With adolescent behavior problems more prevalent than ever before, you probably know someone affected by such problems--maybe even you, yourself, had similar troubles at a younger age. The behaviors exhibited by young people that so often concern us range from defiance of rules or disrespect to running away to substance abuse to more serious crimes such as burglary, arson, and sexual assault or even murder. We often hear in the news about the violence perpetrated by and upon our children and teens and the emotional impact suffered by victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and neglect.
THE FORGOTTEN FUTURE
What you may not know, however, is that it is estimated that twenty percent of America's children under the age of 18 suffer from mental disorders. Between 6.4 and 9 million of them suffer from serious mental illnesses, i.e., a mental disorder which causes serious emotional disability. While any of these problems are rooted in abuse of some sort, at the same time, many of these children have not been abused.
As I relate these statistics, I'm wondering whether or not you are also aware that each year hundreds of thousands of our children and adolescents are placed into inpatient facilities--hospitals, residential treatment centers, boot camps, treatment academies--with the hope that they will later return home, somehow "better"? Dare I even say, "fixed"?
In my new book, The Forgotten Future: Adolescents in Crisis, you will read true stories of adolescents with whom I have worked during my twenty-plus years as a psychiatric nurse. These young people are suffering from the effects of mental disorders, ranging from conduct disorder to schizophrenia to borderline personality disorder to a myriad of other diagnosable syndromes and disorders. You will learn the truth about what really goes on behind those locked doors and judge for yourself whether or not our children are receiving the best care that we can provide. Are we truly doing what is needed to ensure that our future leaders--doctors, stock brokers, lawyers, parents, teachers, government officials--are equipped emotionally to carry our nation forward through the years to come?
And after you read The Forgotten Future, think a bit about what we can, and should, and must do to ensure that our children's futures are not forgotten.
Along the way, you will find in The Forgotten Future a valuable resource to interpret what your child has told you about his or her psychiatric experience, and you will learn of the care and dedication that is uppermost in the minds of those working with our troubled youth. You will find signs that you should seek professional help and how and where to find that help. You will be provided with questions to ask regarding credentials, office policies, medication usage, and other important matters to discuss when meeting with a new therapist, as well as vital questions to ask if your child enters an inpatient psychiatric facility. The answers you receive from your childgivers to these questions have a direct influence on your child's treatment outcome.
I want this web site to provide you with information to help your family cope with difficult times, so tell me how I can do that. There is helpful information available on other areas of this site, if you just click on one of the tabs above
.
Thanks for visiting my web site; I'm so glad you're here. Please drop me a note on the Comments page (click on the Comments tab at the top of the page) just to say hello, ask a question, tell me a story, or make a suggestion to help make this web site more useful to others. And, again, if you have suggestiions for other things you would like to see included here, drop me a note.
See you next time!
Deb
P.S. Be sure to check out the reviews that The Forgotten Future has received. I am most grateful for everyone's kind words.
BUY IT NOW! The Forgotten Future: Adolescents in Crisis (ISBN: 9781432719357) by Deborah Clark Ebel, R.N., has just been released. Order it at Barnes and Noble.com, Amazon.com, or your favorite online bookseller. You can also special order The Forgotten Future at your favorite neighborhood book store.
This page was last updated: 1/21/2010
