When you hear the phrase boot camp do you immediately think of military and the military form of discipline? I certainly do. So what is a boot camp exactly? A boot camp is said to be a harsh, highly structured facility run by staff that act as drill instructors. It is a state or private owned correctional facility for troubled teenagers where in the staff teach both physical and mental discipline.

Now we have your boot camp residents, the troubled, unruly teenagers, one of them maybe being your teen. With your house being a constant battle ground, and you screaming at your child almost daily, it seems that God answered your prayers when you discovered boot camp. But is it really the right choice for you and your teen?

Here are a few reasons why your child should not be deported to boot camp:

1.) Boot camps serve as a transition place for a teenager to grow into a conscientious adult. But does rigid, rigorous physical exertion really develop your teenager into a responsible adult? Maybe. If you’re breeding racehorses or circus lions.

2.) Now we have the painstaking mental exercise that boot camps employ. How can instilling fear in a teenager help with their discipline? Sure, they will do as they are told while in the camp, but as soon as they are out they would discard this temporary form of deference and revert back to being disrespectful. Respect, as in any age group, must be earned. Teens will certainly not respect you just because they fear you. They will do as they’re told maybe but only out of fear.

3.) Raging hormones – Teenagers have these. Hormones are especially high in troubled teens. Placing them in an environment where hormones are up to a brim, (with the danger of exploding) doesn’t help the situation get better. Camps full of teens + rampant hormones equals more trouble.

4.) Emotional support. I seriously doubt boot camps have them where being tough is the name of the game, but this factor is fundamental in the development of a struggling teenager. In an environment that does not permit any outside contact, there is no way to nurture your teens feelings.

All these and a lot more are valid reasons not to allow your child to be shipped to a boot camp. Most of what instructors achieve in boot camp only makes temporary changes to your teenager and may even cause more harm that good as teens may resent any person of authority more than ever.

They say a child bred in love will know only love but a child bred in hate may learn to hate. With teens at such an impressionable age, this can’t be more true.

If you want to learn more about Parenting Troubled teens, I recommend that you read The Total Transformation by James Lehman. He is Bahavioral Therapist and you might want to learn a thing or two from him about parenting troubled teens