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Instead of trying to find the deep-seated reasons behind a teenager’s bad behavior, one technique called multisystemic therapy simply teaches new behavior.
Angela Shuffler, 16, was hanging with the wrong crowd … and she was constantly fighting with her mom.
“We just argued,” Angela says, “and sometimes it became physical. And it was just like, ‘I want what I want,’ and I was acting immature. I was acting like a child, and that’s how I acted.”
A judge recommended the family begin multisystemic therapy. Unlike talk therapy, which tries to understand why a child misbehaves, multisystemic therapy simply teaches new behavior – in this case, how to make friends who don’t drink, fight or skip school.
“Usually it’s the parents behavior that needs to change in order to get the child’s behavior to change,” says Alesia Brooks, an area director of home-based services with Community Solutions, Inc., a licensed provider of multisystemic therapy.
“We had mom actually … use what we call a peer check list,” says Patrick Austin, Angela’s multisystemic therapist. “And Angela could identify any potential friend that she wanted. On that list, she would have to provide the parents of the peer and the telephone numbers. Her mother would then play investigator.”
Her mom Cecilia kept a list of “approved friends” – people Angela could see outside of school. Cecilia says the list was helpful “because I don’t want friends that are going to come and cause trouble here for us and make things worse. So I want her to have the good friends.”
To choose “good” friends, Angela had to answer a list of questions, such as: “Does this person do drugs?” or “Do they cut school?” Today, she has a new group of friends, and a new way of communicating with her mom.
“I can kind of understand why she’s doing what she’s doing,” says Angela, referring to her mother. “Instead of thinking, ‘Oh, she’s just trying to make me miserable, trying to make me unhappy. She doesn’t want me to have friends. She doesn’t want me to go to the party.’ When she sits down and talks to me like, ‘These friends are not good,’ [or] ‘This party is dangerous,’ I can understand more, and be like, ‘Okay.’”
Multisystemic therapy was developed at the Medical University of South Carolina. Treatment programs are available throughout the country and are licensed through the South Carolina-based company MST Services.
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