Trails Carolina Blog

Everyone knows that keeping yourself physically fit requires a certain amount of weekly exercise, but what about keeping yourself mentally fit? Exercise has been proven to improve general mental and physical wellness, yet not many people are aware of this. Teen mental health and exercise are interwoven, meaning that it’s important to motivate your child…

In current times it seems as though everyone is behind a piece of technology. From cell phones, to tablets, to laptops and more, it has almost become more common to walk into a room and see screens instead of faces. If you were to introduce these devices to a crowded room of talkative teenagers, the…

If your struggling teen is having behavioral problems, or is going through any kind of struggle it’s important to confront the issue at hand. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to take care of your child – but sometimes that can be a near impossible task. Below are some tips to manage your struggling teen:…

When parents divorce, home life can become tumultuous, strange and extremely difficult to deal with, especially for teenagers who feel as if they have lost their sense of “family” while having to balancing the personal, social and academic aspects of their lives. Dealing with divorced parents can drastically change a teen’s mental health and social…

New research published in the American Journal of Public Health compared high school drug policies in Washington State to those in Victoria, Australia. While high schools across America take a firm zero-tolerance approach to teen drug use, Australia opts for less extreme approaches. Teen drug users who were caught in Washington schools were twice as…

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Fear, though unpleasant at times, is powerful. When we are threatened, whether the threat is real or perceived, our body is ready to respond. The brain instructs the body to increase blood flow, escalate heart rate and calculate an exit strategy. Fear can…

Any parent with a troubled teen has been where you are. At their wit’s end, not knowing how they got here in the first place and unsure of what steps to take next. You know your teen needs help beyond what you can offer, but you don’t know what that help should look like. What…

Just as timeouts are necessary in a basketball game, so the coach can communicate and inspire his team, parents should be calling for family meetings to improve family relationships. In our busy, technological world, it is easy for families to find themselves detached from each other. Taking the time for family meetings can bring your…

Parenting troubled teens can be a difficult endeavor no matter who you are. Parenting a troubled teen, however, can present its own unique set of challenges. Before things get out of hand, here are a few warning signs that might indicate your teen is on a path for troubled behavior. Changes in mood and temperament Yes,…

In this day and age, there seems to be so much negativity surrounding teens and their use of technology. Study after study shows the decline in social skills and face-to-face interactions of today’s generation of teenagers. But, is their technology-driven communication really that bad for them? The positive aspects of technology New research points out…