No one knows your teen better than you. So when their behavior seems to go from “normal teen angst” to destructive to themselves or others, you find yourself wondering what to do. Luckily, there are plenty of resources as well as out-of-control teenager programs out there to help get your child back on track for the bright and successful future they deserve.
Normal Teen Behavior vs. Out-of-Control Teen Behavior
When deciding what to do when your teenager is out of control, it’s important to recognize exactly what emotional, behavioral, or social issues they’re battling, and whether those behaviors are normal teen behaviors or signs of a deeper issue. Normal teen behavior consists of things like being moody, secretive, short-tempered, impatient, easily frustrated, and desiring to be left alone. Out-of-control teen behavior, on the other hand, consists of things like:Stealing
Physical or verbal abuse of themselves, family members or peers
Sex
Skipping school
Staying out all night
Getting arrested or engaging in criminal activity
Out of control behavior may also be due to underlying mental health problems like depression, anxiety, or eating disorders. If your child is displaying these behaviors, then it’s time to seek professional help.
What to Do With an Out-of-Control Teenager
What to do with an out-of-control teenager is an incredibly important decision that not only impacts their future, but your family’s life as well. Actually knowing what to do with an out-of-control teenager, on the other hand, can be a difficult process on your own, especially when there’s a lot of bad advice floating around the internet and even your closest group of confidants. Advice like sending your out of control teen to military school, or simply “waiting it out” to see if the behavior fades. At the end of the day, if you know your child is displaying out of control behaviors, it’s time to take charge.
Contact a Therapeutic and Educational Placement Consultant
A therapeutic and educational placement guidance consultant will be able to identify exactly what’s going on with your teen and create a plan centered around their academic, social, emotional, behavioral, and vocational needs. Because of therapeutic and educational consultants’ ability to look at the big picture, create short and long-term goals and assist in calming family fears, they are often recommended by therapists as a major step in what to do with an out-of-control teenager.
How to Know Where to Send Your Out-of-Control Teenager
If your therapeutic and educational consultant suggests sending your teen to a short or long-term out-of-control child program outside of regular therapy, there are a few options you may have offered to you, including therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, or wilderness camps.
Therapeutic Boarding School
Therapeutic boarding schools are long-term alternative schools that specialize in out of control teenager programs. These programs are designed to address the deeper issues going on with your child, focusing on a wide range of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive challenges not addressed in traditional schools.
Residential Treatment Center
Residential treatment centers can serve as long or short-term out of control child programs focused on addressing medically driven issues like substance abuse, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, and the like.Wilderness Camp
Wilderness camps are short-term out-of-control teenager programs set in primitive conditions for a length of either weeks or even months. Wilderness camps introduce troubled youth to a more positive, nature-driven setting to learn things like self-reliance while identifying and addressing their deeper issues.
Deciding what to do when your teenager is out of control is a big decision, but you don’t have to go it alone. At Morgan Guidance, we take the difficult decision of what to do when your teenager is out of control and turn it into a comprehensive plan of action. We’ll dive deep into your child’s individual needs and match them with the local resources, short or long-term therapeutic out-of-control child programs designed to give your teen the help he or she needs for a brighter future.
Contact Elaine Morgan today to get started.
I need help with my out of control 14 yr old daughter