Searching for a Troubled Teen Program in South Dakota for Your Troubled Teenager? Is Your Teen Acting Out Behaviorally, Participating in Self-Destructive Activities, or Has Become Despondent, Entitled, or Uncaring? Has Your Child Suddenly Rejected Your Family and Everything Your Family Holds Dear There in South Dakota?
Stillwater Academy, located in Utah, is a Troubled Teen Program that helps such struggling teens from South Dakota and from around the country. We offer a unique treatment model that also helps the teen’s loved ones recover from the unexpected disruptions and stress caused by their teen’s inappropriate actions and attitudes.
Our acclaimed therapeutic program and school may be a strong option for your child since we provide incredible therapy not typically available in adolescent Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota. The Stillwater team includes seasoned and caring therapists, doctors, and mentors from all over the country. We are staffed with an “A-Team” here in Utah to help struggling teens like yours get on the right path again.
With our therapy-immersed environment, with access to therapeutic tools, reinforcement, encouragement, and with time to practice new behaviors, your your teen will begin to excel. If you are looking at Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota it is because you are worried for your teen’s future and need to get help before they become an adult.
You may have already tried weekly therapy sessions with a counselor in South Dakota but those have been successful. It could be that you are embarrassed that your teen has gotten on the wrong path in life, putting undue blame on yourself for your teen’s behavior, or you question if you are a “bad parent.” Let us say emphatically that even the best of parents can have a troubled teen.
Your Troubled Teen Probably Doesn’t Know Why They are Thinking or Doing What They Do, Nor Why You Are So Concerned About It!
The fact is, most troubled teens don’t perceive why they behave as they do. They can feel sad, angry, or like they’ll explode at any moment and not even know why. Or, they have lost all care about anything or anyone – they feel numb. Years down the road, they’ll look back and wonder what in the world they were thinking when they were a troubled teenager. But in the present, it has become clear that their out-of-control, despondent, or uncaring behavior can lead to drastic and even deadly outcomes. So, wanting to help keep their child safe and to salvage their teen’s future, they reach out to troubled teen treatment programs like Stillwater in order to secure concentrated help.
Self-destructive and oblivious behavior, or a child overwhelmed with negative thoughts, is not normal. The affected child may subconsciously be responding to difficult events in their life, like adoption, death or illness of someone close, moving to a new city, parental conflict or separation, conflict with authority figures, early childhood abuse, drug use, social media addiction, bullying, or even guilt. The child may have had a life impacting incident that you don’t even know about. Or, they may have been seeking attention from troublemaker peers that then became a negative influence. They may feel entitled and are unwilling to accept direction, discipline, or adhere to society’s established norms. Some kids need to learn that “freedom” has limits; it doesn’t mean they can do anything they want to, any time they want to do it.
We’ll First Uncover the Underlying Causes of Your Teen’s Troubles, so Recovery Can be Made
The professional therapy team at Stillwater can discern the underlying roots of anger, despondency, misbehavior, and a lack of attention or emotional control. They will work with your child day in and day out to uncover and get to the bottom of their deepest fears and their subconscious grounds for discontent. Teens here will learn to become personally accountable for their feelings, thoughts, actions, and reactions. They develop a clearer self-concept and a more serious take on preparing for their future.
They learn to not only cope but to hope and dream again for a happy, meaningful, and successful life. We’ll also give them time on campus to test their wings – to use the tools and concepts they’ve learned. They’ll be working daily on their new thinking and behaviors, which will make their new more positive behaviors more habitual before returning home. An extended period on campus allows your child to repeat newly learned skills in a safe, reinforcing environment.
The basic components of our therapeutic program include honest but respectful communication. To delve deeper our clinical team uses various therapeutic tools, like Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Rational Emotive Therapy, Experiential Therapy, Play Therapy, Reality Therapy, Equine-Assisted Therapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy, and others. The focus is always on healing your troubled child, so they can quickly return home to South Dakota and aftercare is also provided, so your child doesn’t fall back into their old ways.
As a Key Aspect of Our Therapy for Teens from South Dakota Equine Therapy Gives Immediate Feedback
An important part of the Stillwater therapeutic milieu is the therapeutic animals, especially horses, that we use as incredible behavioral feedback tools. Horses, in particular, naturally reflect the emotions of the individual handling them. A poorly treated horse will, in turn, become out of control and reject direction by the handler. A calm and controlled attitude by the handler (your teenager) will give the horse reason to also be calm and controlled – accepting direction.
So, animal-assisted therapy provides the student unparalleled opportunities to understand how their behaviors, outbursts, and reactions affect others. Lessons learned while working with horses will help amplify other therapy modes by providing a clear assessment of their attitudinal progress. Moreover, taking care of an animal also helps build responsibility and character. It gives the teen a new nonjudgmental friend to talk to, instead of holding it all in.
See What Stillwater Has to Offer Over Other Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota Including Our Emphasis on Academic Repair and Improvement
You don’t want your child to lose progress academically while they are receiving therapy, and neither do we! School work happens here year-round, and class sizes at Stillwater are small. The accredited curriculum is customized, so each student learns at their own level and pace, overseen and encouraged by licensed teachers. This aspect of Stillwater has proven especially helpful for struggling teens with failing grades, attention deficits, or learning disorders.
Students here begin to thrive educationally as they also improve behaviorally, emotionally, and mentally. Academic subjects like Math, Science, English, History, and Art, along with others, all start to make sense and come to life for our students – some of whom have never excelled in school. In fact, on average, students see a 1.5 grade-point boost in their cumulative GPA while they are in our program.
The National Association of Special Education Teachers recognizes Stillwater Academy as a School of Excellence, their highest award. Curriculum specialists develop the coursework at Stillwater Academy, so all courses meet state and national accreditation agency standards. This process includes post-secondary dual credit courses and allows your student to earn high school and higher education credits simultaneously to allow for the easy transfer of credits back to their school in South Dakota.
There May Be Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota But Many Parents Consider Stillwater in Utah the Better Choice
Everyone at the Stillwater Academy Troubled Teen Program – from our administrators to clinical staff to the school teachers and housing parents – has a purpose and goal. That is, to support and enhance the therapy the child receives while here. These 24/7 reinforcements are also why the on-site living part of the program is so instrumental in bringing about lasting change.
Our campus provides a safe place for recovery, for your child to heal from previous harmful choices, and to repeatedly practice new, more positive behaviors. When a student slips back into old ways of thinking, they are lovingly corrected by our staff, and even by other students. After a day of school, activities, and therapy, our student houses become a fantastic informal time to reflect as students process and practice the treatment and advice they received during the day.
Our family-like recovery homes help the residents learn how to live and think better with 24/7 supervision and guidance from well-trained, state-licensed house parents. They communicate with each teen and provide valuable life skills training. The recovery process for troubled teens is greatly enhanced by having trained staff members offering correction, reinforcement, a listening ear, and encouragement.
Other Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota Can Help Turn Around a Troubled Teen, But If You Live Nearby, Enrolling Your Teen in a Troubled Teen Program in South Dakota Can Be Less than Optimal. Here’s Why…
Your teenager may have some equally troubled teenage friends in the local community who will gladly come to “rescue” them from the facility if they can. That’s why when enrolling students in our program in Utah, we reject those from the immediate 100-mile radius around our campus. There is too great an opportunity for your teen, while still in their defiance early in the program, to connect with their local friends. And there are too many known local places for them to go into hiding. Moreover, the greater distance the teen is from your hometown in South Dakota the better they will understand the urgency of settling into the program and cooperating with their therapists.
We May Be a Distance from Other Options for Troubled teen treatment in South Dakota But Many Parents Agree that the Distance Doesn’t Matter is Getting the Right Answer, the First Time
Our expert team at Stillwater has been helping teens for four decades – so there isn’t anything we haven’t seen or any teen that can pull the wool over our eyes – we’ve seen it all! To learn more, contact us today. We can evaluate your child to discern if a Troubled Teen Program like ours is needed, and whether or not Stillwater is a perfect fit for your child.
We steadfastly believe that lasting change happens in the heart and that positive actions need repeated exercise to grow into regular habits. We’re not interested in instant or superficial fixes. Really, we mean it, so call us with your questions, or take our free troubled teen online assessment on this site to see if your child is a good fit for Stillwater.
By the way, many costs during your child’s time at Stillwater are usually covered by medical insurance, so call us today to learn more and get pre-qualified. We have openings right now. Call (385) 352-3371.
More about troubled teen Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota: South Dakota (SD) is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota is the 17th most extensive, but the 5th least populous and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Once the southern portion of the Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves. The largest cities are: Sioux Falls, 153,888; Rapid City , 67,956; Aberdeen, 26,091; Brookings, 22,056; Watertown, 21,482; Mitchell, 15.254; Yankton, 14,454; Pierre , 13,646; Huron, 12,592; Vermillion, 10,571. Excerpt about Troubled Teen Programs in South Dakota used with permission from Wikipedia. |
