Boarding School for Troubled Teens

It really wasn’t a hard decision to send her daughter to a boarding school for troubled teens, once Alice made it. Her teenage daughter was only twelve when Alice found some pills from her pain prescription in her daughter’s room. She said nothing, but started counting her pills and observing her daughter. Three months later, she found some pot in her room. This provoked a confrontation and that is when she discovered that her ex and his family not only knew her daughter was smoking weed, but actually felt it the better alternative to her going out with her friends to “get high”. The following note from of a 17 year old girl brought Alice to mind. “I first started to smoke weed with my aunt, sister, and my cousin. Then I just started to smoke with anyone who wanted to smoke…. When I would smoke with my family…I would feel so relaxed and good, that nothing else in the world seemed to matter. I thought that smoking weed was okay since many of my family members and people at my school smoked. Nothing ever happened to them.” (Unknown Source)

Boarding School was the Answer

After an angry confrontation, Alice decided not to traumatize the family by pressing charges, but made it adamantly clear that she was taking charge of her daughter’s education. Instead of the school year being spent with her father, her daughter was going to a boarding school for troubled teens. Alice believed that her daughter would have the emotional space to grow and heal from the divorce if she were in an environment that would encourage maturity and teach her daughter the critical thinking skills that would guide her when the adults in her life or her peers sought to lead her astray. Alice’s judgment proved to be sound and her daughter is now in college and doing very well. By Ann Walker