Good Days, Bad Days

Many people underestimate the ability to roll with the punches, to accept the bad days along with the good. It takes patience and experience---qualities that very few troubled teens have acquired. One of the benefits of a therapeutic boarding school is a curriculum that incorporates the idea of acceptance---that helps teens realize that much of life is out of their control and always will be, and how to deal with that reality. 

This idea is fundamental to the 12-Step program, which is a way of life here. One girl who struggles with depression, and who has always dealt with her "bad days" by simply shutting down, is now looking at her options. She has heard often enough that the flip side of accepting the things she cannot change is changing the things she can. She can't control waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but she can choose not to stay there. She can choose to save the day with one small step, doing one right thing, and allowing it to lead to another. She is learning the paradox of acceptance---that it is a conscious process, and one she can indeed control.