Help for Parents of Struggling Teens

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Youth CareYouth Care
The idea of sending your child away from home can be daunting. Youth Care is a home away from home. Our intensive, therapeutic program is licensed to treat children and adolescents with such issues as depression, substance use, thought disorders, social withdrawal, and learning disabilities. If you want your child to receive intensive therapeutic and academic support in a place that feels like home, Youth Care is the right choice.

Youth Care offers a home-like setting is much more nurturing than a hospital-type setting and a high ratio of teachers to students in top-notch academic program. School success is a primary goal of treatment for adolescents while at Youth Care.

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SunHawk Academy is a licensed adolescent residential treatment center and boarding school. A combination of an intense clinical intervention with an accredited academic program, SunHawk treats struggling teens 13-17 with behavioral and substance abuse problems. Personal growth of students is encouraged through extensive therapeutic activities and the "Life Skills Training" component of the program gives each child extensive exposure to real life experiences.

Brain's Executive Control Function Linked to Substance Abuse in Teens

A new government study done at the University of Pittsburgh found that teenagers who have deficits in the parts of the brain that control executive function are more likely to become addicted to drugs.

"Executive cognitive function is basically the control center for governing other cognitive processes," said Rebecca Landes McNamee, author and assistant research professor of radiology and bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. "For example, in school, ECF would be engaged in the planning and control process required in answering a question, formulating your response, raising your hand, waiting until you are called upon, and starting your answer. A person with low levels of ECF might blurt out the answer. Another example could be interacting with someone on the playground who upsets you. A person with good ECF will think through the actions and consequences of their behavior rather than responding rashly. A person with low levels of ECF may respond with violence."

Researchers performed eye movement tests and MRIs of brain activity on 25 teenagers. Teens that had a high amount of neurobehavioral disinhibition were more likely to have a history of substance abuse.

This study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

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