When a teenager hits puberty, he or she comes to terms with the physical and emotional changes within her. The teen joins high school and comes to terms with a new way of life, new style of expressing things, new friends in his life etc. Parents too feel that there is no point in putting too much control on them as they are capable of making their own decisions in many aspects. However, as a teen treatment center would say this is the time when things can go right for the rest for the teenager’s life or it can put his life in jeopardy.
It all depends on the company that a teen keeps, if it is his misfortune to be a part of the bad company, then you can expect problems like smoking, drinking and even drug abuse to be a part of his life. Let us look from the teenager’s mindset as to why he embraces such vices that can be a huge risk to his career, health and life:
1. Inquisitiveness: Teenagers want to try everything and they see the guys older than him having a ball. Teens are always absorbing everything that they see; so if they see a porn movie; they may have a distorted, casual view of sex. If they see their parents and elders smoking, they think that it is not so bad to smoke. If they see people having alcohol and yet joking about how life is worth it when you down a few drinks, teens begin to associate feelings of pleasure with it. They watch and read about characters in movies and books respectively snorting drugs and this inquisitiveness makes them try out these things as well.
2. Stress and Frustration: it has been seen that teenage girls tend to abuse drugs and smoke more when they are stressed, disillusioned or frustrated though the number of boys doing this for the same reasons is not so low. Teenage girls tend to invest a lot of emotions in a relationship with the opposite sex and when they feel that they are being used, some of them do not take to it kindly and abuse their bodies by smoking and drinking.
3. Peer Pressure: Teenagers according to various teen treatment centers, are influenced by their peers and just to fit in the group of the ‘socially acceptable’ among teens, they would not mind going for an extra round of drinks or even drug abuse.
4. Rebellious streak: Teens today especially tend to have generational conflicts with their parents. They would not like to be cowed down or admonished and if they do not get their way, they can rebel and make use of various ways to get what they want. However some of the things that they want can be detrimental to their health.
5. Low self-esteem: As much as some teens can be rebellious and sport a ‘care-a-damn’ attitude, there are others who feel left behind and ignored. Facing failures and taunts in life, high expectations from their parents can also drive them to despair and make them feel depressed, inviting suicidal tendencies in the bargain.
Understanding these mindsets and the probable causes that lead the teenager to vices like drug addiction, alcohol addiction and even experience severe depression will let you know what you can possibly do to make sure that the teen is able to live his or her life productively. It is a good thing that we have teen treatment centers that we can rely on, if teens display behavioral problems.
