Depression and Your Son

We can work with your boy as he deals with Depression, which is more than simply sadness.  It is an omnipresent sense of helpless, hopeless despair that engulfs his life, leaving him suffering in distress, with no respite.  Symptoms of depression can include loss of interest in normal activities, changes in sleep, weight or appetite, reduced energy, increased irritability and self-loathing, a hard time concentrating and unexplained aches and pains.  Many people do not understand Depression well, and some who suffer from it are reluctant to ask for treatment, afraid of the stigma that may be attached to identification with the illness.

Boys ranches – Providing Tools to Help Your Son with Depression.

Treatment for Depression normally requires at least some degree of professional assistance.  Therapy might be combined with medication to help your boy to regain a more balanced approach to life’s challenges, to help reveal origins of the depression as well as provide strategies for dealing with the feelings of despondency.  He might find symptom relief by making healthy changes in his diet and exercise regimen, or by learning stress management techniques.  Most people respond well to treatments, and have partial or complete recovery from symptoms.

As parents, it may be difficult to recognize the symptoms in your son, because the more normal response to it in teens is irritability rather than sorrow.  He may demonstrate enmity, grumpiness and loss of temper.  Teen Depression can frequently lead to self-medication with drugs or alcohol, and create problems with schoolwork.  Depression is a also a major cause of teen suicide, emphasizing the importance of seeking treatment early for problems rather than hoping the problems will evaporate by themselves.

Boys ranches – Where Your Troubled Boy Comes for Hope and His Future

A supportive, Christian therapeutic boarding school for adolescent boys struggling with behavioral, emotional or academic issues, a Boys Ranch is here to help your boy learn to resist making destructive decisions, to achieve academically and physically, while learning to accept himself as a special and valuable human being.

Is your son struggling, out of control? Has his behavior changed dramatically within the last year? Boys ranches can help him get on the other side of bad behaviors, anger and self-destruction. The structured lifestyle of our home-like environment will enable him to develop better life attitudes, so that he may face and conquer his problems and challenges.

We make the most of both an accredited distance-learning program as well as alternative methods, since different students learn in different ways, and at different paces.  We work very hard on issues and problems … but we also play hard. Our rustic campus will provide plenty of outdoor time for camping, fishing, hunting, equine and other outdoor activities.

The ranch’s positive, incentive-based discipline program teaches the consequences for inappropriate behavior and unwise choices, along with money management and responsibility.  With your son’s new healthy choices (and God’s help), he’ll face the world better equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in life.