My name is Amanda.

I’m here for the same reason you are, in the hopes of helping you in helping your teen.

Just a few years ago, I was an honor student in high school. I was a cheerleader, took piano lessons twice a week, and I worked weekends at McDonalds. I was the typical teenager.

Then my grades began to slide. And I began losing weight. I was sick a lot and always irritable.
I stopped playing the piano. I quite the cheerleading squad. I told my parents I quit my job at McDonald’s so I could start getting my grades back up.

Instead of picking up my grades, I was suspended.

Because the truth was that I had slid completely out of control. I didn’t quit my job. I was really fired for not showing up when I was supposed to. I was a troubled teen. My new friends were all troubled teens. I snuck out of the house while my parents were asleep. Marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol led to worse things. I began using cocaine, ecstasy, meth, and even tried smoking heroine. I was arrested and spent a night in jail.

I was fortunate. My parents stuck with me. By my last year of high school, I was again on the honor roll. I got a scholarship and went to university.

Today, I’m still in university, working towards my graduate degree in psychology. I want to help other teenagers, and their parents, from the fate I myself narrowly escaped.

This website is for parents who see their own teens beginning that long terrible slide that starts with rebelliousness and for some (including teens who were once my friends) jail, or even death.

There is a lot of well-intentioned, but misguided advice out there designed for helping your teen. My father encouraged me to use my “unique perspective” between “troubled teen” and “Child Psychologist” to give some meaning to three otherwise wasted years of my life. I’d like to thank him for his encouragement, and for helping me get this website started.

My hope is to give you the information you need for helping your teen the way my parents were able to help me.

Above everything else, patience, love and compassion are what your kids need the most. But I’ll be giving you other tools here, to help you understand your kids better, so that you can help them.

If you have a question, please contact me.

For the privacy of my family, I’m sure you can understand why I’ve chosen to use only my first name at this time.

Amanda,
www.helpingyourteen.com

Talk to Me!