Why do teenagers run away from home?

It is a parent's worst fear, that they do not know where their child is, the stomach lurching feeling that they are lying somewhere, hurt, needing help, and the guilt that the parent is somehow responsible. When teenagers fail to return home after a night out, most parents pray their child is just being defiant, trying to scare them by staying out late. They will be furious when the teenager finally reappears, but they will be incredibly relieved that their child is safe.

However, some teenagers do not just stay out late; they actually go one step further and run away from home. They have not been abducted, they are not out partying, they have made a conscious decision to leave and the knowledge that your child is so unhappy or angry that they would take this drastic step, is very hard for parents to bear.

Sometimes, a teenager will run without telling anyone and so, the first thought is that they have been taken forcibly and are in danger. Law enforcement officers are only too aware of teenagers who run away and the parent may be furious when the police officer starts asking questions about the child's behavior and their relationship with the parents. Teenagers who run away do so for many different reasons, and there are many teenagers who run away each year, and the police are familiar with this situation, which is why they ask the questions they do, and parents need to understand that they are not alone in having a teenager who runs away.

Periodic runaways are those teenagers who run away after a specific occurrence, such as, parents separating, the break-up of a relationship, finding out they are pregnant; running away is a reaction to a situation the teen feels they will be punished for, or they cannot face up to. These teenagers are not using running away as an emotional blackmail tool, they are scared and unable to cope with a specific situation.

Persistent runaways are very different. They use running away as an emotional response to being thwarted, or denied something they want. They will often threaten to run away in the heat of an argument and use running away to punish their parents. It is the teenagers' mechanism for controlling their parents and those parents who stop disciplining their teenager when they use this threat, are proving to the teenager that this blackmail works.

A teenager who is more likely to run away, may avoid spending time with their family, be in with a crowd the parents disapprove of, be having problems at school, be constantly arguing, and losing the argument, in short, they have little regard for the parents authority but are prone to dramatics and want their own way all the time. Teenagers who persistently run away need help to get to the root of their behavior problem. Teenagers who respond to a crisis by running away, need support to learn strategies to handle situations that they do not have the emotional strength to deal with, and parental understanding for whatever the transgression is that caused the flight in the first place.