Why Boot Camps In Canada Are "on The Way Out"

Boot camps are becoming a thing of the past, especially in Canada where stricter government regulations and greater accountability have limited the role these play in dealing with troubled teens. Boot camps – sometimes called wilderness therapy programs and a variety of other names – present a tough love approach to "straightening out troubled youth" and seem to many parents to be a viable quick fix. In the USA, these are said to center in the state of Utah where laws governing teen treatment seem to be more lax than elsewhere.

Boot camps offer kids a removal from their usual harmful environment, which may include friends doing drugs and other negative influences. Boot camp programs can also result in increased fitness. Teens gain new confidence through participation in new and unique activities while acquiring new skills and experiences.

Many psychologists and behavioral experts, though, charge that boot camps often fail to provide a true long-term solution to teens' problems. Traditionally, these programs have failed to provide teens with practical coping mechanisms they can use on a daily basis in their everyday suburban world. The camps' focus on external discipline is often over-determined at the expense of an internalized self-discipline that will guide the teen through trouble spots they face.

University of Cincinnati Dr. Edward Latessa questions the mentality behind these camps' focus on discipline and physical exercise. Latessa says that the focus on getting shape only makes some troubled teens into better fighters. "The problem is [the focus on outward discipline] is not related to delinquent behavior." Although therapeutic wilderness exercises can be part of a good treatment program, the full focus on a military style boot camp environment needs to be tempered.

In many of today's progressive-minded treatment programs the focus is on having the troubled teen figure out for him or herself how to face issues with internalized, self-directed programming. Research has shown that self-accountability works and in fact has better long-term effects on teens.

Gordon Hay runs a treatment center in British Columbia that is sometimes mistaken for a boot camp. Hay agrees with Latessa that at the best treatment programs, "troubled teens learn applicable life skills like how to get out of risky situations, how to stay away from negative peers, and how to be assertive with friends who may lead them astray."

Latessa adds, "Good programs teach those things and they do it in a way that it is modeled, practiced, and reinforced." Boot camps are becoming a thing of the past in favor of a more holistic approach more in keeping with our current understanding of the root of behavioral problems.

By: Jim Huinink

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Jim Huinink is Director of Web Strategy for Our Kids Media, a premier Canadian web publisher with several authority sites on the changing world of ourkids.net/boot-camps.php">boot camps, ourkids.net/troubled-teens.php">troubled teens and www.camps.ca/boot-camps-fitness.php">kids fitness boot camps.