A primary focus for nearly every parent of a teen is education. How are they doing in school? What is their GPA? Will they be able to get into the college of their choice? What will they study once in college?
Higher education is still the goal of many parents and their teens. While trends show a slight decrease in students immediately heading off to a four-year school after graduation, it’s still the norm for nearly 45% of US teens (another 17 percent immediately enrolled in 2-year institutions). We see the growing popularity of a gap year after high school graduation, and some students forgoing a four-year university altogether, but many students still opt for traditional paths, dream of the Ivy League, and pursue graduate studies in fields like medicine, law, or business.
Whether your child chooses college when the time comes, as a parent, you want to ensure they have every opportunity open to them. That means making sure that they stay on track academically during their high school years. This allows them to have the broadest range of choices about their future.
The Importance of Education Extends Beyond Just College
In addition to what education can mean for a future career and earning potential, it’s also critically important for individual empowerment and societal progress. Through learning, kids gain not just knowledge, but they develop critical thinking skills, self-esteem, confidence, and experience personal growth. Taking a more global view, it is a catalyst for innovation, progress, and better health outcomes, social cohesion, and a more peaceful world.
Understanding education’s importance makes it understandable that parents would want to avoid anything that might derail their child’s academic progress. That can make choosing to seek help for a struggling teen’s mental health or addiction issues even more difficult. While those issues need to be addressed, what will happen to their education while they participate in residential treatment?
It’s a fair question and one that shows a parent is looking at the big picture. You don’t want to improve one area of your teen’s life only to see another suffer. Fortunately, it’s not an either/or proposition.
Teen Conditions and Their Effect on Academics
When you brought your little bundle of joy home from the hospital, you dreamed about their future. You probably imagined highlights like prom, graduation, or success on the baseball or football field. Now you’re faced with issues you aren’t sure how to deal with, from depression and anxiety to family relational issues, body dysmorphia, or disordered eating. Some may be more common than others, but there are a wide range of conditions that lead teens to seek treatment during their high school years.
Issues in teens that may require treatment:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Self-Harm
- Suicidal ideation
- ADHD
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Parent Child Relational Problems
- Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
- PTSD/Trauma
- Substance Use
- Bipolar Disorder
- Gender Dysphoria
- Disordered Eating
- Psychosis
It’s no surprise that mental health and substance use during the teen years are shown to negatively impact academic progress. Studies show that “adolescent drug use is related to reductions in sustained engagement in academic pursuits,” while “reducing substance use through a treatment program increases school attendance among heavy drug-using adolescents.” Taken together, the results of both empirical studies suggest that decreasing drug use will produce improvements in academic outcomes.
It’s not just a behavior issue either; there’s science behind it. Substance use can impair cognitive development which, in turn, reduces academic achievement and disrupts academic progression. Recent studies have shown that heavy adolescent substance use can lead to problems with working memory and attention due to changes in adolescent brain activity. In turn, these memory and attention problems may lead to decreases in academic performance and engagement in school and ultimately increase risk for school problems and dropout.
If your teen is struggling with any of the conditions listed above, you probably don’t need a study to tell you that it is negatively impacting their academic performance (along with many other areas of daily life). Mental health issues like depression, untreated ADHD, trauma, or bipolar can make focusing in class seem next to impossible. And if you can’t pay attention in class, completing assignments and performance on tests is also impacted. Dropping grades can jeopardize participation in after-school activities like sports, drama, or music, and for star athletes or performers, these aren’t just fun pursuits, they can be a ticket to scholarships and other college opportunities.
Top 10 Reasons: Why Is Education Important?
1. Provides stability
2. Provides financial security
3. Needed for equality
4. Allows for self-dependency
5. Make your dreams come true
6. A safer world
7. Confidence
8. A part of society
9. Economic growth on a national level
10. Can Protect You
SOURCE: University of the People
Academic Progress During the Treatment Process
Even if it’s clear that your child needs help beyond what you can offer, taking the step to pursue treatment is a big one, and it likely comes with some trepidation. At Evolve, we specialize in treating teens who have difficulty regulating emotions, are engaging in high-risk or self-injurious behaviors, or are suffering from suicidal ideation. Many of our teens struggle with high-acuity mental health issues and co-occurring disorders. In other words, we’ve seen it all.
Our first priority is providing a safe and structured environment where teens develop valuable skills and insights. We want to address not just the symptoms, but also the underlying causes of these disorders. Our clinical professionals can diagnose mental health issues, using medication as part of a comprehensive treatment program where appropriate, and teach teens to understand their brains and bodies, empowering them to maintain the gains made in treatment long after discharge.
Treating teens is different from treating adults in several ways, one of which is that many of them are still in school. And untreated mental health conditions or drug abuse have likely already had a negative effect on your student academically. They may need to make up classes or assignments or they may be on track to graduate with honors and you’re afraid treatment means school will have to take a back seat for a period of time. The good news is, academic progress doesn’t need to be sacrificed in order to get help for a mental health or substance use issue.
Inclusive, Comprehensive Treatment for Teens
At Evolve, education is part of the overall treatment program, whether it’s residential treatment or a partial-hospitalization program done on an outpatient basis. Why is patient education important? Because we are concerned with whole-person healing. That means our teen-specific treatment doesn’t just help heal the addiction or mental health issues of our clients. We want to see them succeed in every area of life.
In our residential and PHP programs, each student has academic hours set aside each weekday to complete assignments and projects in order to maintain their grades, so they can easily transition back to school following treatment. Parents and therapists collaborate with the school counselor to provide weekly packets or assignments. Computer access is provided for those who need it for research or to complete online school/assignments. The counselors will work with the teen during school time to ensure they are staying on task, using skillful behavior, and completing the necessary coursework.
Our teen residential treatment programs and adolescent partial hospitalization programs use methods including cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy to help them transform harmful habits and behaviors into positive action. Teen substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment can make all the difference in getting your child back on track academically. As treatment progresses, most students are able to perform even better, using the tools they’ve learned throughout the process to succeed in school — and life.
Education’s Early Promise and Continued Progress
We’ve determined that education is important, but it hasn’t always been a given in the US. Public education, a hallmark of democracy in the United States, first emerged in the late 19th century, driven by industrialization and urbanization. At that time, most people in the United States lived in rural areas, and about two-thirds of all workers were employed in farming. Adolescence was viewed very differently then, with many teens already part of the workforce through family farms, urban factories, or other means. Given that the average life expectancy then was only about 37 years, it’s no wonder work responsibilities were taken on at a younger age.
According to The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth, a consensus study, “as secondary schools were established across the country during the post-Civil War period, they were often designed to educate youth for routinized jobs in factories in the new industrial age and to socialize conformity in increasingly diverse and complex urban centers.” While many of the key features of these early high schools remain, much has changed in 150 years.
For starters, life expectancy has more than doubled since that time, to about 79 years, increasing lifetime earning potential substantially. The share of US workers employed in manufacturing today is just 11%, while the share employed in agriculture is under 1%. Three of every five workers in America are now in what one might think of as knowledge-based “white collar” jobs. The economic strength that America currently enjoys is attributed to our nation’s universities, innovation, entrepreneurship, and capital markets.
“During the late 20th and early 21st centuries we have learned an enormous amount about adolescence that bears on the aims and design of formal education,” according to The Promise of Adolescence. “Research from psychology and other social sciences has taught us that development does not end at puberty with the emergence of abstract thinking skills as a final stage, as was once thought.” Rather, youth have a great capacity for growth and change, retaining substantial neurobiological and developmental plasticity into their early to mid-20s. This plasticity means there are new opportunities throughout the teen years and into the early 20s for youth to continue and sharpen their development.
Help For Teens That Includes a Focus on Academics
As a parent, you know your child and their needs better than anyone. When something isn’t working, you want to find a solution. Are you ready to get your teen help for their mental health or substance use issues? Reach out to our treatment team today to learn more about maintaining everyday responsibilities like education while in recovery. We’re here to answer any questions you have about balancing school or work with treatment.
