We remember what they were like when they were little. Small children are full of robust emotions and energy for which they don’t yet have a vocabulary to express. They scream and cry, they laugh and run around, they throw temper tantrums, they throw objects, they exhaust themselves with tears. Sometimes they hit us out…
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Depression is a natural emotional experience. When you finally get your addicted adolescent into treatment and they are out of the home, it is easy to fall into a depression. There is no more fighting, no more staying awake at night worrying, no more fretting about where they are and what they are doing. Once…
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Thirty eight percent of girls between the ages of 13 and 17 have an anxiety disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. For boys of the same age, twenty six percent have an anxiety disorder. More young people are experiencing anxiety than ever before. Mental health concerns have gone through “trends” over the…
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Some parents have witnessed the horror of their young adolescent or teen addicted to hard drugs like pills, opiates, cocaine, and more. These life threatening drugs took over their child’s life and drove them down a dark path. Addiction to hard drugs is a daily threat with potentially fatal consequences. Other parents have seen their…
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Boundaries are the invisible lines we draw to separate ourselves from others’ behaviors. We get to make delineated boundaries about what we are willing to tolerate and not tolerate, for ourselves. We can only be pushed so far, do so much, or take so much abuse. Lacking in boundaries can result in codependency, exhaustion and…
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Al-Anon, the twelve step fellowship group created for friends and family members of alcoholics, embraces a philosophy of three “C’s” when it comes to how they personally relate to another person’s addiction: cause, cure and control. “I didn’t cause it.” “I can’t cure it.” “I can’t control it.” In addition to these three “C’s”, the…
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Bullying is a major source of inspiration for young adolescents and teens to seek out mind-altering substances- in order to escape, to numb, to stand out, or to fit in. Confronting the topic of bullying can be an uncomfortable experience. With these three steps, you can talk about bullying honestly with your adolescent or teen.…
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Parents all too easily take totalitarian, authoritative roles in their child’s life when addiction becomes part of it. For a time, tough love can be a necessary, life-saving enforcement on the part of parents. Recovery softens the heart and heals the many wounds addiction inflicts on the soul. These are some of the things your…
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Eating disorders can be made the most obvious at mealtime with the rest of the family. These disordered behaviors often pop up as out of the blue, but can be a sign of a problem with body image and disordered thinking toward food which have been growing for some time. Cutting food up meticulously…
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Kids will be kids! If only, as parents, we could get our kids to listen to everything we say, all the time. As independent beings with a growing sense of themselves, our kids start making decisions which don’t always agree with our own. We can get lost in our sense of authority and our entitlement…
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