Troubled Teen

NetFlix’s Outer banks season 3

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Season 3 has not disappointed. I still love the Goonie-esq vibe the show’s creator has instilled… pause…wait for it….there is a “but” coming……BUT, I am perturbed…Like season 2, the creators have written into the script the suggestion that Kiera’s parents have had it with her and are suggesting she go away to a wilderness “camp”. This season isn’t any better than last in representing wilderness therapy. It is shows like this that haven’t done their research or if they have, they portray only one side, which is the side that shows these long term programs in an abusive light. Look, I do not discount that abuses have happened in years past. There have been known conversion or boot-camp type programs. Those programs are shut down now or are few and far between. This is why I recommend Educational Consultants who have vetted programs, but more importantly the families need to do their own research. From our experience there are many versions of the story. There are the parent’s perspective, the adolescent’s perspective and then there is the onlooker’s perspective who has no experience in any of what is going on in that family but feels the need to pick a side. Let’s break it down a bit, shall we?…….. Since I am a parent of a child who has struggled and has left his home so that he would not die, let’s start with the parent’s point of view…..In regards to the show Outer Banks, Kiera’s parents were “Freaking Out!!!” Over the past 3 seasons, they have seen Kiera change friend groups from Kooks to Pogues, she has been participating in underage drinking, she has not come home at night, she has skipped school or refused to go, and as season 3 starts we find out the teens have been missing for over a month! What parent wouldn’t be besides themselves?!?! Seriously, our job as a parent is to keep our kids alive. It is the natural order of things. When your kid starts engaging in riskier behavior and stretches boundaries beyond the normal teenage rebellion, Parents Will Freak Out! The parents themselves will become irrational. They will make decisions that could be rash. It’s not out of hate, but out of love…..all to save their child. In the show, we don’t see any other previous interventions to help Kiera. We only see that the parents went from 0-100. They got out the “big guns”….They “gooned” their child. They had people come take Kiera away against her will. Let’s switch and look at this from Kiera’s view point, now. Kiera knows she has pushed the boundaries to the breaking point. She has rebelled to the point that she can’t see the difference between risk and reward. I am not blaming her because that is what teens do….They live in their 6 inch bubble and can’t rationalize how their actions could affect others and that they themselves could be hurt or die. Their need to be with their friends outweighs any consequence. In the scene where Kiera is “gooned”, she stands in the driveway talking to herself as she figures out how to tell her parents that she needs to leave again and go to South America to help her friends. A truck from the “program” pulls up and 2 men manhandle her into the truck and take her away. Can you say Traumatized with a capital T?!?! At this point, I turned Netflix off and thought about canceling my membership….! I know….I know…. I am exaggerating. I won’t cancel Netflix! Do you see what I am trying to get at? In today’s climate of being able to say, do or portray anything on TV, movies, social media etc., just know that what you see is not always the truth… it’s an exaggeration. Why would anyone do that? not represent the truth? Well….probably to be more dramatic so that you can be sucked in to believing what you are seeing or reading. Did Netflix and the creators of Outer Banks intend to throw the adolescent/young adult therapeutic programs under the bus and make something that saved my son’s life seem seedy???? I don’t know….Maybe if they were to actually have a movie, series or documentary depicting the real truth than maybe we would know the answer. So Netflix……call me….I have a real, very gritty and truthful story about the “Troubled Teen” industry that saved my kid’s life!

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Troubled Teen v/s Youth in Crisis

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Many would agree that language is huge when deciding if something is bad or good. If the language surrounding a person or illness sounds negative in nature, then we most likely assume that the person or illness is bad. This inturn causes us to have judgement. For example viewing the terms above….what are you thinking? How does each statement make you feel? In the world of addictions and mental health, whether for adolescent or adult, negative words, positive words or neutral words can be the difference between shame and stigma or not. I have been seeing the words “troubled teen” a lot lately. Even the programs/industries that are trying to change verbage around youth in crisis have to use “troubled teen” to get hits on the internet. I’ll even need to use the term to get leads to this blog post. I feel sad about that. To me seeing or hearing the words “troubled teen” makes me think those kids had a choice. They had a choice to be bad or good. Did they? Same goes for “drug addict”, did they have a choice to become addicted? Sure, they had a choice in using a substance. As an adolescent, that is their job….to try things. They don’t know if they will be come addicted or not. It doesn’t even cross their mind. Their frontal lobe is still yet to develop their rationalization thoughts/skills. There is always a back story…most likely when a youth is in crisis, it is because they have had some sort of trauma. Trauma with a capital T or with a lower case t. Another term is ACEs or Adverse Childhood Experiences. The CDC defines ACEs as potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples would be but not limited to: experiencing violence, abuse or neglect, witnessing violence….A child’s environment could be impacted by safety and stability due to substance use or mental health problems by the care giver. ACEs are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness and substance use problems. A youth in crisis does not have to have had such extreme traumas to be in crisis. Today, adolescents are dealing with the pressures of their generation. Internet, social media, drugs, parents divorcing, Covid, political unrest, divisiveness…..and the list goes on…… When it all builds up and their minds and body’s can’t handle it all, they become “out of control”. They make bad choices, do horrible things, use drugs. They are just trying to survive. We as adults have to have compassion and empathy to help them, guide them….save them. So the next time we use/read words that are negative in describing someone or their illness….. stop! Think it through….that child, adolescent, young adult and adult all have a back story. I invite you to watch the trailer; Gabor Mate’ in the Wisdom of Trauma. https://youtu.be/70HNmSsJvVU

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NetFlix’s Outer Banks

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If ya’ll haven’t started the second season of the teen drama Outer Banks, you should. Let me say now that I am going to spoil just a bit in episode 9. Why you ask? Well as much as I love the show for it’s modern day Goonie-esq vibe, I’m not too happy with the show’s producers or the powers at be at the Netflix studios. If you don’t know, the teens run a muck on the island whether they are a Kook or a Pogue (which side of the island you are from/rich or poor). They seem to miss days of school, sneak out of their houses, steal their parent’s cars and wreck them. In episode 9, one of the teen girls is finally escorted home to waiting parents who are DONE. They threaten her with going to Wilderness Therapy. Here’s the thing I am mad about……they use the likeness of Carson’s former program Blue Ridge. AND let me say it was portrayed as a punishment….”If you don’t shape up, you’ll ship out.” My husband and I were appalled and I immediately reached out to Blue Ridge. Danielle, the Exec. Dir. of Blue Ridge had been getting calls, texts, emails of concern all week. (The show had only been airing for a week). She said there was no way they gave anyone associated with NetFlix or the show to use Blue Ridge or it’s likeness. We stay in close contact with Carson’s therapist and the leadership at Blue Ridge and they have a strict policy of turning down publicity offers. There have been many over the years and they routinely turn them down out of interest for the students and their families. As I write this post they have retained legal counsel. Some would say, “what’s the big deal?”. Here’s the big deal….us parents know better to take the show for what it is… another fictionary tale. However, our teens and young adults take every single word they see or read on Netflix, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. as Gospel. Their brains cannot rationalize whether what they hear or see or read is truthful or not. Look, Wilderness Therapy has gotten a bad wrap over the years and having a silly tv show depict it as a bad thing only causes fear amongst our adolescents when really they need to know that if they could experience the wilderness in a protective environment they would gain so many “skills for living” that would last them a life time. Just ask my son Carson, it saved his life and today he is Field Staff for a program in Utah.

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