Does My Child Need to go to A Residential Treatment Center?

Residential treatment centers and therapeutic boarding schools offer individualized therapy and treatment for youth that are struggling with a multitude of problems. Their programs have been designed to address continued patterns of behavior, where past treatments have failed.

Teens Struggling With These Issues Need a Residential Treatment Center

• Trauma and abuse
• Anger and aggression
• Depression and anxiety
• Personality and mental disorders
• Criminal behaviors
• Truancy
• Substance abuse
• Sexual compulsivity
• Low self esteem
• Low sense of worth
• Lack of motivation
• Problems with peers
• Familial disputes
• Other forms of behavioral problems

Even if you have tried everything else, you may still be hesitant about putting your teen into a residential treatment center. For most parents, it is a frightening and extreme option that they never thought they would have to consider. How do you know if it is really the right path for you and your family?

How Can My Teen Benefit From a Residential Treatment Center?

For most teenagers facing crises, whether that is mental illness, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, or anything else, residential treatment offers a more thorough and successful form of treatment than therapy alone. In a residential treatment center, they will be forced to face the core issues behind their behavior. All while improving their academic performance, and dealing with others in their program with empathy and understanding.

It is about more than placing them in a restricted environment. The stability of a residential program gives your teen the structure they need to feel safe. Within the context of that security, they can begin to understand their own behaviors, and why they respond in destructive ways. Identifying triggers and learning to cope with stress and difficult emotions are a big part of becoming more controlled, and a residential treatment center gives them the opportunity.

Academic performance will be the other half of their time in a treatment program. An experience, well trained staff of teachers, administrators, tutors and activity instructors will work together to come up with a tailored plan to fit the needs of each student. Improved grades and an overall change to the perception of school will be a major benefit for your teen moving forward, giving them a renewed optimism about their future.

The peers met during these programs can go a long way towards teaching your teen empathy, patience, and connecting them with others who have struggled themselves. As they learn to frame behaviors through witnessing the actions of others, they will learn social skills that may have been lacking before. Learning to get along with multiple peer groups in a controlled setting, and with the help of staff, will be carried back into their lives at home.