Preparing Your Teen for Drug Treatment: It’s Not a Punishment

Teens need assistant dealing with their specific challenges in a manner that makes them feel safe. A teen drug treatment will help your child face dealing with family, with peers, with finding a job, with choosing a college without using drugs and alcohol. A teen-focused alcohol rehab will also help your teenager learn how to handle their emotions and the constantly changing way in which they are expected to interact with the world around them. Drugs, while having served as a buffer, will only make other issues worse in the long run and a teen drug treatment program will help them see how they affect the teen aged brain as it develops.

Asking the Right Questions

When your child is in crisis and dealing with drug addiction, it is up to the parents to conquer the emotions they are feeling about the problems their teen is facing and focus their energies instead on securing the best teen drug treatment program possible for their child. One of the ways to recognize a solid teen drug rehab is by the questions they ask you. Some of the questions you can expect a teen drug rehab to ask about your teen include:

• How long has your teen been using drugs and alcohol?
• What is your teenager’s drug of choice?
• Is your teen addicted to their drug of choice? Do they experience withdrawal symptoms when they are without the drug?
• Does your teen have other issues as well? Criminal or violent past? Diagnosis of ADHD, hyperactivity, anxiety disorder, depression, eating disorder, etc?
• Does your teen have friends? Do those friends use drugs or alcohol?

A drug treatment center that is preparing to help your teen will want as much information as possible about not only your teenager’s drug use, but their interactions with family, friends, teachers, co-workers; their interests outside of school; their interest in school and work; and the quality of their relationships.

If you have made the decision that your teen needs treatment for drug abuse, you may be worried about how you are going to get them to go willingly. The truth is that they may not volunteer to go, and if they are under 18, you have the right to send them anyway. However, most parents want to help their teen get the most out of teen drug rehab from the start by taking all the appropriate steps to try and get their teen on board if possible.

The first thing you need to do is get yourself in the right headspace to deal calmly with the challenges ahead. Don’t look at teen drug treatment as a punishment for your adolescent’s bad behavior. Drug addiction is a disease and needs to be treated as such. Taking the approach – in your own mind and with your teen – that drug rehab is a place for them to get better and stay healthy in the future is the best idea.

Confront Your Teen about the Need for Treatment

Before you take any further steps, you need to let your teen know you are aware of their drug use. Calmly explaining the worrisome changes you’ve seen in their behavior and your concerns for their health and safety is a good place to start. Give them a chance to speak and see if they will be honest with how often they use and/or what drives them to do it. Let them know that their drug abuse will no longer be tolerated by you, and put solid consequences in place.

For a small percentage of teens, this may be enough to get them to willingly go to teen drug treatment. However, more than likely, many will deny their drug abuse; they may say that everyone does it and it’s no big deal or that they have their drug use under control. In this case, professional help is in order.

Hold an Intervention for Your Teen

A teen drug treatment intervention is a pre-planned meeting with a professional counselor present to mediate and guide the conversation in a productive and unbiased manner. At this meeting everyone close to your teen is able to voice his or her concerns about your teen’s behavior. The goal is for everyone to state their thoughts in a non-judgmental manner so the teen can see how his or her drug use is hurting not only their own emotional and physical health but those around them as well.

The goal of the intervention is to get your teen to see that they have a problem and to willingly accept treatment. If, by the end of the intervention, your teen is still unable to admit their addiction, you may have to enter them into a teen drug treatment without their permission. This is your right as a parent and the most appropriate option to keep your child safe.

Parents Need to Stay Strongs

If you are still suffering from the emotional issues that began during your teen’s drug addiction and the related problems that often come up as a result – issues at work, fights with your partner or spouse – then your teen will be est served when you get the treatment you need to begin your own personal healing process. Personal therapy is a great place to start, but group therapy sessions designed for those dealing with loved ones in recovery and parent support groups consisting of other parents going through what you are will be even more effective in helping you to learn how to keep yourself safe while helping your teen do well in drug treatment and avoid relapse later.

Stay Connected with Your Teen

While your teen is in a drug treatment program, staying connected will help both of you as you work toward your personal goals. You can do this by attending family therapy sessions with your teen at the rehab center, being available for phone calls, showing up for visits and calling for progress reports from time to time. Your teen will benefit from knowing that you care enough to stay as involved as possible and to invest in your relationship with them despite their previous issue with drug addiction.

Prepare a Safe Home While They are in Rehab

The atmosphere at home and the tenor of your interactions with your teen will set the tone for his or her recovery. If there is tension or chaos or anger lingering in the house, it is more likely that your teen will relapse. If your teen has begun the process of working through their issues, you have stayed involved throughout their treatment and supported them, and taken the time to care for yourself to make sure you are in a good and positive place, your teen is more likely to stay on track and focused on recovery.

Preparing Your Teen for Drug Treatment at Newport Academy

At Newport Academy, we have specialists waiting to listen to your questions and concerns, and assist you in taking the next step. We specialize in teen drug treatment and understand all the addiction and treatment issues that are specific to adolescents. Give us a call, and let us help you get your teen back to a life free of drugs with one of our teen drug rehab centers.