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.

Joey lived in a very narrow world. His mother worked three jobs, his brother was in jail on drug charges and his father long gone. Drab was the main color, anger the incessant rhythm, and hopelessness the only expectation. Maybe that is why, when he heard the strains of Mozart from a small music store, it felt to him like his world, in one mere second, had been transformed.

You could say Mozart changed his life because the hunger it stirred in Joey compelled him to awkwardly push open the door of the shop to hear more and there he met the mentor who would guide this fledgling musician to a music scholarship years later.

Most troubled teenagers are not so fortunate. Teenagers are often chided for making poor choices. What also must be kept in mind is,for some teens at risk, their range of choices are limited. Joey chanced upon classical music by mere happenstance. That choice was not available in his home or school. Sometimes the most powerful experience for a teen are those that expose them to new and unique possibilities.

“Through the Youth Challenge program, these boys are learning how to say no to drugs and yes to art.

Fourteen-year-old Ian showcased his colorful painting of a lighthouse with a bright yellow sun in the backdrop Monday during a program and reception…

It was a celebration of what Ian and other boys in Youth Challenge have accomplished through art and community service since they began attending the program at Youth Town in Pinson. The students in Youth Challenge dress in camouflage fatigues and adhere to a military routine.”

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Image Credit:Jacksonsun.com

That is what boot camps and troubled teen boarding schools can provide. The opportunity for a teen to discover the gifts and talents that they had no opportunity to exercise before. Through such programs teens discover their flair with words or their skills with cameras, but more importantly, they learn that if they stay in the game, the choices are rich and varied and the future is theirs for the taking.

Why do some teens seem to be able to actually “Just Say No” to drugs and others cannot. What essential lessons can be distinguished as being pivotal in raising a balanced teen?

A study suggests that core competency skills can equip a troubled teen to fight peer pressure as well as guide the teen to finding healthy solutions to pain or anger or sorrow.

“They can combat powerful social influences from friends and siblings to use multiple substances, including cigarettes. Moreover, this research provides important support for drug-abuse prevention programmes that include the teaching of competence skills, including refusal skills and decision-making skills,” she said.”

Core competency skills are described as “good self-management and positive psychological characteristics”. Self- management needs to be both taught and demonstrated. It goes without saying that in a culture that is driven by instant gratification, troubled teens see very little in the way of self-discipline and restraint. Even star athletes, whom you would expect to exhibit exemplary self-discipline, are now notorious for their unrestrained behavior.

We are obsessed with sheltering our teens from adversity and protecting them from predators when an equal amount of time needs to be spent equipping them to deal with exactly those threats and predators.

Military schools, troubled teen boarding schools and many wilderness programs equip a teen with core competency skills.Troubled teens in such programs learn accountability, responsibility and self-management. That is why such institutions are often favored by parents over a public school system that, more and more, mirrors the dysfunctional culture that teens need to be taught to resist.