Troubled Youth Today

Youth today are dramatically different than the youth just fifteen years ago. Styles, schooling, resistance, and especially consequences have changed a lot. Children can no longer come home after school with a note from the teacher and receive a lashing with dad’s belt. No longer can they wear the dunce hat in class when misbehaving. Though this is a good thing, it has become much harder for parents to control and maintain their children. In “Children Should Be Seen Not Heard” by Gill Valentine, a single mother states, “I think children are allowed to get away with more because we’re so frightened of Social Services…they know there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” Without consequence children’s behaviors are going much farther down the “wrong” road then parents know how to handle. In light of this, now more than ever, drastic measures have been taken to help children. There are youth help centers where parents can send their children to receive the help they need to return to a more level headed state of being. 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 programs are not as strict, and the child only goes in a few times a week for sessions. Other residential treatment centers are for a month or two, while the most extreme residential centers for youth are over one year long. Since this has become quite a popular trend for parents to do, there is more and more research showing the outcomes of these children and if it actually helped. For parent’s to really 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 youth’s individual and family life. There are pros and cons to each type of center. A residential treatment center, also known as an RTC is similar to Therapeutic Boarding Schools (TBS) with the exception of how long the program lasts, the

Bibliography: Gaines, Donna. 1991. Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids. New 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)." Substance 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 role of early engagement.(Report)." Children and Youth Services Review 30.12 (Dec 2008): 1425(12). Academic OneFile. Gale. University of Denver.