New Brat Camp Tonight

[happymerryberries]

I know this is the sort of TV I hate myself for watching, but I know I will be there at 9 tonight on C4.

One of the brats is a girl who announced to her mother's coffee circle that she had just had sex in a telephone box! OMG!!!!

Fennel, I would probably agree except I think the last lot seemed actually much happier for their experience last time and really were on self-destruct mode with drugs, apathy, depression and self-sabotaging behaviour. It really didn't seem to me they had such a terrible time and they really benefitted. It's only camping!

there is an article in today's guardian about whether they work in the long run. will try and post a link...

Aloha, am on tenterhooks every time you post in case it is a birth announcement, please hurry along

brat camp guardian article

whether or not they work, it's a human rights issue. Torture works Guantanamo bay or the Gulag camps ok? I realise that sounds a bit strong for brat camp but it's the insistence on not leaving until you conform which makes me make the comparison

Aloha, ONLY camping ??? Is this the Aloha I know and love, or are you completely driven bananananas by late pregnancy?

Brilliant once again. I see where you are coming from Fennel, it does seem cruel and it is also easy to say 'well it's all the parents fault'. Actually that is what I have been doing all morning when chatting about the programme at work. However I guess we don't know. My eldest is not a teenager but I do remember when I was one and how I treated my parents. I rebelled in loads of ways (drink/sex etc), but never was downright rude and nasty with my parents and that has to do with respect. Hopefully like Lou has done (and I have met her kids who are lovely BTW) I can do my best NOW and therefore in 10 yrs time I won't have to go through this. But who knows. For now I am being smug, critisising others who probably don't deserve it and laughing at others misfortunes (what a mean person) BUT hopefully I'll learn something and be able to follow Lou's example of chaining my kids to a radiator or perhaps I'll build a stone circle in the garden

dd1 does a good job of convincing everyone she is lovely, and she is, just not to me and her sibs!

and she is oly an inch shorter than me now!

tips on Today

Well, they are only teenagers and teenagers have to to stuff they don't want to, like go to school (or the dentist!) which I thought was a torture in itself...and yes, MI, camping is one of the grimmest things I can personally imagine, but other people assure me that they enjoy it!

Forget Brat Camp if I had said to my mother 'Fuck off you bitch from hell' I would still be locked in my bed room and i'm 42!

Sorry, however'angry' and 'misunderstood' these kids are they have no right to talk to anyone like that.

It seems to me that part of the probelm with these kids is that they have learned over the years that their behaviour has no consequences. their parents may not have followed through, schools are often not able to dicipline kids any ome in an meaningful way (and I am opposed to the cane etc before anyone objects).

When in a wilderness camp they quickly find out that if they misbehave there are consequences and these are unpleasent.....just like in the real grown up world. I can choose not to work, and then end up with no cash, for example.

I can do much less with the kids I teach, but I try to make the consequences real and relevant. For example of boy spent break picking chewing gum from tables, I'd found him drawing over the benches. I doubt he will do it again, at least not for me!

I think these kids need to grow up, fast, and realise that no-one owes them a living, or any respect if they continue to behave in the way they do at present

I totally agree happymerryberries that the kids need to learn that there are unpleasant consequences of such behaviour.
my kids would NOT get away with such things.
and I agree that even with perfect parenting some teenagers may go wild.

I just don't approve of the ideology behind brat camp as a method. I'd also be concerned about issues like anorexia or even suicides in such a harsh setting.

I thought the most telling thing said was '''X thinks she is being a good parent if her daughter is happy. Thay is not necessarily being a good parent'''

I think that is SO True...I don't remember my parents making me Happy all the time - I respected them and love them, but it wasn't their job to make me happy...... (which I am, although my name has suicidal overtones!!!!

I think parents give in so quickly to their children these days (I sound so old!!!) just so they are happy and have 'happy childhood memories!' I don't think these can be artificially created....a sense of security, unconditional love and form boundaries makes for an exploratory child who may or may not find happiness.....

Enough of the WORD OF BEACHY!!!

or even FIRM boundaries......

hmb!

You sound like a great teacher, I wish you taught my dd1, who has just been informed by her teacher that arteries have blue blood in them and veins have red.

BTW thank you for those website recommendations -- she spent a very happy hour or two arranging body parts onto interactive humans. She's now been telling me very authoritatively about the spleen and the gall bladder, which I somehow managed to miss during O-level biology.

Please god don't let her turn into one of those nightmare teenagers...

Bloody hell frogs!It is hard enough to persuade them of the facts as it is , without some silly bugger reinforcing them!

Fennel, the the mental health issues, the last brat camp place (red cliff assent) takes care to rule things like that out....don't know about this place.

Also agree that we are not there to make our kids happy all the time. It is easy to feel like that . We are all so pressed for time; who doesn't want to skip the bollocking in favour of some fun time together? But in the end the responsibility lies with us as the parents to do our best by our kids.

I didn't see last year's brat camp - which the Guardian article described as more touchy-feely than this year's cowboy approach.

was only drawn to this series to watch the fate of someone called Xanthe - my 4 year old is a Xanthe...

Last years was physicaly tough. The kids had no coforts, they were to be earned, even to the point that they had to eat with sticks until they 'earned' the right for cultery. THey 'earned' the right to a sharp knife, and this was also seen as the staff begining to trust them. They had survival gear but no tents, no back packs, just straps and tarps and they were expected to go for long marches every day. If they refused to move a staff member would just sit with them until they did, all night if need be. So the kids realised that if they wanted a shelter for the night and a fire they had to more, and move they did.

The staff were totaly awesome. They simply stated what was expected, over and over again, ignoring the tantrums until the kids gave in. They took no crap from the kids and the phsychologist they had saw through bullshit so fast it was unreal....one kids tried to fake madness last year.....but not for long. I was very imporessed by the staff from last year tbh.

I think both have trained mental health poeple. Last night the psycologist (I think) was shown talking to Jenny. For the TV we we don't see those bits. But I am sure they look after the kids and that it isn't as cruel as it looks

Fennel, there's a bit in today's Guardian (online) about Brat Camp which includes an interview with Rachel from the last series and she really sounds like she got a lot out of the experience. In her case, she was a lot more likely to die before going into the camp - it was like rehab for her - as she was drinking so much and living so dangerously before.

Apparently the research on "wilderness therapy" shows "significant numbers eventually drift back to the behaviour that saw them packed off to camp in the first place, and there have been a number of high-profile deaths, most from complications arising from pre-existing drug habits."

In the end the kids are being forced into better behaviour and have no real choice while on the programme. But in "real life" they have to learn to make their own choices as adults. I think that makes it very likely they'll regress sooner or later.

in most rehab programmes does the, um, client, get to walk out mid-programme if they wish or do they have to stay for the duration? and have they been given an informed choice beforehand? those are the crucial issues for me.

Maybe they will relapse and maybe they won't. It seems the deaths were not remotely caused by the programme - they were the result of self-destructive habits that the kids already had. Also these are kids not adults, and kids (eg on anorexia treatment programmes) don't always have the same rights to walk out of things as adults do. Like they can't just leave school because they want to. I think if my child was in as much danger as Rachel I might well try anything. I also remember the depressed slacker from the last series (with the v strange hair!) who was much, much more mentally healthy afterwards. He had really nice parents.

I do think children have the right to be protected from potentially abusive situations. I am not convinced that these cowboys are suitable to run courses with vulnerable children, however affluent the families may be.

I do agree that this is a valid debate Fennel and I've seen stuff on US 'Brat Camps' in the Caribbean which really frightens me - the kids are sent away literally for years. And it is really brutal - a world away from the Utah camp with its kindly instructors with ludicrous names.