Your own experience being a teenager often lies 15 - 20 years back. The world is not the same anymore. What you did to enjoy life is forbidden by law today. Some of the responsibility of being a parent has been taken out of your hand and has been replaced by laws in the society.

One example is alcohol consumption.  Strict state laws prevent parents to keep the evil of underage drinking within their control, because some states punish parents, who have knowledge about their off-springs drinking habits, so in order to protect themselves legally it is better not to discuss this matter at all. But youth are the same all over the world and why should youth in the United State be different than youth in Europe, where this statistic shows a larger part of youth aged between 13 and 15 drinking alcohol? (Remarkable without this causing a massive number of teenagers dying from alcohol consumption, violence and teenage pregnancies or even close the percentage of people ending up in prison out of the total population like it is the case in the United States.)

But Europe is not the United States. Idealistic juvenile hall should deal with your child, if he or she break the law by using alcohol or drugs. But as long as the purpose with handling teenagers in the justice system is not rehabilitation, you only risk that your child will find new and more criminal friends to look up to, while detained.

With that prospect in mind it will not surprise anyone if you are caught up in domestic trouble. Sometime you are at the end and before you know it, you are looking for a placement of your child, which the same level of knowledge about good or bad as when you purchased your first car.

This guide will help you to deal with the behavior of your child and what questions and precautions, which should be asked and done in relationship with a placement in a program:

Contents:

Forget issues about alcohol, depression, drugs, gangs etc.

The main problem is secession. You have a child, who is transforming from being depended of you to function alone.

The clinical term for this natural development is called Oppositional defiant disorder. Basically the secure and warm upbringing you as a parent has given the child have made your child so safe that he or she can ask demands of you.

You will observe that your child is kind and polite against family and friends - even strangers in the street. Regard that as a sign that you have provided a good parenting effort.

No person - child or adult - would confront a stranger where they can not anticipate the reaction, they will get.

The simple advice is:

Set boundaries:

A teenager would love a parent to guide them and say stop in time. Because you as a parent has lived a life and have experienced consequences from your actions - good or bad - you are also the very person  the child will turn to for guidance. The danger however is that you are not clear about rules set up for your child. Stick with a rule. Do not back off. It is as with speed limits on the highway. The limit is 55 miles, if the sign reads it. Not 56 or 60. If you are married or in a relationship, support the maternity parent. If you disagree about the strategy of parenting, then negotiate BEFORE you present the child with rules. The child only needs to learn of one rule or he or she will use the disagreement for their own benefit.

Well. If you choose to banish your child from the home prepare yourself of the possibility of seeing the child for the last time alive. The sad reality is that children dies when they are in others care. The reason is that the area is not under federal regulation. It is state laws which enables members from the industry to control themselves. Another sad fact is that deaths are often not known to the public because the companies settle out of court. The children mentioned on this page represent according to sources in the industry about 5-7 percent of all deaths.

October 2007 the United States Government Accountability Office had a hearing. In relationship with the hearing, they have issued a report about the private treatment industry. This report are located in the link below:

Yes you should.

Of course there is a risk of your child to become a runaway, but that risk is not high. Most teenagers knows where they can obtain the best standard of living - in your home.

But it does not hurt to show your child what his or her options are, if their behavior does not change. Show a information site about the specific program to your child. Let your child create a profile on Myspace and let your child write some of the former participants of program about their experiences. Just the knowledge about the existence of such places and your willingness to discuss your options as a parents will enable a close and intimate communication about the problems which are tormenting your household.

A number of so-called web-sites, which claims to help parents to avoid placement at abusive treatment programs, have in fact referred parents to programs, which later have proven to be abusive.

These websites below does NOT refer children and they have a list of treatment facilities on their website - some of them even with references to groups of former participant - often called survivors due to the fact that children have lost their lives in these programs.