You may want to fix your teenage child, but you also need to consider that he may not need fixing. ...

Were your son totally friendless, spending all his time alone in his room playing online video games, if he constantly seemed depressed or irritable -- then you would definitely want to intervene. (Source: The Globe and Mail)

Labels: social_pressures, teenagers

Certainly parents will recognize how worried, guilty or upset they can feel about troubles with teenagers. Teenagers hide very well the fact that they usually feel as desperate as parents. Teens may even feel that they have ruined any hope that parents could ever love them again. ...

The more you can keep trying to reach her and approach this problem without getting too upset, the more you help her understand that whatever problems she faces, things are manageable. Teach her by your example, that through discussion, there is a solution to life's most difficult dilemmas.

Labels: parenting_help, runaways, teenagers

Hopeful Tomorrow is a national children's charity dedicated to providing disadvantaged and at-risk children the opportunity to pursue their passion and dreams in physical, cultural and fine arts programs. A creative and physical outlet, as well as a positive mentor, can make a huge difference in the life of an 'at-risk' child. (Source: The Indianapolis Star)

Labels: at_risk, benefit, fundraiser, indiana

• Dr. Shuu Jian Wang of the Taipel Veterans Hospital followed 122 children, starting at ages 12 to 14 years old, for eight years.
• All the children had daily tension-type headaches.
• By the time they were 21 years old, just 12 percent were still having daily headaches.
• Dr. Wang said no one knows why their headaches stopped.

Labels: headaches, health

For some teens, so much technology has proven distracting and has interfered with their sleep, leading to health problems such as crankiness, headaches, weakened immune systems and impaired concentration. -- Source: Dulcinea Media

Labels: cell phones, sleep problems, technology, text_messaging

Diana Hernandez Yanez, was 14 when she left her home on July 21, 2008. Neighbors told police that they saw her get into a red pickup truck that morning.

Friends say the truck, a red 2000 Chevrolet S-10 low-rider pickup, belonged to 19-year-old Andres Velasquez Tinoco, whom Diana reportedly met just a couple of weeks prior to her disappearance. (Source: The McDowell News)

Labels: runaways, teens

Labels: depression, genetics, research

Labels: alcohol_abuse, suicide

For years, Father Steve, who lives in Haddonfield, took his kids to work with him. "I told my wife I was in the chapel," he says. "She never knew I was taking them into housing projects and hanging around prostitutes."

Mike, the oldest, became a history professor. Alex never finished college, drifting between bartending and selling cars. "Nothing I was doing had any meaning or value."

In 2005, Alex applied for a job at Covenant House secretly, not sure he wanted it or how his father would react. [Covenant House is a privately funded program that serves homeless teens and young adults. Father Steve has worked there for years].

Since then, the younger Siniari married a coworker and landed a promotion. Today, as outreach coordinator, Alex is technically his dad's boss.

Labels: homelessness, outreach

Since Synchronicity Performance Group began its Playmaking for Girls program in 2002, it has put dozens of runaways, teen mothers, dropouts and abuse survivors on stage as performers. ...

They pore over short plays about bad boyfriends, great girlfriends, supportive grandmothers, an evil witch, a pit bull named Spike, and a white Persian cat named Fluffy. They're hard stories about loss, parenthood and juvenile justice, but they almost always have happy endings.

Each girl is in at least two plays, and she has to mold each character's identity, filling in the gaps left by teenage playwrights.

Labels: at_risk, drama, girls

• Dr. Wagman Borowsky and his colleagues studied 20,594 teenagers in the seventh through 12th grades.
• Dr. Borowsky's team interviewed the teens periodically to obtain their views on personal mortality and to find out the degree to which they engaged in risky behaviors.
• Minority youth tended to be more pessimistic about how long they would survive.

Labels: attitudes, death, risky_behaviors

• Dr. Jeffrey Hunt studied 361 children ages seven to 17 years old, when they were in the manic stage of bipolar disorder.
• He classified their symptoms into elation-only, irritable-only or elation-irritable.
• Only 10 percent of these children fell into the irritable-only category, and elation-only was 15 percent.
• The vast majority (75 percent) were in the elation-irritable category.

Labels: bipolar, irritability, mental_illness

Researchers estimate that 1 in 6 men have experienced unwanted or abusive sexual experiences before age 16. This is likely a low estimate, since it doesn't include noncontact experiences, which can also have lasting negative effects.

If you've had such an experience, or think you might have, you are not alone.
If you wonder whether such an experience may be connected to some difficulties or challenges in your life now, you are not alone. ...

Our mission also includes serving girlfriends, wives, partners, family members and friends by providing information and support resources on the web.

Labels: sexual abuse, trauma

Psychologists have known for years that moves can be distressing for kids. But a new study shows that the impact on some adolescents may be far more devastating than anyone thought. The study, published in the Archives of Psychiatry, found that kids aged 11 to 17 were twice as likely to attempt suicide if their families moved three or more times compared to those who had never moved.

And, if the family moved more than 10 times, the children were four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to those who had never moved.

For the new study, researchers looked at data from 4,160 Danish children who were brought to hospitals after attempting suicide, as well as 79 who had succeeded in their suicide attempts. These children, all between the ages of 11 and 17, were compared to 124,800 adolescents who had not made suicide attempts.

Labels: family, risky_behaviors, suicide