Teen Boot Camps - options for parents with troubled teens

Do Teen Boot Camps Work to help the teens enrolled in boot camp to become better adjusted with the rules that are expected of a typical teen in American society?

  Teen boot camps operate with the well known but misunderstood concept of getting tough programs that help enforce strict rules that are based on a reward/punishment system. These programs, which are usually patterned against the template of the military basic training course, can sometimes be extremely overwhelming for the teen as well as the parent(s) who send their children to these tough love retreats also known as teen boot camps because of behavioral problems.

  In order to obtain an analysis of a typical privately owned or privately funded teen boot camp that is designed for the wayward child, an enhancement of the programs could be obtained by corresponding with personnel who work with these teen boot camps. However, as the media have surreptitiously stated in the past, a great deal of negative comments have been voiced by parents of troubled teens who have endured some of the boot camps. In fact, during a time when this informative website was being composed, contact was made with at least two such facilities. It was not until it was revealed that the author is not a parent but a researcher did the correspondence promptly halt.

  However, boot camps are facilities that expose juveniles to a form of military discipline and, according to some data, troubled teens that commit the more serious crimes are sent to these facilities. They are, essentially and relatively speaking, a new addition to the intermediate sanctions that can be used against teens before a more confined approach is used for repeat offenders.

  In some respects, there is a harsh image of the boot camp that is designed for teens; and, perhaps more important, the idea of placing a troubled teen in a boot camp is at odds with two opposing forces in society: parents and the justice system. One of the most attractive facets of the teen boot camp, at least to some parents, who have tried almost anything, is the fact that the teen boot camps do not "coddle" the delinquents and put a sense of fear with respect to authority in the troubled teen. In this sense, there is a sense of changing the ways in which teens think and act while around authority.

  Most states that use teen boot camps for juvenile justice limit the boot camps to juveniles with a first-time offense. For those juveniles who have failed to meet specific criteria and do not "fit" into other categories (such as other programs), the boot camp is not the best decision.

  There are other data from which one can speculate about the success rate of militaristic boot camps, such as the idea that any teen with any problem can be sent to a boot camp and then return home in a relatively short time with an entirely new perspective about life, their responsibilities and how they deal with others. Unfortunately with boot camps this is not often the case.