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It’s Not Easy Being a Teenager


Are you forced to deal with any of the following situations affecting teens?


These days, it’s getting easier and easier for teens to get into serious trouble.
Good teens. Very bad trouble.

At Delray Holistic Therapy, it’s not our job to judge. Our only aspiration is to help your teenagers, NOT to decide if they have been behaving well or behaving badly. In either case, they need help. You know it — and we know it. They live in a strange and difficult world that’s not like our world. TV, the internet, and raging hormones make them feel like adults. We remind them every day that they are still kids, and they will follow our rules as long as they live under our roofs!

Think they might be a little confused?

Here’s how we can help:

  • Drugs, possession or distribution — Clearly, we cannot obstruct the law. However, Dr. Ransen has much experience sparing teens from prosecution if a Judge offers a teen the option of counseling instead of prosecution. He may be able to keep your son or daughter out of jail, for starters.
  • Smoking marijuana — Our advice to parents is: Don’t pretend that you don’t know, and don’t over-react. Call us immediately, and we’ll invite you to visit us as a family. These problems are not difficult to solve, as long as you act quickly. Punishments do not work, and will almost always make things worse.
  • Video game addiction — Is this a real addiction? Should you be worrIed if your child is spending two hours a day or more playing video games? This is too much for any teenager, even if school grades are good (they probably aren’t, though).
  • Disrespect. Disobedience. Foul Language, Daily Arguments. You know that your parents would not have put up with this. You need not either. Please make an appointment before things get out of control. Punishments are not the answer, because they only create more anger, more disrespect, more disobedience. Dr. Ransen will help you find the solutions you’re looking for.
  • Teens confused by shared custody after divorce. No, there is no easy fix for this one. But things will surely work out better if you seek counseling. Please don’t wait. Your kids need answers they can believe in. Waiting is not your friend. Every day your kids suffer now may cost them months of pain when they are older.
  • Hypnosis, hypnotherapy. Forget anything you may have seen in Vegas or on TV. This is not for entertainment, but for achieving rapid changes in unhealthy habits. Dr. Ransen is board certified to practice unrestricted hypnotherapy in the State of Florida and elsewhere. Results vary depending on the teen, from modest to spectacular. After just one or two sessions, the extent to which your teenager will benefit significantly will be obvious. You will likely see extraordinary progress in just a few weeks.

Maybe your teen spends many hours a week on the internet. You know it’s not a good use of his time, but what’s the answer? We know how to fix this problem.

Sadly, things can get much worse. The scariest threats develop when kids start spending time with gangs. Before you know it, they’re full-fledged gang members. In case it isn’t obvious to you, nobody quits a gang. Ever. If they try, they die. If they’re lucky, they spend most of their lives in jail, building ever stronger ties to prison gangs. Maybe one in a thousand finds a way to escape the gang life and leave it behind forever. Not very good odds.

No parents are anywhere near ready for the pain that results from their kids’ involvement with street gangs.

People can recover from drug addiction. Almost nobody recovers from gang membership. There is virtually no way out, so your only hope is to prevent it before it can happen. The consequences of ignoring the danger signs are very, very serious. If parents look the other way because they can’t believe that their kids would ever do that sort of thing, they are sentencing their kids to either a short life and violent death, or a long, miserable life in prison.

“Youth


Here is a little of what we know. These are some of the main factors that predict very reliably whether teens will join street gangs:

Individual Risk Factors

  • Drug use, truancy, detentions, boredom
Family Risk Factors
  • Too much free time without family monitoring or family dinners; unexplained absences
School Risk Factors
  • Poor grades, no interest in extra-curricular activities, complaints from teachers
Peer Group Risk Factors
  • Aggressive friends, boredom & strong desire for excitement, not enough adult-supervised activities
Community Risk Factors
  • Drugs on every corner, high crime that no one reports to police, neighborhood poverty, existing gangs in the neighborhood
Yes, we know that it’s very hard to improve these risk factors. If it were easy, you wouldn’t be reading this. Dr. Ransen has devoted years to working in gang-infested neighborhoods, working with parents, kids, teachers, and yes, even cops and judges. He has also counseled teens after being arrested, instead of court-imposed jail time. The work is NOT a waste of time. Each time we prevent a teen from joining a street gang, we are literally saving his life. And maybe the life of a baby struck by a stray bullet. Isn’t that worth a little extra effort? Please, give us a chance to help.