I am largely ignorant to the teachings of Alateen, outside of the generalities of the program & what bleeds over from Alanon. My generic understanding is that they aren't terribly far apart in terms of focal points, tools, etc. My question is simply to satisfy a personal curiosity & I'm trying to phrase it as "politically correct" as possible.
What I know of Alateen tells me that it is likely VERY helpful for kids that show signs of becoming "future codies" - but what about those that are more likely to be "future addicts"?
Again - no flaming please, I'm not judging our kids, I'm asking a serious question. We ALL know that every child of an addict carries the potential to become an addict themselves - not ALL of them go over to the Codie side, especially in large families.
I'm NOT saying that we have some magical way of knowing (although I have seen research about working toward identifying early displays of behavior like risk-taking, emotional isolation, etc. which combined, can be indicative of future issues with addiction.) I also know that even in the most basic situations children often respond to different kinds of parenting. Often NEED different styles of parenting in order to individually thrive. We see this all the time in families due to all kinds of medical conditions like autism, etc. They have to apply different parenting to each child on an individual level - many of you can attest to that.
So if the alateen program doesn't somehow address this already, can they? Should they? Is this type of child just always better off in an individual counseling environment at that stage of life?
Thoughts?
