The Abundant Life Preparatory admissions process is a concise, specific, and orderly exercise designed to give hope to the parents of troubled and hurting teens. Additionally, our admissions system is a screening process.  It is designed to weed out inappropriate student candidates and stay “pure” toward our student/family profile. The last thing we want to do is to enroll a student that does not fit our student and family profile. If we allow a student to be enrolled who is “beyond” our ability to serve, it could be detrimental to the other students. Additionally, as stated many times before, we only work with families who are comfortable with a Christian educational program.

We are geared to serve parents who are in crisis, confused, and hurting. Our admissions process is meant to serve the needs of the parents in a way that ministers to them.  The process is designed to weed out students and families who do not fit our “student and family profile”

At Abundant Life Preparatory we only serve students who were raised by loving parents, taught right from wrong, and come for families who live in strong character and integrity. In essence, we serve good kids from good families. We only work with students who already have a solid foundation. Moreover, we don’t work with those who have gone too far. . . teens who are dealing with drug addiction (chemical dependency), or have been diagnosed with severe mental/personality disorders, or are acting out sexually (sexual deviants). Parents have no idea that most schools and programs for troubled teens are filled with drug addicts, criminals (thugs), and sexual deviants. You don’t want your child, who is in need of early-intervention, to end up in a program of druggies, thugs and perverts.

Abundant Life Preparatory is an early-intervention boarding school dedicated to restoring the hearts of the children to their families. Again, the students we serve already have a solid foundation. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, these kids are now off track and heading in the wrong direction.  They are trapped in self-centeredness, justification, and blame. Unless there is an immediate intervention, these struggling teens could be lost forever.

Many parents that contact Abundant Life Preparatory have waited too long and we are not able to help them. In these cases, we are obliged to turn away these teens. The chief problem is their child is displaying behaviors that are beyond the scope of Abundant Life Preparatory. On average, we are not able to serve 49 out of 50 parents that contact us. Why? First of all, many cannot afford a therapeutic boarding school. Secondly, their child has gone too far down the road of rebellion and is in need of immediate long-term therapeutic care. At that point, ALP is not even a consideration. Had the parents contacted us 6 months earlier, perhaps we could have helped.

Essentially, a majority of parents who contact us choose to give their child one more chance before committing their child to enrollment. Of course, their child promises to do better. For all intents and purposes, there is usually one parent who is in favor of the therapeutic boarding school option and the other parent is not (this is usually the parent who “rescues” the child over and over again. . . this parent cannot bare to hold the child accountable out of fear the child may never talk to them again. In reality, this parent has become the problem, and the child ends up hating this parent anyway). This scenario plays out everyday and very rarely turns out like the parents hoped, causing loss of time and numerous painful memories.

Regrettably, most parents who wait have no idea of how fast their child will spin out of control. The parent who warns the child to “straighten up or else”, and then gives them another chance, teaches the child to hide their inappropriate behavior better then ever before. This is why the child spins out of control so quickly. They become better liars, better con artists, and better manipulators. Unfortunately, because this child knows right from wrong, their conscious cannot handle all of their deceit. They begin to crumble and are unable to make good decisions . . . looking for quick ways to escape the consequences of the damage they have caused. In other words, they feel lousy about themselves so they get to the point where they no longer care.

Since these teens are emotionally immature, they cannot see how they are the cause of their own destruction.  They end up blaming their never-ending discomfort on their parents. in effect, they fail to grow because they see themselves as the victim and their parents as the victimizer. The next step happens as they get into sex, drugs, and alcohol, smoking cigarettes and/or marijuana. Consequently, their behavior gets quickly appalling, and often they are no longer good candidates for Abundant Life Preparatory.

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