Troubled Teens Resources

Boot camps and military boarding schools could end up being a parents’ last refuge as the public educational system devolves into some vast playground for psychologists and social engineers. From schools that prohibit the use of the word “failure”, to playgrounds stripped of tall slides and high flying swings, to little leagues who don’t keep score for fear that the loosing team will feel like losers, the latest pop trends in education are ripping the spine out of our nation’s youth.

Constantly buffered from the realities of life, cocooned from ever feeling the consequences of their actions, we are raising a generation of enervated, spoiled and crippled teens. Talk about teens at risk? It’s as if we are programming them to be perpetually at risk.Deprived of the strength of character that hardship and loss teaches, they are utterly unprepared to say no to drugs.

Michael Ungar, author of “Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive”, writes the following:

“In our mania to provide emotional life jackets for our kids, helmets and seat belts, approved playground equipment, after-school supervision, an endless stream of evening programming, and no place to hang out but the local mall, we parents are accidentally creating a generation of youth who are not ready for life,” Ungar writes.”

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You are not likely to find that philosophy being perpetuated in the pristine and orderly halls of a school governed by the same principles and disciplines that have turned boys into men and girls into women for decades.Be it a brat camp for the summer or a or a school for troubled teens, parents will serve their teens well to look into alternatives to a public school system that no longer seems to challenge our teens for fear of breaking them.

And that is a loss of a lot of good minds.

Boot camps, military boarding schools, troubled teen boarding schools, local non-profit teen programs, mentoring; all of these various programs dedicated to teen help achieve success by inculcating in the troubled teen one lesson and giving back a couple gifts.

The lesson comes in teaching the teen how to harness the power of his or her own will by choosing the discipline of commitment, exercised by perseverance.

Independence and self-possession are the gifts. Independence from addiction, independence from the negative influence of popular culture and peer pressure, independence from the dependency of victimhood. And that delivers the troubled teen’s life back into their possession, free to make of it what they will.

And those gifts come by way of the teen committing to do what it takes, no matter what it takes, to gain mastery over their life. The simplest way to learn that is to get a job and develop a work ethic that will hold the teen in good stead the rest of their life. The basics are boring, initially unrewarding, but pave the way to life long habits of success.

Many communities have put together such programs, underwritten by non profits or the business community. Waco, in the story below, is one such town.

“Through the program, teen parents, dropouts, juvenile offenders, homeless youth and others learn fundamental trade skills that will land them high-demand jobs and — for some — a chance at a college education.

Over the course of six weeks, a dozen youths rebuild their lives with little more than self- discipline and simple carpenters’ tools.
[..]
Brandon turned it all around after being accepted into Summer Building Trades…“I was able to see the result (of my bad decisions) and correct things,” he said. “You can’t get a job if you’re behind bars.”
[..]
He recently scored a football scholarship to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and said he’d like to become a teacher or a social worker.”

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Boarding schools actually make a world of sense these days. That statement is prompted by reading a recommendation that, much as we make sure our kids are in good physical health prior to starting school, we ought to also submit them to mental health screening. Oh my. And if your reaction is a similar skeptical furrowing of the brow,well,that is just because you are scared, don’cha ya see?

“So why are we so afraid to allow our children to be screened for mental-health problems?

Are we afraid a problem uncovered is a reflection of our own psyche or parenting? Is it still the stigma connected with mental illness? Google “mental health screenings and children,” and a plethora of sites pop up filled with vehement opposition to any thought of a child being checked for mental-health problems.”

The author goes on to describe parents immediate and, apparently, vociferous objections wherever this testing is proposed.

“The concerns: schools will label a child for life; it’s one more way the government is interfering; a child’s mental-health status is parents’ business only; more kids will be put on psychiatric drugs; it’s a pharmaceutical/psychiatric industry marketing scheme, to name a few.”

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Those objections are then facilely dismissed. Or so it seems, yet, they are absolutely valid concerns.Thus,back to my opening statement about boarding schools - be they troubled teen boarding schools or a specialty school, or military boarding schools - they are a very welcome option for those parents who object to the state, via the arm of public education, insinuating it judgments and will into a private family’s life.

But that is just an opinion. What’s yours?