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If
You
Always
do
What
You've Always
Done...
You'll
Always
Get
What
You've Always
Got.
Parenting Teenagers Discussion Forum In facilitating groups for parents over the years, I have seen time and again the insight, suggestions and support that parents give to each other. It is far beyond what I, or any therapist I know, has to offer. In order to facilitate this same mechanism on our website, we have added a Parenting Teenagers Discussion Forum. Join us today!
Contribute to, or start a new discussion!
In addition to what you may learn; your insight, suggestions and support will prove invaluable to parents across the internet. Click on the following link to join the discussion! Parenting Teenagers Discussion Forum
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Before You Go Any Further
We need to find out if The Adolescent Owner's Manual is applicable to you. After all, we're asking you to invest $14.95 in this program. And how many times have you picked up a book, based on the cover, and then gotten home only to realize that it really didn't apply to you?
The parenting strategies and tactics suggested in this program are intended to be used with particularly problem kids. In order to convince both of us that your child fits in this category, I am going to ask you to keep reading for a few more moments. If, in the next couple of pages, you read something that resonates with you and your situation, then you've come to the right place. If one of the four scenario's that follow doesn't ring true for you, then you need to continue your search.
Go ahead, invest a couple of more minutes...
...you won't be sorry. |
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Scenario One
It is a few minutes after midnight on Friday. Your son has just walked in the door. You immediately know two things. First, he is over an hour past his curfew. And second, it is apparent that he has either been drinking or using drugs. From the olfactory aura around him, you're leaning toward the latter as the reek of marijuana is undeniable.
You try to address these issues with him, but to no avail. At first, he simply tunes you out as he gets himself something to eat out of the refrigerator and turns on MTV. When you turn off the TV and insist that he talk with you, he becomes angry and belligerent. Raising his voice, he begins to call you names and swear at you. When you continue to try to talk with him, he gets up off the couch and assumes a more menacing posture.
Fearing that things are going to get out of hand, you tell him that he is grounded and send him to bed. With a curt "whatever", he heads off to his room.
The next night, just a few minutes after midnight, you find yourself having one of those deja vu moments as you see the entire process playing out again. | |  | |
Scenario Two
You find yourself sitting in the lobby of the local Juvenile Court waiting to go before the Judge with your daughter. She isn't with you. She is still down in Detention where they took her last night after she was picked up in a raid on a local drug house. They will bring her up when they start doing the Detention Hearings right after lunch.
Sitting there, you don't know if you can go through this again. She is only 14, yet you must have been in this exact position fifteen or twenty times before. You don't know if you can deal with the looks, the comments, the inferences that somehow you are the one at fault. If you were just a better parent, she wouldn't be getting into all of this trouble. You wonder if, this time, she's pregnant. She left home over three days ago and God only knows where she's been, who she's been with, and what she's done.
Rather than just making you feel like you're a lousy parent, you find yourself wishing that just one person in this massive Juvenile Justice System could figure out a way to help you and your child. But after two years of this, you know that just isn't going to happen. They don't know what to do anymore than you do. | | |
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