Teen Boarding School Help

In a 2010 collaborative study made by five American universities, researchers found out that there are five times as many youth suffering from mental health issues today than in 1930s and 1940s. Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and her team of researchers noted that, after examining a sample of over 77,500 teenagers who took the *Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (MMPI) from 1938 to 2007, there is around 6% increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety disorder and personality disorder, along with a large increase in depression found in today’s youth.

In another study, researchers utilizing the data from the Danish National Psychiatric Registry found out that between 1990 and 1999 children diagnosed with ADHD rose more than three times, while other mental disorders more than doubled.

So, what do experts think has caused such an increase in mental disorders? Many experts claim that the magnitude of this increase is due to the increasing awareness and better understanding of mental disorders that was years ago poorly understood. In the past, psychiatrists claim that mood disorders were too often missed or under-diagnosed, and if diagnosed at all, children often received a treatment with powerful antipsychotic drugs intended for adults and have not been well-established for use in children. Now, medical science has matured to the point it can now recognize popular mental disorder. As Dr. Mani Pavuluri, director of the pediatric mood disorders program at the University of Illinois, Chicago would say it, children suffering from mood disorders are now getting the treatment they need.

Prevalence of mood disorders among children

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one in five children and teenagers in the United States today exhibit some symptoms of mood disorder, yet less than one in five of them get the proper treatment. Among children ages between 9 and 17 years old, more than one in 10—girls more often than boys—are diagnosed with anxiety disorders.

The survey also shows that mental disorder typically begins very early in life. In half of the cases reviewed, symptoms began to manifest by age 14, anxiety and depression begin in the early teens, mood disorders and substance abuse in late teens. While the precise causes are not known, if left untreated, mental disorders in children can develop into even more severe problems in later life, such as school failure, drug abuse and violence. Dr. Jon Shaw, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Miami - Miller School of Medicine, states that 25% of the children suffering from major depressive disorder will develop bipolar disorder when they turn into adults. In the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, children with depression are particularly susceptible to suicide, with an estimate of 90% of the children who committed suicide suffer from depression.

But Dr. Shaw also stated that while the underlying factors that caused these diseases are complicated, mood disorders in children are fixable.

Cognitive behavior therapy, a leading treatment for teen mood disorder

In the past, children with mood disorders often receive treatment with psychiatric drugs that barely have any proven benefits and some serious side effects. With the development of cognitive therapy in the 1960s by Aaron Beck, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) was born out of the blending of two popular therapy methods: behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy.

CBT rapidly became a favorite intervention technique after numerous studies showed strong empirical evidence that it is effective in treating a wide variety of mental disorders. In 1998, Kaslow and Thompson authored an article on evidence-based psychosocial treatments for child and adolescent depression and showed that two forms of CBT: the self-control therapy for children and coping skills for teenagers are especially favorable treatment methods compared to other approaches such as psychodynamic treatment. The medical report also showed how CBT therapy have reduced relapse rates in teens with depression, and some evidence showed that it is effective for adolescents with depression as well.

Therapeutic boarding schools for treating child mood disorders

Despite expensive tuition fees, more and more parents are now turning to therapeutic boarding schools for help on their troubled kids, which a few decades ago consist of only around 30 or 40 programs, mostly government funded and required court order for placement. Now more than a thousand private institutions where parents—not a judge—make admission decisions. The growing demand is due to several contributing factors, such as better availability of financial aid helping attract mid to low-income families, growing dissatisfaction that encouraged families to look for alternatives, and the inability of public schools to cater to the special needs of troubled kids.

Therapeutic boarding schools enjoyed much success in treating children suffering from mood disorders, due to their programs swiftly adapting to the current needs of teenagers and the society. Many therapeutic boarding schools began to employ cognitive behavior therapy in junction with known clinical treatment methods in order to consistently produce good results. Schools vary greatly in style and execution but generally they share the common goal of fostering discipline and sense of worth by distancing teens from distractions: TV, computers, peers, and then  putting them in an environment that promote good choices.

Finding the right boarding school for your teen

Proponents of therapeutic boarding school claim that traditional therapy fail because sessions held once or twice a week are spaced too far apart from each other for lessons sink in, plus the situation at home and at school makes it hard for teenagers to apply what they learn in therapy. In a therapeutic boarding school, children are in a long-term treatment and their progress is closely monitored 24/7. Also, therapeutic boarding schools have numerous activities where teenagers have the opportunity to apply what they learned.

Finding the right therapeutic boarding school for a teenager suffering from mood disorder is hard, that’s because there are so many to choose from. There are also good and bad schools, says Andy Anderson, director of National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. “It's impossible to sort them all out on the Internet; especially when so many look and sound the same.”

Similar when searching for a good school, the facets parents should look for in a therapeutic boarding school should be: certified, qualified and experienced staff with advance degrees, a good teacher-to-student ratio, a good overall feedback from parents regarding the school, an emphasis on safety, a feedback whether the staff show care and empathy on their students, and a therapy component that you believe is best suited to help your teen with mood disorder.

If you need an in-depth guide on how to choose the right school, click this link.

If you want to check our boarding schools directory, click this link.