How Can Residential Treatment Break Your Teen’s Phone Addiction?

Teen phone addiction treatment is often called a social disorder, described as a teen’s obsession or fixation with their cell phone. While most teenagers possess a smartphone, cell phone, or smartphone addiction is characterized by excessive cellphone/smartphone use, causin g harm and trouble in a teenager’s life. Activities that they may be addicted to incorporate watching videos, texting, video games, social media, and many more.

Excessive smartphone usage becomes phone addiction when phone engagement causes negative impacts on other aspects of their lives. These negative impacts affect family, schoolwork, relationships, and other commitments, and still does not evoke a change in a teenager’s conduct. If it appears that they can’t effectively control their urge to use their cell phone – regardless of how they use the phone – they may be battling with phone addiction.

What If Your Teen Is Addicted Already?

In some cases, it isn’t as straightforward as putting in a prevention strategy to help battle a smartphone addiction in teenagers. Often when you realize there’s an issue, it has already escalated, and you are confronting a full-blown addiction.

In an article about cell phone addiction looking into recent Nielsen Research Survey, they found out that “70% of the U.S. population that is glued to their TVs, some of whom are likewise on their phones at the same time. combined, Americans are spending more than 15 years of the average lifespan engaging on phones or watching TV.” It is mind-blowing, and teens have a huge role in this.

According to a study on social media users who are teenagers, the result was that “using Facebook was identified with lower life fulfillment, though having real-life friends and connecting with them was identified with higher life fulfillment.” While this may appear glaringly evident, the hidden message is that teens are very much engaged in excessive smartphone usage despite the negative impacts. The followings are the symptoms to pay special attention to when your teenager may have a cell phone addiction:

1. At Home: Are they on schedule? On task at home? Are they able to engage with their family inside the house? Are they following directions? Take an interest in family time? Interact with the home environment and not just in their room all day? Be available for discussion? It’s never about one specific red flag, rather how they sum up; therefore, it is critical to be aware of this.
2. At School: Is your teenager participating in the school activities? Are their grades being kept up? Are they doing their homework? Is the use of cell phones being noted by the school authority as an issue? Often schools do not report things until they’re out of control, so it is essential to monitor this. Keep in mind that teens spend more than half of their lives in school.

• Socially: Is the phone pulling them away from their customary social scene? Are they part of any unfamiliar social groups? Are they withdrawing from social life as a result of phone use? Is there an increased obsession or social conflict as a result of phone use? Is the phone causing damage or pain to their social life? It is critical to check out social factors and be involved. There is an entire world that they’re associated with, that you may not know about – a world around which they base their lives, goals, love interests, and beliefs.

1. Their Health: Health is something that goes mostly overlooked; however, don’t let it overwhelm you. Obsessive behaviors that one gets attached to often lead to destructions in other places. Things like starving, overeating, going hours without sleep, becoming hyper-invigorated by games, energy drinks, chats, or the combination of all of them. We can attribute a lack of adequate exercise, headaches, eye damage, stomach aches, lethargy, twitches, and more to excessive phone use and abuse.
2. Their Mood: Mood is a powerful pointer of issues in teenagers in general. Depression, self-esteem issues, irritation, feelings of weakness, disdain, aggression, and anger are all mood elements that can be intensely caused by excessive smartphone use, particularly in teens. Notwithstanding the mood factors, there are other teenage mental issues intently associated with phone use, addiction, and abuse.

What Causes Phone Addiction?

1. Stress – Teens may exhibit strained relationships and experience difficulty at school or home because of their phone use. However, these factors might have existed before they started excessively hiding their face behind the phone screen, and they may have contributed to their unhealthy use of their cell phones. When confronted with stress and no reasonable means of resolving the situation, they turn towards exercises that they have unwittingly recognized as powerful ways of dealing with stress, including the escapism of their cell phones.
2. Addictiveness – Cell phones can be addictive thanks to the media teenagers can access from the comfort of their pockets. There’re millions of games, many popular social networks online, and teenagers can enjoy plenty of visual and written entertainment via their small screens. Since there is quite literally no end to it, teenagers continue consuming. Furthermore, when there is a lot of data that you can’t ever experience or see it all, it is vital to have some means to balance between when you ought to concentrate on completing tasks and when you can set aside the time to relax and have little fun. Teenagers struggle with such balance and can fall easily for the addictiveness of social media.
3. Mental Health – Some teenagers may lean towards their cell phones as a means of escapism to conceal their emotional agony. Sometimes, the activities they see on their cell phones offer them a means of relief through some sort of temporary fun. Mobile phones may also help them when they feel emotional pain when faced with life challenges and situations, and can’t overcome or adapt to said situations. Any huge stress in this path may push them further to use their smartphones as a way to cover up.

Effects of Teen Phone Addiction

Consider the connection between cell phone addiction and internet addiction; the latter is viewed as an impulse-control addiction. Teenagers who are addicted to the phone will, in general experience the followings:

• Decreased brain functionality in parts of the brain that control decision-making, impulse-control, and emotions.
• An increased probability of using tobacco and consuming alcohol
• An increased probability of having poor dietary habits
• An increased level of social loneliness

Phone Addiction is a New Drug

You may not believe that phone addiction requires attention as much as drug addiction; however, it is difficult to tell the difference these days. A phone is like a drug. It is very addictive and difficult to part with a device that you use every day. Teens sleep with their phones nearby, are always scrolling through social media, and get can even aggressive when asked to leave their phones behind.

Due to the availability of the internet, it is hard to monitor your child’s phone usage genuinely. It is likewise difficult to know precisely how much time they spend on the phone. However, residential treatment offers an approach to them to receive continuous monitoring, as well as adequate separation from their smartphones to give them the space they require to sort out their addictive practices.

Residential Treatment for Teen Phone Addiction

Phones aren’t a drug; however, technology is quickly changing how teens are growing up, and it is by all accounts, influencing them adversely in more ways than science can. Teens lose hours and ruin their chances at profitability through their smartphones, mainly when they prioritize checking their phone before anything else in the morning and the last thing before they sleep off at night.

Treating a phone addiction requires time away, therapy, and depending on the underlying causes, symptoms, and medications. It is difficult to know where to begin when helping your youngster overcome a phone addiction. Depending on the seriousness of their addiction, you may find yourself thinking about what should get them well again. Residential treatment is a long-time solution to help your teen get back to their normal life without reliance on a smartphone.

Choosing the Right facility

Picking the right facility for your teen residential treatment is overwhelming, yet manageable. Your teen needs a treatment environment that they will respond to, which implies that they need to have a sense of security in the environment put in. Picking the right facility for them likewise implies that your family can also heal.

It is hard to tell how much your teen’s conduct is influencing your whole family until you face the issues that made him act out initially. Offering them the healing tool they need by allowing them to go for residential treatment will bring a lot of happiness to the entire family. It may likewise help you detect future tech addictions and give you more knowledge on how to treat them viably.

Therapy Away from Tech

While your teen is going through residential treatment, he will learn things that technology can’t teach him. In this day and age, educating yourself on the impact that technology has on teenagers is crucial. Residential treatment schools can provide therapies that will enable your teen to separate from his reliance on the phone by helping him get active, get outside, and get outside himself. It is going to teach your teen how to care more for his own needs and concentrate on the things that trigger his desire to immerse himself in addiction, to help him heal from it.

Top Benefits Of Residential Treatment

When in doubt, residential treatment is a reliable solution for teens who are addicted. Residential treatment happens in an area, usually a facility that resembles a home, where teenagers live with 24-hour supervision and full-scale therapy, mentoring, education, and life skills, and more.

The residential treatment setting is perfect for teenagers who battle to maintain safe boundaries, and the parents can’t keep them safe in the home condition. It’s also perfect because it offers a teen an escape means from the conceivably negative impacts of their situations, friends, the comfort of their home.

1. Structure

A daily, regular schedule might seem very confining at a distance. Be that as it may, the structure of routine enables every individual to concentrate on getting healthy. It wipes out gaps of downtime that allow desires to develop and offers stability to the rough moments of recuperation. Clear accountability and boundaries help people struggling with addiction redevelop self-control and keep responsibilities.

2. Community

Almost every person with a phone addiction has felt misjudged, misunderstood, and guilty. The stigma of addiction makes many people hesitant to look for treatment. Moreover, being able to get through the recovery process without judgments and pressures makes the process smoother to manage.

At a residential treatment school, everybody you meet during the day will comprehend the suffering and pain addiction causes. Other people with addiction share their stories of battle and victory, and addiction professionals act as compassionate and knowledgeable guides. At whatever point you are at a tough moment, somebody will be there to walk you through it.

3. Focus

Freed from the commitments of school, work, family, and friends, someone going through a residential treatment can focus on themselves. Self-focus might sound selfish; however, teens with phone addiction must figure out how to quit thinking about their addiction and start thinking about themselves again. Residential treatments are more than recovering from addiction. People treat their past issues and take up new healthy habits. The community and structure offer an environment where they can heal the body, psyche, and soul.

Today, cell phones are an asset for some families who use them to monitor their teen’s wellbeing. However, phones can be abused, and you’re right to be concerned about your teenager’s phone use. Realizing how to distinguish the signs of cell phone addiction and make a move are the ideal approaches to protect your ward’s wellbeing as they figure out how to properly use their gadgets.

At a time like this, it’s more crucial than ever to stay connected to your teen and the world wherein they live. Know what they are doing and when. Know who your teen knows and make yourself known to them in return. Build bridges with people in all parts of your teenager’s life. We’re not suggesting that you be a helicopter parent, but do not be an absent one either.

Be mindful, watchful, and aware of the baseline behaviors of your youngster so that if an issue like phone addiction starts to impact them, you’re aware and prepared. It’s also essential to build an infrastructure around them. It takes a village to raise a child, and a couple of villages to raise a teen — ideally ones with excellent Wi-Fi.

Here at Hillcrest, we understand how teens dealing with an addiction – even to their phones – can suffer in their day to day lives. Because of our experience working with teenagers that are dealing with mental health issues and addiction disorders, we believe that we’re a fantastic place to send your teenager for help with developing coping mechanisms for their addiction – or any other form of mental health issue or eating disorder. Not sure how we can help? Why not reach out for a callback or to set up a tour?