Reset Your Life program helps families stay on track

VIEW STAFF WRITER

Jeffrey Bernard compares the youths he sees to a quarter rolling on a flat table. Every once in a while, instead of continuing down a straight line, the quarter spins out of control, no longer on the path it started on.

“You have to stop it and then put it back on its course,” Bernard said. “There are people out there going down the wrong path at a rapid pace and almost at the point of no return.”

Reset Your Life, Bernard said, is a program designed to be the mechanism that sets youths and their families back on the right path.

“This empowers both individuals (parents and their children) to get back to square one,” Bernard said. “Most people know the problem is going to get worse if something doesn’t change.”

Participants are presented an opportunity to look at their attitudes, see where their actions are taking them and adjust — or reset — their lives to get back on track.

Reset is a daylong program where people go through exercises on trust and breaking down communication. During part of the program, parents are in a separate room from their children.

“In most cases, kids aren’t happy with their (individual) decisions,” Bernard said.

Bernard said the program gives the youths an opportunity to talk and be heard.

“A lot of them have animosity or grudges they hold on to,” Bernard said. “But they don’t know how to communicate without the element of friction.”

This isn’t the only program around town that deals with at-risk youths and their parents.

Life of Crime, put on through the Henderson Municipal Court, is an educational program for parents, teenagers and young adults. The monthly program shows participants the potential end result and consequences of their life choices.

Similar programs are done in courts in Las Vegas, including the Youth Offender Court.

Bernard, who helps run the administrative side of Life of Crime, said the program is popular and sold out until January.

But parents don’t have to wait if they want to enter a program to help them and their family, Bernard said. Reset Your Life is open for all families, even if they don’t have children in the juvenile system.

Tina and Justin Garwin took their son Drew, 14, to the August program. They were concerned that Drew was heading down the wrong path.

“We had been searching for something for our son,” Tina Garwin said.

After attending Life of Crime, she signed up for Reset Your Life. About a dozen families attended the Aug. 25 event at the Whitney Ranch Recreation Center, 1575 Galleria Drive, Henderson.

After they were separated from their parents, youngsters ranging from pre- to late teens made a list of 42 things their parents did that was wrong. Items spanned from emotional abuse, name calling and blaming to not being supportive or being overcontrolling.

Sitting in a group circle, each child bounced comments off one another’s stories.

Afterward, the parents, who made their own list of things their children do wrong, came into the room. The youngsters exited.

Each family tried to identify its child’s contribution to the list the youths made — some guessed right, and some guessed wrong.

The list allowed the parents to assess concerns that might not have been easily communicated by their child.

When reunited, the families went through a series of exercises and listened to speakers talk about how to communicate effectively.

Bernard said the session allows parents to connect and realize they are not the only ones who go through rough patches.

“I think every parent should have to take it,” Tina Garwin said.

Since taking the program, Garwin has implemented some of the techniques she learned into everyday life.

“When arguing, people have the tendency to talk over each other,” she said.

Garwin said they learned to write down everything they don’t want to happen in the argument on a ball.

“So, for instance, my son cusses, so I wrote down I don’t want him to cuss,” she said.

Each party agrees they get three minutes of uninterrupted time to speak during the disagreement.

“It calms the situation down,” Garwin said. “We used it the other night.”

Garwin said she was proud to see Drew make better decisions after the program.

“He asked if he could go to a party one night where he knew there would be drugs and alcohol,” she said. “I told him it was his choice. He chose not to go. He made a step in the right direction.”

After Reset Your Life, Bernard recommends that families attend a 16-week program called You Got the Power, which assists youths and families who are dealing with trauma, violence and addiction.  

Bernard is looking to expand the program valleywide.

“All the elements are in place,” Bernard said. “These problems aren’t isolated in the Henderson valley.”

Reset Your Life is expected to meet from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 27 at the Whitney Ranch Recreation Center. Registration is required.

The program costs $95 for one teen and parent, but Bernard said he is willing to work with people’s finances. It is $35 extra for an additional parent or child to attend.

Reset Your Life also has a two-day program, which invites people to attend a second time for more advanced lessons. The second day is $50 for a parent and one child with an additional $20 for an additional sibling or parent.

Bernard said the session can hold up to 40 to 50 families.

“But if someone calls and wants in, I will find a program for them,” Bernard said.

For more information, visit reset4yourlife.com.

Contact Henderson/Anthem View reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@viewnews.com or 387-5201.