Therapeutic Boarding Schools in Palmer, Alaska
Is your teenager spinning out of control? Looking for a therapeutic Christian boarding school for him or her near Palmer, Alaska?
There is nothing worse than living with a teen spinning out of control, and no worse feeling than the despair parents experience in the process. It is difficult to know what to do and how to react when your teen daily reaches new lows in disobedience, dishonesty, and disrespect, and chooses badly.
We know, because we went through the same thing with our teenage son. Raised in a Christian home and mostly home-schooled until high school, we suddenly found that we didn’t know him. He had changed seemingly overnight. His grades started falling and his interest in sports and old friends shifted to a new group of friends — the kind parents are wary of.
Unknowingy, our son was already heavy into smoking pot, sniffing solvents, drinking alcohol and just about everything else his new peer group dared him to do. The downward spiral was dramatic — all the way down to fist-through- the-wallboard rages, running away for days at a time, and finally threatening suicide. After months in counseling, the therapist proclaimed that there was nothing more he could do. He recommended a local boarding school where issues could be dealt with and the influence of his negative peer group could be broken.
Putting our son in a therapeutic boarding school was the hardest thing we’ve ever done as parents.
Not only would it mean selling everything and cashing in all of our savings and the boy’s college fund, but it would mean not seeing our boy for long periods of time. We wept for two days after dropping him off. But then, two weeks later, we learned our boy had been attacked on campus. Unfortunately, the school we put him in was also taking in some violent gang members (they hadn’t told us that), and our son was soon their target, nearly killing him. After his recovery, we went on our own search for the right therapeutic school where he could be safe and be counseled for his issues – after all, he still needed help, and now he also needed therapy for the trauma of being attacked.
We learned from this traumatic experience that therapeutic programs can be quite different and need to be selected based on their strengths and avoided if they have serious weaknesses. It’s important to know what those are.
Some Christian boarding schools are good, and others are not so good. Some target one set of issues; others are experts on other issues. But talking to them, they want to fill their beds, so they’ll often present themselves as “experts in all areas” having to do with behavior. But that’s not always so. Some kids are just being rebellious, but others are really dealing with serious issues that may not be known to their parents. So choosing a “behavioral modification” program when a “therapeutic” program is needed can do more harm than good. It can also be a big waste of money.
No one was available to help us find the right school for our boy. We made a mistake to begin with, and that cost us dearly, but after some time of research we found a good program that was able to help our son. Today, our family and even our son are thankful for that program.
The therapeutic school we finally enrolled him in literally saved his life and got him off the downward spiral.
So, is your family experiencing the same storms of a teenager who is out of control? Are you walking on similar pins and needles around your teen? Does it sometimes seem like he or she has suddenly been taken over by aliens (well, not literally)?
Let us help you in finding the best school near Palmer, Alaska. We’ve made it our life goal to know all we can about every school, so we can help parents (without cost) find the best possible option for their troubled teen. We want to help you avoid the same mistake we did.
Now, every day we hear from scores of frustrated parents in towns like Palmer, Alaska, who share how their once normal and happy child has become seriously out of control — just like our son was. They talk about how it has disrupted their family and how they fear for their child’s future and very life. “My child is no longer who she used to be,” is an often repeated cry from these parents.
If your son or daughter is out of control, he or she needs you to intervene. That’s why you’ve landed on this site, so allow us to be the resource you need to help you find just the right program near Palmer, Alaska. The downward spiral your teen is on can have tremendous destructive potential with lifelong consequences, or even bring a young life to a quick end. Don’t wait. Act now based on what you know is true – your faith, your own beliefs, and what you know is best for your child.
Use our expertise to help you find a Christian boarding school closest to Palmer, Alaska that will provide your teen with the help and mentoring he or she needs, and within your budget. We’ve visited most of these programs and we know the personnel there. We know what they are good at, and what they are not so good at. We poll parents who have placed their teen in these programs, so we know how well they have done.
You may not want to put your child in a therapeutic boarding school nearby Palmer merely out of convenience (like we did). Rather, find the program that is most likely to help your child, wherever it may be located in the country. Give us the chance to tell you about a few of them. Fill in the online form now to begin that process. There is NO CHARGE for this service.
| More about Palmer, Alaska:Palmer is the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the state of Alaska, USA. It is part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 5,937. The first people to live in the Matanuska Valley, where Palmer is located, were the Denaina and Ahtna Athabaskans. They moved throughout the area, living a subsistence lifestyle and trading with other native groups. Their trade routes were along the Matanuska River. Russians came to Alaska in 1741 and brought the Russian Orthodox religious tradition to the indigenous peoples of the region. In the mid-1880s, an entrepreneur named George W. Palmer built a trading post on the Matanuska River, near present-day Palmer. The town was later named after this Alaskan pioneer. In the late 19th century, the U.S. government began to take interest in the Matanuska coal fields located north of Palmer. This interest sparked financiers to consider constructing the Alaska Central Railroad in 1904. The advent of WWI created a need for high quality coal to fuel US battleships and by 1917 the US Navy had constructed rail from the port of Seward to the Chickaloon coal deposits. At the end of WWI,the US Navy distributed land in the coal fields to war veterans and additional land was opened to homesteading. Farmers, miners and homesteaders began to populate the area. The Palmer Post Office was opened July 6, 1917 under the name of Warton. With railroad accessibility, new markets for agriculture began to open up for farmers in the Matanuska Valley. In one year Palmer transformed from a mere whistle stop rail siding to a planned community with modern utilities and community services. Eleven million dollars from Federal Emergency Relief Administration was spent to create the town of Palmer and relocate 203 families from the hard hit Iron Range region of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Families traveled by train and ship to Palmer, arriving in May 1935. Upon their arrival they were housed in a tent city during their first Alaskan summer. Each family drew lots for Convert tracts and their farming adventure began in earnest. The failure rate was high, but many of their descendants still live in the area and there are still many operating farms in the Palmer area, including Vanderwheele and Wolverine farms. In 1971, The National Outdoor Leadership School started operating wilderness education courses in the nearby Talkeetna and Chugach mountain ranges from a local historic farmhouse, now listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. In addition to an agrarian heritage, the colony families brought with them Midwest America’s small-town values, institutional structures, and a well-planned city center reminiscent of their old hometowns in Minnesota. Many of the structures built are now in a nationally recognized historic district. Construction of the statewide road system and the rapid development of Anchorage has fueled growth around Palmer. Many Palmer residents commute 45 minutes to work in Anchorage. Excerpt about Palmer, Alaska, used with permission from Wikipedia.com.Wolf Creek Academy Shepherds Hill Academy Columbus Girls Academy Clearview Horizon Heartlight Ministries Abundant Life Academy Shelterwood Arivaca Boys Ranch Agape Boarding School Low-Cost Programs<br |
