Help for Parents of Struggling Teens

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Fat Camp
Learn about why fat camps don't work and why the new healthy weight loss camps are so much more effective. more >>

Featured Programs

TurnAbout RanchTurn-About Ranch
As a parent you are often challenged by outside influences that threaten your child's emotional and behavioral development. Imagine a place where old-time values such as honesty, respect, teamwork, and accountability are the standard. Turn-About Ranch is such a place. Teens thrive in the unique environment of this spirited working cow-and-horse ranch. As they get back to basics, they are challenged to examine their values and recognize how their poor choices have impacted their lives.

Turn-About Ranch features a hard-hitting, high-impact residential program works wonders with defiant teens where the experience of the ranch setting has a powerful real-world impact.

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Adirondack Leadership ExpeditionsAdirondack Leadership Expeditions
Adirondack Leadership Expeditions is a character development wilderness program for troubled teens that promotes personal growth through a focus on insight-oriented experiences. The forested, mountain setting removes urban distractions and simplifies options to help students gain insight into their core values and accept responsibility for their choices. Our wilderness program's nurturing approach helps participants address personal issues, achieve success in a safe environment, and develop their leadership potential.

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Teens Using More Swear Words Than Ever

A leading expert on swearing says that today's teenagers are using bad language to an unprecedented degree.

Timothy Jay, author of Why We Curse and Cursing in America, says teens learn bad language by hearing their parents use it. "It starts when they learn to talk," Jay said. "At a young age, they're attentive to emotions. When you're swearing to be funny or when you're angry - that just draws them right to it."

Jay, a psychology professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, believes that teens are increasingly using swear words at school and among themselves, often as "filler words" when they cannot think of something to say. The average teen now uses between 80 and 90 swear words a day. The problem is that swearing has become so common that teens are unaware when their language offends others.

"Our language values are shifting," Jay said, "and it's just different, not better or worse."

Teen boys tell researchers they want love and romance, not just sex

Teenage boys are more romantic than most people give them credit for, according to a new study from the State University of New York.

Psychology professors surveyed 105 tenth-grade boys, average age 16. Among the ones who were sexually active, just as many said they were in love with their partners as those who said their object was to find out what sex feels like or to satisfy their own desires. More than 80 percent of the boys said they pursued a relationship with a certain girl because they simply liked her a lot.

This new study, published in the Journal of Adolescence, backs up a larger study of 1,500 college male and female students who told researchers they were having sex because "I really like this person."

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