You can be the best parent on earth and study all the books you can find and take all the classes available and still be faced with a runaway child.

A lot of misconceptions lead people to think that the home life of a child must be in disorder, if a child keeps running away. This is not always the case. Our home life is consistent. We have basic rules and guidelines, and most of the time it is a calm and loving environment to reside in.

However we have a bipolar daughter and she often disrupts and causes aggression in our home life. She has to constantly be reminded to use her inside voice when talking. She gets excited easily and yells her opinions at whomever she is speaking to. When someone else is in need of attention, she often acts out because it is imperative that she remain the constant focus at all times.

This past year she has began running away. She met a set of friends who drink and abuse drugs, so she feels somewhat at home with these teens and she has gone from sneaking out of the house at night to disappearing for days at a time.

I found a few helpful places on the Web that has shed some light on what she could be thinking. It also helped me learn to talk to her when we can find her and bring her back home.

One site is http://www.education-options.com/articles/RunawayPrevention.htm. It covers some reasons that teens run away and explains the difference in a missing child and a runaway child. It also covers how to listen to your child and communicate. It suggests therapy and counseling which we have already in place with our daughter.

Another place on the Web with a wealth of information is
http://www.lv.psu.edu/jkl1/teens/runaways.html.

There is so much information because this is a nationwide problem.

One thing we as parents have found is that you can not keep a child home that does not want to be there. Our daughter calls us to tell us she loves us and wants to come home. But most of the time they are empty words. I believe she means them, but when the alcohol or drugs wear off and she is in her "Let's party again" stage, she chooses not to remember that there is a safe place to come to. It's called home.

She knows we will not allow alcohol and drugs into our home and that we as parents never came around our kids in disorder. So we do not expect our kids to come home around our other children like that.

At the moment I'm checking into some facilities that help teen alcoholic and drug disorders. The therapist is willing to help me try and place Apil in a program if we can get her to agree to it.

What amazes me is how did she get addicted so quickly to these substances. I know it is a family issue in her birth family. I just never expected to lose my child to alcohol and drugs.

As I try and learn as much as I can on why and how to help my daughter. I will share with you other web sites like http://www.aacap.org/about/glossary/alcohol.htm and
http://www.teendrugabuse.us/teensandalcohol.html.

There are thousands of resources I am finding that offer examples in behaviors and how to recognize the possibility before your teenager gets too far into it.

It is becoming a national problem and it is not only the parents and children who suffer. Across the board it is affecting our society in great numbers.

All I know is I adopted my kids to keep them safe and away from harm. I will keep fighting to keep them safe from their own selves if I have too.

It's the least I can do for the love of April.