Struggling Teen reads book

I was quite delighted the other night. It's not surprising that at night we expect the teenagers to sleep. There was one night that I caught one of our struggling teens reading a book late at night. I asked him to go back to sleep and didn't even suggest one consequence. Don't you want to find your teenager trying to get away with reading at night? That's like a dream of what a kid could be "in trouble" for. Yes, I had to have him go back to sleep, and within minutes I checked back and he was, but I was actually glad to find him wanting to read so badly as to try his very hardest to stay awake reading. He was obviously exhausted and in need of rest.

He reminded so much of the times when I was a boy. Sometimes after my mom caught me reading late at night, I'd pretend to be asleep for a half hour just to wait for her to check again, and see me "asleep" so I could go back to a delectable book.

So, if maybe you'd like your struggling teen to be "caught" doing something good, maybe you could make reading apart of your own life and get it to pass on to your struggling teen. Or, if it's too much of a struggle already, check Diamond Ranch Academies official website: DRA.

Yours truly,
- a man who's glad to be involved in something good

Struggling Teen gets much from Diamond Ranch Academy or DRA

I can't even imagine or comprehend how much good I'm involved in working for Diamond Ranch Academy. I have less direct impact then day staff who work with the struggling teens day in and day out, but as the data entry guy for entering the students citations day by day I get to see a sampling of progress on students throughout the campus. The simply obedient ones may not always get noticed by these citations, but the teenagers who truly are struggling who get cited for making some bad choices can slowly be seen to get less citations as they learn to get along and before you know it, you see a student getting PC's, which out of code form means they're getting credit because they were an overachiever in some way.

When I do interact with the students I have to be a part of the structure and discipline so they don't forget themselves, but any chance I get, I'm trying to build them up with kindness and noticing what they do well. I love the work that Diamond Ranch Academy represents, and I encourage you if you have a troubled teen to take a look at the official website, or if you aren't a struggling teen or someone who has one, maybe you can do something to help: Struggling Teen.