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3 Ways To Prepare For A Troubled Teen’s Return From A Treatment Center

Raising a teenager can be a challenge under the best circumstances.

But when a teenager’s addictions, learning disabilities, or emotional and behavioral issues become more than parents can bear, the young people often are placed in residential or wilderness treatment programs where professionals help them work through their issues.

Success can quickly unravel when the child returns home, though, if parents aren’t ready with a game plan to help with the transition.

“Parents often fear that their son or daughter is going to relapse into old, unhealthy or dangerous patterns,” says Dr. Tim R. Thayne, a marriage and family therapist and author of Not by Chance: How Parents Boost Their Teen’s Success In and After Treatment (www.drtimthayne.com).

“They have fears about how their child will connect socially with other people and whether they will find the right friends. They fear their teen will fall further behind in academics.”

Thayne suggests a few ways to help parents ease the transition:

• Identify natural mentors for your teen. A natural mentor – such as a neighbor, teacher, relative or coach – is typically more effective than an officially assigned mentor. “Studies suggest that most formal mentoring relationships last less than a year,” Thayne says. “In contrast, natural mentoring relationships, which come from the church, school, family and neighborhood, are far more durable, with the average lasting nine years.”
• Know when and how to grant back privileges and freedoms. Don’t let your teen pressure you into promising the return of certain privileges. Long before they come home, teens in treatment often begin asking what they are going to be able to do and how soon. “They want back the freedoms they once had, such as cell phone and car use, sleepovers, computer time, dating, time with friends and so forth,” Thayne says. “If there is ever a time not to buckle under pressure from your teen, it’s now while they are still in the program. If your teen is going to be angry, let the program deal with the fallout.” When they do come home, don’t make a rule you aren’t willing to back up. Consistency is key. Over time, as your trust grows, be ready to hand out rewards before being asked, but this doesn’t have to be done all at once. “Things can be handed out for a weekend trial, or at a level of 50 percent of what your child initially pushed for,” Thayne says.
• Find someone to talk with. “Parents should have someone they can open up to about their emotions,” Thayne says. He suggests finding a therapist or a coach who has experience working with parents in this situation. “That counselor will be better equipped to help you through this transition,” he says. “Nothing will surprise them; not your fears, not your questions, not your situation.” In addition to an expert coach, Thayne says, it also helps to have a trusted friend you can vent to as well. 

“Long-term success doesn’t come about by chance, by hoping or simply because you shelled out a lot of money and sent your child away to get help,” Thayne says. “It requires work and changes on your part, and it takes a concrete plan.”

About Tim R. Thayne, Ph.D.

Dr. Tim R. Thayne, a marriage and family therapist, is author of Not By Chance: How Parents Boost Their Teen’s Success In and Out of Treatment (www.drtimthayne.com). He also is the founder and CEO of Homeward Bound, a leading program in early intervention and in-home transition from treatment services for families of troubled teens. He has a master’s degree from Brigham Young University and a doctoral degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Virginia Tech.

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5 Ways Graffiti Vandals Damage

Your Community

In many U.S. cities, the writing is on the walls – graffiti vandalism, that is, creating expensive eyesores that are difficult to prevent and damaging to an area’s image.

A U.S. Justice Department study found that graffiti discourages people from using mass transit, makes business districts less attractive to shoppers and increases fear of gangs among residents. Law enforcement and community officials talk about how graffiti – usually spray-painted or applied with indelible markers – is costly in terms of removal, lowered property values and lost business.

While removing graffiti from buildings, bridges, overpasses and sidewalks drains millions of taxpayer dollars, graffiti vandalism also creates challenges for those trying to track and convict the vandals.

“Graffiti is one of the most visible signs of general decline in an area, and cities are fed up with it,” says Timothy Kephart, founder of Graffiti Tracker (www.graffititracker.com), a web-based system designed to help identify and prosecute graffiti vandals.  “Cities across the nation recognize how graffiti vandals continue to hurt their image and their tax base, so they’re finding different ways to fight back more effectively." 

“There are lots of reasons we have to do a better job of cleaning this up.”

Kephart says there are at least five ways graffiti vandalism can hurt your community:

• Removal is expensive. Los Angeles has estimated it spends $7 million annually on graffiti cleanup. Chicago has spent $6 million per year and Las Vegas spends $3 million annually. “Painting over the graffiti is the most common removal process, but spending millions a year to simply do just that is a waste,” Kephart says. “You need to spend time documenting graffiti to have the best chance of catching the criminal.”
• It drives away business. Many people associate graffiti with a general decline in the area, indicative of crime and gangs. “Merchants lose business because customers feel the area is no longer safe,” Kephart says. 
• It erodes The Community. The negative perception of graffiti vandalism can send property values plummeting. “It indicates the community is losing control, and the graffiti, like the crime, can spread like a disease. It results in urban flight,” Kephart says. 
• It is toxic for the environment. Aerosol sprays used for graffiti emit VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that contribute to ozone levels, according to scientificamerican.com. Also, the cleaning substances used to get paint off the walls are harmful.
• It is a gateway to youth crime. Gangs often use graffiti as a form of communication, or for territory “tagging.” Most graffiti is done by youths who are either being initiated into gang activity or see their environment as a starting point for crime. “Often, graffiti is a gateway crime for juvenile offenders,” Kephart says. “If we can identify them at an early age, there’s a stronger possibility they can be re-directed onto a more productive path.”

“Imagine how many cities we could beautify,” Kephart says, “ if we could clean up this graffiti, prevent most of it, and have a way to find the criminals and make them pay the city back.”

About Timothy Kephart

Timothy Kephart is the founder of Graffiti Tracker (www.graffititracker.com), a web-based system designed to help people identify, track and prosecute graffiti vandals. He holds a master’s degree in Criminal Justice from Cal State Long Beach. A court-certified graffiti expert, Kephart has testified in homicide trials as it related to using graffiti as a way to prove motive for murder. He worked for the City of Carson as their in-house graffiti expert and was assigned to Carson Station for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

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 7 Minute Martians

Premieres New Single

"Smoked Out" With Dying Scene

Listen HERE

Debut Album Curious Set To Release March 15 

Cincinnati, OH - March 12, 2018 - Cincinnati-based pop-punks, 7 Minute Martians, have teamed up with Dying Scene to premiere their third single "Smoked Out" off of their forthcoming album, Curious. The new track is available to listen to here: http://bit.ly/2FCUzAV. 

"This is a song about decaying love and one of my favorites off of the record. I like the metaphor of comparing a relationship to being in a burning building and a high-speed car chase in the chorus. The third verse will always hit me hard, as it's about my mother's suicide,

" 
shares vocalist, Wil Viars. 

The track comes off of Curious, 7 Minute Martians' debut album, due out this spring - an album that encapsulates the grieving heart, the lovelorn heart, and the heart longing for truth that finds comfort in a kindred soul.

At just 14-years-old, 7 Minute Martians' founding members Wil Viars and Ted Ball had discovered an unbreakable brotherly bond over guitars and pop-punk bands such as blink-182 and Sum 41. Now, after a 15-year-long roller coaster, they are gearing up to release their debut album that has been in the works for 7 of those years. In 2016, when getting ready to record, they connected with talented old friends Jordan Loper and Nick Neumeister, who completed their puzzle, and set 7 Minute Martians into space.

Curious is set to be released on March 15, 2018. For more information, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/7minutemartians/ .

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7 Minute Martians is Wil Viars (Guitar, Vocals), Ted Ball (Guitar, Vocals), Jordan Loper (Bass, Vocals) and Nick Neumeister (Drums).