By Katie Strachan
The Oshawa Express
Jackie was at her wits end.
Her teenage daughter wouldn’t listen to
her, she was running away from home often
and she was skipping school regularly. She
simply didn’t know what to do.
That is until Jackie, who didn’t want her
last name used, discovered
Helping Other
Parents Everywhere
(H.O.P.E.).
That was five years
ago and now Jackie has
established a great relationship
with her
teenage daughter, who went on to graduate
high school.“If I had not have came (to the group) I
probably wouldn’t know where my daughter
was living and I might not even care,” she
says teary-eyed.
On the night she discovered the group,
Jackie had called the police, her daughter
had run away again.
The police passed on the organization’s
pamphlet in hopes it would help the distressed
mother cope.“I was having a nervous breakdown. I
wanted to jump off a bridge,” she says.“I walked into the room and felt the
weight of the
world lifted off
my shoulders.”
The group
meets on a weekly
basis and
offers suggestions
and support
for parents who are in crisis with their teens.
They offer 24-hour support to members.
A fee of $50 is required from all members,
which covers membership fees for
three years.“It teaches parents how to teach their
kids that they’re responsible for their own
actions,” she says.
For Jackie, the program has done wonders
for the relationship with her daughter.“I’m very
proud of her.
She’s going
off to college in
the fall.”
Although getting
to the point
of a relationship
that involved
anything but
arguing wasn’t
easy.
Jackie recalls a time when she was driving
behind a police car to Toronto in a
snowstorm at 2 a.m.
The police were taking her teenage
daughter to a hospital for a physiciatric
evaluation when she decided to call another
member of H.O.P.E for support.“They came and sat with me while I was
going through the crisis,” she says.
Jackie feels many parents are experiencing
the same thing she was going through
just a few years
ago, but may not
want to admit it.“There is a great
deal of us out there
who have problems
with our teens but
they may be too
ashamed to tell
anyone,” she says.
For example,
parents like Debbie who at first was too
ashamed to admit she needed help.
Debbie, who also didn’t want her last
name used, is the proud mother of a 20-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter.
Though happy now, it wasn’t always that
way before the mother of two found
H.O.P.E.“We were a great family that was into
sports, with no problems,” she explains.
That is until her son joined the high
school baseball team in Grade 9.“He got into drugs and with that came
rage and violence. I didn’t know how to
cope,” she says.
Debbie ended up falling to her knees,
crying in the pouring rain, in the middle of
an intersection before finally admitting she
needed help.
She has been going to H.O.P.E for the
past four years.“My son has turned his life around and
it’s because of the way I communicate with
him,” she says.
Although Debbie says she is going
through similar problems with her teenage
daughter now, she continues to use the support
of the H.O.P.E organization to get
through it all.“Without this group I don’t know where
I would be,” she says.
For more information on H.O.P.E, a community
based support network for parents of
acting out youth call 905-239-3577 or 1-866-492-1299 or you can visit them onlinewww.helpingotherparentseverywhere.com.“It saved my life when it was falling
apart,” adds Jackie.
“I walked into the room and
felt the weight of the world
lifted off my shoulders.”
-Jackie
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