# 'Behavior Modification' camps for unruly teens: unspeakably barbaric, or worth it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2003, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671 "2003-07-01T22:32:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/101 "2003-07-07T22:52:05Z")
Okay then. That’s the kind of thing that sounded good to me when I first heard about survival camps. But. There’s a **world** of difference between what you describe and Tranquility Bay. When I said “1984”, I meant Tranquility Bay, not your son’s experience. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/102 "2003-07-08T20:22:05Z")
My feeling is, Tranquillity Bay sounds WAAAY too much like Internet sexual bondage porn. I mean, if the OP involved being tied down and having one of your guards lying down on top of you while you were so restrained, it would BE Internet bondage porn. And I worry when a real world institution that people are sent to non-consensually sounds too much like Internet bondage porn. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/103 "2003-07-08T20:35:19Z")
Not to mention scabies and using towels with blood and hair still on them-hello, AIDS, hepatitis? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/104 "2003-07-08T23:33:12Z")
That’s not the only health concern. [Nick Violante](http://fornits.com/anonanon/docs/wwasp/violante/) had a blemish on his face that turned out to be a tumor. The nurses wouldn’t let him see a dermatologist for weeks, instead telling him it was a zit and that he should just pop it. When he finally got to see a dermatologist, the “zit” was the size of a fruit, mainly because he kept trying to pop it. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/105 "2003-07-09T14:40:55Z")
Good God. The thing I absolutely just can’t get over is the terror the kid must feel upon being kidnapped and sent out of the country. In this day and age, when does the kid find out that it’s not a child molester doing it? And what do they feel when they find out it’s Mom and Dad? Is a side benefit of this the idea that the kid might feel grateful that they’re not being abducted by _strangers?_ Oh, yeah, if you’ve got a teenager, acting out, I can’t think of anything being _more_ helpful. ---
**Author:** ![greck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@greck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greck)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/106 "2003-07-09T15:45:06Z")
1. Do they train the parents how to make the kid lie face first on the floor for punishment when they get home? The thing is, you can change the kid’s behavior in the Jamaican context, but this sort of thing tends to be situation specific. The kid is part of a system at home, one that often expects and even requires him to behave as he does for balance. 2. In 18 months, you’re gonna get back a more mature kid no matter where you send them, kids grow alot in that period of time. Send them to my house, I’ll do it for a bargain $35k per year. ---
**Author:** ![king\_of\_spain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7cd45c/32.png) [@king\_of\_spain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/king_of_spain)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/107 "2003-07-09T16:23:53Z")
> [@](#): > > You have a puppy you wish to housebreak. Do you scold it? Yes. Then what do you do? You rub their nose in it. But is that all? No, then you spank it. It takes a while, yes, but eventually this method will break a puppy of its ways. Now, say instead you simply scold it. No physical punishment nor direction. That puppy will keep on crappin’ and crappin’ and crappin’. It’s hilariously appropriate how much this is exactly the worst possible way to train a puppy. Rubbing a dog’s nose in their mess will convince them that they should go in that particular spot again. And spanking a puppy will make it nervous when you’re around, and therefore _more likely to have accidents!_ Dogs urinate as a display of submission to appease a more dominant, agressive pack member they’re frightened of. So if you want a dog that immediately pees on the floor every time it sees you, by all means go on spanking it. And then, when it realizes its attempts to appease you are only met with more pain, don’t be surprised if it becomes confused and desperate and starts not only urinating in the house more and more but also, say, biting out of fear… (The effective way to house-train a puppy, if anyone’s wondering, is mild scolding when the puppy has accidents in the house, and LOTS of praise when the puppy goes outside. Application of this analogy is left as an exercise for the reader.) In any case, a physical-punishment-centered approach to the raising of human children (and not that I said “centered;” I don’t necessarily have a problem with an occasional, very mild spanking in response to truly serious misbehavior) is a problem because a kid who only obeys out of fear is a kid who only has a conscience _when she thinks she’ll get caught_. On the other hand, focus on praise for good behavior and teach your kid love and respect for you rather than fear, and he’ll grow up _wanting_ to be the kind of person you’d be proud of. Anyway. I’ve been stewing with disgust over this article long enough and I’m ready to do something about it. Anyone have ideas, other than the usual letters-to-Congress stuff? Surely there must be some organizations working on this that we can volunteer with or donate to. Is the ACLU on it? Mr. Jay Kay should count himself lucky that the worst we might do to him is get him sent to prison like a human being, rather than having him brainwashed into a dull-eyed automaton who tells everyone what a filthy ignorant beast he used to be and how we saved his life… ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/108 "2003-07-09T16:59:27Z")
Amen to everything king of spain just said. ---
**Author:** ![greck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@greck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greck)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/109 "2003-07-09T19:10:15Z")
Actually, I think you don’t even scold the puppy. You just interrupt the puppy if you catch him in the act or in the pre-stages (sniffing) and use a correction term like eh-eh (which you also use instead of “no” for training), take them outside and praise them for using it there. But even then you’ve failed to some extent because you’re supposed to be providing the puppy with the appropriate time and place often enough that going on the carpet isn’t an issue. Metaphor translation: Keep your kids busy doing what the’re supposed to be doing, divert their attention when they might start to do wrong, get them in the habit of doing what’s right before they have to learn by being corrected to avoid all the shame that comes with the process. And don’t hit them and kids aren’t puppies so the metaphor only goes so far. ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/110 "2003-07-09T21:50:01Z")
How terrible! One article says that the children range from 12-19. If you are 19, aren’t you legally an adult and therefore, your parents cannot keep you in a place like that? Maybe these 19 year olds are there because they like it :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/111 "2003-07-09T21:56:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stemba \* > \*\*Actually, it’s not sarcasm at all. It’s observation. ‘Liberal’ childraising, childraising which does not allow for the use of acceptable amounts of well regulated physical punishment (as I specifically stated, spankings delivered in a consistant manner with reasoning behind them) does not allow for one basic tennant of humanity, that we are not born with social standards or morals. What human beings are born with are survival instincts. Pain is an ingrained, ‘evolutionary’ (avoiding that can of worms) warning that said behavior or action does not contribute to personal survival. Think about Dr. Abraham Maslow’s hiearchy of needs. Basic physical needs are at the very bottom. Then safety and security. Most parents provide for basic physical needs (or else they’re neglegant.) Then comes security. Pain is an indicator that your security is threatened. It is our bodies way of saying ‘cut it out.’ > > You have a puppy you wish to housebreak. Do you scold it? Yes. Then what do you do? You rub their nose in it. But is that all? No, then you spank it. It takes a while, yes, but eventually this method will break a puppy of its ways. Now, say instead you simply scold it. No physical punishment nor direction. That puppy will keep on crappin’ and crappin’ and crappin’. > > This can be likened to a small child, most of whom (until about age 8 or so) don’t have the congiscant (SIC) ability to comprehend true right from wrong in a sense more than ‘Daddy gets mad when I do this.’ The child seeks, in an instinctual way, to allow itself to survive long enough to propogate. The child steals a cookie. Now, theft is against a social norm. The kid does not have the cognative ability to comprehend ‘social norm’ and that theft violates it. But he does have the physical ability to comprehend ‘pain is bad.’ If the parent is able to associate, through explination, that “theft is a behavior which will lead to pain” then eventually, like the puppy, the kid’ll stop doing it simply because he doesn’t like getting spanked. > > As far as your thought that psycological abuse does count, I just have to say “Get over it.” If a person is abused psycologically, then the person can become well psycologically. It is rare that a person, parent or otherwise, who engages in psycological abuse does so in a systematic way which fundementally changes thought processes and leaves permanent damage. Can’t get over it? Then hire a psycologist to help you get over it, or better yet, talk to some friends about your problem. Still can’t get over it? Then go ahead, commit suicide, because you obviously don’t have the basic willpower that comes standard with the package that is being human (humans are resiliant, watch a kid get yelled at and then go back to playing ten minutes later) and I don’t want you breeding and teaching this spinelessness to your kids. \*\* You read Starship Troopers too! ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/112 "2003-07-10T03:32:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Badtz Maru \* > \*\*You read Starship Troopers too! \*\* Yeah, but not all of us actually took it to heart. ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/113 "2003-07-10T15:33:15Z")
Red\_dragon, the children who were given a choice to leave at 18; however, some were court ordered to stay there and had no choice but to remain over 19. ---
**Author:** ![Sivalensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Sivalensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sivalensis)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/114 "2003-07-11T02:53:32Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by BMalion \* The last straw for me was a screaming, breaking furniture, smashing windows tantrum because my wife would not give him the haircut that he wanted _right now!_ The fact that she was on the floor, waiting for me to take her to the emergency room, bleeding and in pain from a miscarriage, seemed not to matter to him in the least. [QUOTE] Did everyone else miss this? Because seriously, this is really extreme behavior. I mean, he could have caused serious harm to his own mother in his irrational state. He obviously has (or had) some serious problems and sometimes just sitting down and talking won’t work. You have to try that first, of course, try everything in your power besides violence. But when it gets to the point where you, your husband/wife, and your kids are threatened, you have to do something. Now that something should most certainly not be Tranquillity Bay. That place would screw up even the most normal and sane of people. Nobody, no matter how bad, should be sent there. But frankly, I’m not sure why people think that this kid should be sent to jail instead of boot camp. I don’t advocate violence at all…but you know something…there’s plenty of violence in jail, so that’s not the question, if you have a choice between the two. This boot camp sounds like it provides good counselling, attention 24/7, and the ability for the parents to terminate it at any time. What does prison provide? Some counselling maybe, by a psychologist who has too many patients and too little time. Alone behind bars. This is not going to necessarily be better for the child. Plus with the proliferation of drugs and weapons in prisons, I don’t think this is necessarily the preferred choice. I’m not saying that children should be sent to boot camp lightly, and most certainly not for some of the reasons in the link from the op. Just because you don’t like they’re attitude is not a reason to send them off. But if they’re threatening your life and that of your family, then it just might be a valid option. I don’t think any of us have the right to pass judgement until we’ve been in that situation ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/115 "2003-07-11T03:29:55Z")
Yes, and it should be emphasized that _ **BMalion** did not send his son to Tranquility Bay_. He sent him to an accredited teen boot camp. The two should not be conflated. ---
**Author:** ![LosAdri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@LosAdri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LosAdri)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/116 "2003-08-05T12:32:42Z")
a) BMalion didn’t send his kid to a place like Tranquility Bay. His eldest son was a very disturbed young man who needed help and discipline. The boot camp, considering his son’s reactions, seems like the appropriate place. My concern is counseling since 3. Unless at 2 he saw something really horrifying (I’m talking his mother raped or a shooting or some such), there is NO NEED for counseling. It is not a cure all for when a toddler acts out. Counseling later in life was probably less effective b/c he probably knew how to work the system since he was 5. b) Kids aren’t puppies and you can’t hit puppies anyway b/c you’ll go to jail and notice that psycho-woman hasn’t posted back so maybe she’s stopped being an abusive nutcase (remind me to never marry into that sick family and let her babysit). Notice also the lack of marriage/kids… does this not scream “woman who no one can stand”? and a good day to you ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/117 "2003-08-06T00:15:08Z")
This is an interesting thread as it touches many doper’s right where they live on a variety of different levels as both parents and children, past and present. It is evident to me that many of the posters going through the “anything but boot camp” arguments, even those who deal with behavioral problems professionally, have never been grill to grill, day in and day out, with a _truly_, dangerously out of control of control teenager as an on site parent in the middle of the whirlwind that is destroying their family. The question at this point, where conventional discipline and behavioral control strategies have lost traction, is obviously "What are you going to do?” While Tranquility Bay specifically may not best the best solution, there are real world situations where therapy, talking it out, grounding and double secret probation and the host of other non-physically coercive strategies are simply _not_ going to work. My social cohort is mostly middle and middle-upper class professionals. I have personally observed several “out of control teen” scenarios in these households of varying degrees but most involve an admixture of drugs, theft, serious property damage, some violence and an absolute cast iron determination on the part of the teen that “I will do what I want, when I want and no one is gonna be the boss of me or had better get in my way”, and this is generally _after_ thousands and thousands of therapy dollars. Now… in about half these situations the parents inter-personal cluelessness and abject lack of parenting skills or inclination to enforce discipline fairly and effectively are mostly to blame for the bad behavior, and I’d like to send these idiot parents off to boot camp myself in those scenarios because the kids in these situations might be turned around with intelligent parenting. In the other half of the “out of control kid “scenarios the child, despite the best efforts of concerned parents is seemingly, for lack a of better description, an incipient sociopath and is simply determined that _nothing_ matters more than their immediate desires and directly or subversively and will stop at almost nothing to achieve these ends. Until you have a child and a situation like this, and quite frankly very few posters in this thread have given any indication that they have even the slightest real world grasp of the realities of dealing with a person like this, do not be quick to judge the parent who tries to save their child by sending them to a boot camp. Of the children sent to boot camp(s) I am familiar with 3 out of 5 returned substantially better adjusted, it had little effect on the 4th, and the 5th was suffering from organic mental problems that could not be effectively addressed by behavior mod therapies. Boot camps are obviously not the answer for everyone, but for some dangerous and critical situations, if parents have the means to do so, it’s better than the alternative of letting the streets and the legal system matriculate their kids into a behaviorially dysfunctional adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671/118 "2003-08-06T11:41:43Z")
astro: > [@](#): > > While Tranquility Bay specifically may not best the best solution MAY not be the best solution? Look, I can understand that a boot camp could be great for some kids, but Tranquility Bay is both barbaric and outright evil. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/behavior-modification-camps-for-unruly-teens-unspeakably-barbaric-or-worth-it/185671.md?page=5)