Therapeutic wilderness programs such as Sage Walk are probably helpful for some kids, but I would be VERY cautious about sending your child to this kind of camp. This summer we came very close to sending our son to a camp like Sage Walk. For two years he has been smoking pot and doing terribly at school, stealing from us and lately was becoming pretty defiant. He has ADHD and an anxiety disorder. He's not a bad kid, just making bad choices. He has been in counseling for his drug use and is on meds. for his ADHD and anxiety. Recently we met with an educational consultant and were ready to send our son to one of the camps he recommended until we found out that he would not be able to contact us by telephone at all, and would only be able to correspond by weekly letters that were screened by the counselors at the camp. (This would work for a kid with an anxiety disorder? I don't think so.) He would not be allowed to come home until his therapist at the camp deemed him qualified to do so. After the camp experience, he was going to have been strongly recommended to attend at therapeutic boarding school out of state. Essentially, we would be turning over our son to people we had never met, and with unknown (to us) credentials. And the price for this? $425 a day for the camp (six weeks or more) and tuition at one of the therapeutic boarding schools? $60,000 to $80,000 a year...and these camps and schools are springing up all over the place. Are these money-making ventures? Indeed they are...and not necessarily well-regulated either.
We know several families whose children have experienced these camps and have come back resentful and not at all "cured;" after several months some of these kids were right back doing what they were doing before they went (drugs, etc.) with an even greater vengeance.
As for our son, we're trying to work with him at home by making sure he is doing something positive with his time (working out at a gym, working a part-time job, getting tutored), rather than just hanging out with his drug-using friends, and we are working closely with his drug counselor so we as parents are making better parenting choices (establishing better rules, consequences, and holding to them, for example). After a lot of thought, we came to the conclusion that he will always be confronted with making choices and it is better for him to work on how to make better choices here at home than being pulled out of reality for a time only to be put back in it later; prolonging the confrontation with his old friends, the local drug dealers, his school work, and his relationship with us at home. It's a real day-to day-challenge, a lot of hard work, but hopefully it will make a more permanent and lasting impact on him and us.
