Recently Jeff Brain wrote an interesting post noting the difference in terminology between troubled teens and struggling teens. As Lon Woodbury points out:
“The term Struggling Teen has broader connotations. As we use it at Woodbury Reports, it can include a troubled teen with serious disorders but primarily includes teens who, for some reason or other, are floundering or failing in mainstream society and schools. These might include children floundering because of an undetected Learning Disability or Learning Difference. It might also include children that have an “entitled” mentality, or ones who internalized some criticism in the past and have lost all semblance of self confidence.”
Along this spectrum is another term, problem teens, which casts a net even wider to include in the spectrum students that get entangled with criminality and troubles with the law. Often the difficulty begins with money.
“In a survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, measuring the impact of extra money, boredom, and stress on substance abuse in the teen population, researchers found that teens who receive $25 or more per week in allowance are nearly twice as likely to drink, smoke, and use illegal drugs.” Susan Runge, Money Issues and Teen Substance Abuse
A spectrum of classification can be useful to help us recognize that the issues teens face lay along a continuum. As recovery programs recognize, movement along this spectrum, or progression, is a common outcome when help is not sought.
