Out of the Woods: Tales of Resilient Teens (Adolescent Lives)

Author: Stuart T. HauserPublisher: Harvard University PressPaperback:ISBN 10: 0674027345ISBN 13: 978-0674027343Seventy deeply troubled teenagers spend weeks, months, even years on a locked psychiatric ward. They’re not just failing in school, not just using drugs. They are out of control―violent or suicidal, in trouble with the law, unpredictable, and dangerous. Their futures are at risk. Twenty years later, most of them still struggle. But astonishingly, a handful are thriving. They’re off drugs and on the right side of the law. They’ve finished school and hold jobs that matter to them. They have close friends and are responsible, loving parents. What happened? How did some kids stumble out of the woods while others remain lost? Could their strikingly different futures have been predicted back during their teenage struggles? The kids provide the answers in a series of interviews that began during their hospitalizations and ended years later. Even in the early days, the resilient kids