WHY THE WILDERNESS WORKS
Don’t Fix Them; Let the Goodness Come Out

By C. Terry Warner, PhD

Shannon, 16, called her mother asking for help. This was her fourth arrest in four months for public intoxication.  Given a choice between jail and entering a therapeutic wilderness program, Shannon chose the wilderness.  She emerged from the trail 56 days later, physically, mentally, and spiritually a healthier person.  When her mother and stepfather joined her for the last two days on the trail, there were hugs, tears, apologies, and expressions of gratitude.  Shannon’s heart had changed.

Why does the wilderness work? What I tell you about it I have discovered first-hand. I have been exposed to many different wilderness programs and I understand that they are not all the same. It is imperative that as parents, we carefully research the programs we are considering to ensure that our values will be honored and the program is safe. I speak from experience with some of the “best” therapeutic wilderness programs out there.

Underpinning everything done in the wilderness seems to be the unspoken assumption—the absolutely startling assumption—that the students do not need to be “fixed” or “straightened out.” Indeed, trying to get them to change, which requires trying to exercise some sort of control over them, only makes matters worse.  On the other hand, caring about them and treating them with respect gives them the best opportunity for change on their own initiative.  Like everyone else, teenagers want to do the responsible, mature thing when they can do it freely, but they can never be coerced or intimidated into doing it.
           
Childrens’ problems are interconnected with the problems of other family members; they can maintain behavioral changes only to the degree that their parents make the same sort of changes.  In exploring these delicate issues, I am pointing no fingers; just about all parents, including myself, have had the kinds of problems I will describe.
           
When we are sufficiently frustrated with a child to send him or her to “experts” to be “fixed,” we are not likely to share the conviction that the child is a good person.  “Obviously my child isn’t all right!” a parent may object.  “She (or he) is rebellious, angry, defiant, calloused, promiscuous.  She (or he) cares nothing at all about the values our family stands for, and keeps the family in constant turmoil.  We have done everything in our power to bring about a change, including punishments and bribes, but nothing works.  It’s pure folly to thing she (or he) will suddenly change just because we are loving and respectful.  We’ve tried all that.  Rest assured it would never work with this one.”
           
When we have this sort of attitude toward our children, they feel accused and blamed, and they resent it.  That resentment leads them to act vindictively, to treat us and others in a calloused way, and to undermine our hopes for them.  We in our turn feel unappreciated and mistreated, after all we have done for our children.  Over time, this cycle of blame and resistance intensifies.  Thus, “troubled” children typically come from troubled families—families in which the reciprocal blaming has become a way of life.
           
It is in this way that children, by their bad behavior, both reflect their family’s attitude toward them and provoke more of that attitude.  You can see that in spite of the way we experience our children when we are caught up with them in this “death spiral,” they are simply responding to the way we are treating them.  This means that when we think we see a negative personality trait in them, we are in error.  A negative trait is not a characteristic of an individual, like height or red hair or musical talent.  Instead, and in spite of appearances to the contrary, it is something the individual is doing in conjunction with other people. The truth is that what this child is doing—the obstinance, defiance and cruelty—is only a response to me.

I can look at my own behavior and see that the way I am being toward my child—demanding, mistrusting, authoritative - is contributing to my child’s response.  The child and I are working together—collaborating—to produce that part of the child’s behavior that I find frustrating, and that part of my behavior that my child finds frustrating!  The negative trait that I mistakenly consider solely a characteristic of the child is actually what the child and I are doing together!

Those bullying parents you occasionally see in the supermarket or on the little league playing field, loudly chastising a terrorized child for a minor offense, are not the only ones who provoke their children to defensiveness and defiance.  Perfectly “proper” parents do too.  Larry Olsen, a founder of one of the wilderness programs,  says the preponderance of his students come from “respectable” homes where one parents or both insist on always doing things the “right” way, by scolding or otherwise emotionally punishing the child who falls short, in the misguided conviction that this will push the child to get back on track. 

What must be understood about child-rearing is that when children resist their parents’ control tactics by refusing to clean up their room, by hanging out with rebels, by sleeping around, or by doing drugs, it is not because they find these things intrinsically appealing or because they are intrinsically “bad” children.  In spite of appearances to the contrary, these things do not really matter to them.  What matters to them is the protection of their agency, independence, and identity, which they feel are being threatened.  Like the rest of us, children fight for the God-given right to think and act for themselves.
           
Thus the issue over which family members wage their power struggles is never the real issue for the child.  The real issue is whether the parent is going to recognize the child as a real person and respect his or her agency—and this means loving the child without reservation and with high expectations.  It means that the parents must let go of their own insecure quest to maintain control.

Whatever changes the parents make, the child sees immediately.  Such changes bolster the child’s own trail-formed resolve to live caringly and responsibly.  The old power struggle evaporates, and all concerned have a real chance to start again, forgetful of the history they have held against each other.
           
I emphasize the word “start.”  Challenges lie ahead.  Inevitably, both sides make mistakes. There’s simply no such thing as instant cure. Typically in an effective wilderness experience, they do make a start, together.

And that—the togetherness—is the secret.  Wilderness experiences are effective to the degree that everyone involved—parents, students, and the wilderness staff—are becoming non-judgmental and caring human beings. Toward this end children can help parents, but, generally speaking, only if the parents respond in kind and help the children in return.  Usually when the family leaves the trail to return home, everyone involved knows something of the power of emotional honesty and forgiveness, and they will be able to maintain it or, if necessary, regain it, provided they are willing. 

The author is professor of philosophy at BYU and contributor of many articles in professional journals. For more information, contact The Anasazi Foundation.