs that work especially well together are Adirondack Leadership Expeditions and Academy at Swift River. Adirondack Leadership Expeditions is a character development wilderness program that promotes personal growth through focused experiences. The forested, mountain setting removes urban distractions to allow students room to gain insight into their core values and accept responsibility for their choices. The nurturing approach helps teens address personal issues, achieve success in a safe environment, and develop their leadership potential.
The Academy at Swift River is a therapeutic boarding school that offers college prep academics and prepares students to meet the challenges of adolescence and young adulthood. Students are challenged on a daily basis to raise their standards of academic and personal growth, to receive positive peer/faculty reinforcement, and to identify and develop their true self as it relates to peers, family, and community. By combining cognitive and emotive approaches in order to allow teens time for natural growth within the classroom, the family, the environment and themselves, the Academy at Swift River helps underachieving teens get back on track by restoring relationships and rediscovering academic success.
Connection between Bullying and ADHD
Bullying affects both victim and offender. In recent years we have seen extreme examples of bullying involved in school violence, such as Columbine High School shootings in Colorado. Many different scientific studies indicate that most children have been victims of bullying in school, and that the children who tend to be bullies also tend to have a diagnosis of ADHD, and/or anxiety and depressive disorders. This is not to say that if you have a child that has been diagnosed with ADHD that he or she will become a bully, but simply that a higher percentage of bullies have ADHD.
Learn more about the connections to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and school bullying >>