Celebrating Gratitude For Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving at Turning Winds, Teenagers enjoying a cozy Thanksgiving meal by a stone fireplace, with a relaxed and joyful holiday atmosphere. Turning Winds, residential treatment center for teens struggling with mental health or behavioral issues.

At Turning Winds, our teenage clients typically stay many months in the program—frequently an entire year. “It can be long enough to really help young people,” says John Gordon, MD, Turning Winds’ medical director. “A lot of the kids here have been in other programs before that either were not long enough, or there was […]

Family Bonds: Healing Together at Turning Winds

Gathering spot for teens attending the adolescent treatment program for mental health and addiction.

Families come first at Turning Winds. Our treatment approach focuses on increasing the healthy independence of adolescents in our care while promoting and strengthening the family bonds, ensuring a harmonious and successful reintegration post-treatment. Family connection is one of the 12 character virtues taught in our program: students develop a greater appreciation for the strengths […]

7 Stress Coping Skills for Effective Parenting

“What have you done for yourself today?” Family and friends may mean well when they ask you that, but as a parent, it’s tough to find ways to destress while parenting. It’s especially difficult if you’re trying to be an effective parent to a teen who’s navigating his or her own rocky road. It’s almost […]

How COVID-19 Changed My Teen

The era of COVID-19 has challenged even the most resilient teens. This age group already had to deal with the pressures of school, socializing, and social media. Add to the mix a deadly virus, and it’s bound to push teens to their limits. You may sense your teen has changed and become more anxious or […]

How to Stop a Panic Attack

As the name implies, panic attacks involve sudden surges of terror, and they can happen under fairly mundane circumstances. You don’t need to be on a rollercoaster or in a physically threatening situation to experience a panic attack. You could be lying in bed, riding a bus, or sitting at a desk. Fortunately, you can […]

Jellinek Curve

If your teen is involved with or abusing alcohol, it helps to know about the Jellinek Curve. Developed sometime in the 1940s and 1950s by researcher E. Morton Jellinek, this U-shaped curve generally illustrates the five progressive phases of alcoholism. Jellinek was able to determine predictable behaviors of alcoholics by surveying and analyzing the data […]

5 Stages Of Healing

5 Stages of Healing The way we heal and recover is just like how we grieve—in stages. It helps to understand the stages of healing to understand what you, your teen, or another loved family member may be dealing with at the moment. As with grief, healing is rarely linear, and it all takes time. […]

Parent’s Guide to Teen Depression

Parenting is hard work. Although you may have barely survived your child’s toddlerhood or middle-school angst, the teen years are a new experience altogether. As a teenager, your child might be perfectly good-natured one day and moody, rebellious, or self-centered the next.  With the teen years bringing increased societal pressures and changing hormones, these behaviors […]

Wendy Williams Talks Substance Abuse And Her Son

Talk show host Wendy Williams opens her show with blunt discussion on substance abuse You already know her for “Hot Topics”, but now popular talk show host Wendy Williams is discussing a new topic that is close to her and her family. Last Monday, the host revealed to her studio audience that her young 14-year-old […]

Alcohol Recovery For Girls

Alcohol builds a physical dependency in the user over time. While most teenage girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen simply cannot acquire enough alcohol during this period to build up such a dependency (though it’s certainly not impossible), even more damaging are the effects alcohol has on the minds and bodies of developing […]