Teen Boot Camp - Learn more

Want to send your child to a tough love teen boot camp? You may want to consider another option. According to author Maia Szalavitz who wrote, "Selp at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids," why parents send troubled teenagers off to boot camp is generally because they are uninformed about the lack of evidence that supports tough love programs and often they are desperate to save their teen from delinquency or drug addiction.

The main issue with boot camps is that since the founding of the first one, Synanon, in 1958, treatments includes too harsh disciplinary measures. This is an understatement for what over 5 decades has produced little empirical evidence that the harsh in your face boot camp treatment produces results. In fact, a 2004 consensus statement by the National Institutes of Health that dealt with juvenile violence and delinquency, said that programs that seek to change behavior through "fear and tough treatment appear ineffective." What are some of the behaviors? Could be drug use, defiance or innatention.

About Boot Camps for Troubled Teens

• Can be Public or Private
  
• Most appealing today is the Military style boot camp
  
• Can be an alternative to juvenile prison
  
• Is a billion dollar industry
  
• Abusive attempts to reform troubled teenagers has included: isolation, physical abuse, corporal punishment and brutal emotional attacks
  

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