Seeking a fix for troubled teens.

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.
• Position: Brief Article

All across the country, parents, ordinary citizens and business people should be concerned about Alaska's and America's Troubled Teens, but most are not.

Hold on! That's not a critical comment. And thanks for those parents, agencies and civic-minded citizens who are concerned. But there are too few of them.

Troubled Teens made the critical list long ago. Many of us are in suspended animation, too numbed by news reports to know what to do or how to react. Thwarted on every side by odds too overwhelming for any one of us to reverse alone, we kind of hunker down in denial and ask for somebody--anybody--to show us a way out of this mess. Make no mistake about it, we're in a real mess.

Finding Fault. And surprise! Nine times out of 10 it's not totally the Troubled Teens' fault. "Well it's not my fault," you insist, nor is it mine. So whose fault is it, anyway? Parents of a Troubled Teen were likely to have been teens of their own troubled parents. How can the parents of a Troubled Teen be expected to properly raise their children if the parents of the parents didn't learn how to raise their children--now the parents of Troubled Teens? Forget finding fault, it is seldom productive.

Finding Help. So far all I have done in this article is state a problem about which most of us are already aware. An early writing mentor of mine always scolded that it was almost never helpful to simply restate an obvious problem without offering a solution. Well, Mr. Morrison, (Al Morrison; Wenatchee, WA; Alcoa, 1962) I have to let you down. The best I can do for now is to admit that I recognize the problem and what I can start doing to help is to encourage others...