OMG it's spreading!

[Anonymous]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,339 ... 44,00.html

Teens taste TV reality
31 August 2005  
By JOANNA DAVIS

TVNZ is planning to air a controversial New Zealand series featuring a boot camp for out-of-control teens, despite the objections of advocates for at-risk youth.

The TV2 series follows the April screening of high-rating programme Brat Camp, in which troubled British teenagers were sent to a military-style camp in Utah, billed as "perhaps the most boring state in America".

The New Zealand version, called Teens, will see 10 teenagers aged from 14 to 17 on a three-week boot camp, giving them "a taste of what could be waiting for them in the future, unless they change their behaviour", according to promotional material.

Children's Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro said the programme was exploitative.

"You are taking children who are labelled bad or sad or mad and putting them into situations which are basically focused around entertainment," she said.

Kiro said the filming of damaged young people as they went through the emotional extremes of a boot camp should be off-limits.

Joshua Leblang, clinical director of Multisystemic Therapy New Zealand, an intensive family-based programme for at-risk adolescents, said research showed boot camp-type programmes were not effective long-term in turning around troubled teenagers.

Shock tactics such as "tough love, breaking their spirit and heavy-duty control by drill sergeant-type people" did not work, Leblang said.

"My concern is that it's going to give a lot of parents misinformation. It will tell them they don't need to take responsibility, and that someone else needs to fix their child rather than the family themselves."

Leblang said mixing with other "troublemakers" often compounded teenagers' anti-social behaviour.

Successful youth programmes were those that changed the young people's environment, including peer group and family dynamics, and involved them long-term in structured activities, he said.

TV2 publicist Tim Aitken said the state-owned broadcaster was confident that Pro-Active Ventures, the youth-offending programme running the camp, was a "credible independent organisation".

"Their approach is a trusted and well-regarded programme for teens at risk," he said.

[Anonymous]

Shock tactics such as "tough love, breaking their spirit and heavy-duty control by drill sergeant-type people" did not work, Leblang said.



"My concern is that it's going to give a lot of parents misinformation. It will tell them they don't need to take responsibility, and that someone else needs to fix their child rather than the family themselves."

The above information is bang on correct.

Someone should start a reality program, based upon antisocial, lazy, and crazy parents. Throw those suckers into a boot camp for parenting skills. If kids are forced into these programs, why aren't the parents simultaneously mandated to similar treatment?

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it's all about the money. Money for the programs and money for the TV producers. It is way beyond disgusting! Looks like defiant, troubled teens have become a really hot commodity. Unfortunately, all they gain is the abuse. Talk about exploitation, this is truly sick.

[Anonymous]

I just want to know what are the qualifications of all of the people who continually comment on these things, HAVE THEY ever had out of control teenagers, theory WHATEVER, try living with them and listening to the experts mumbo jumbo when your child is destroying themselves and their family around them !!! there must be a better way than word therapy !

[Anonymous]

On 2005-10-12 14:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I just want to know what are the qualifications of all of the people who continually comment on these things, HAVE THEY ever had out of control teenagers, theory WHATEVER, try living with them and listening to the experts mumbo jumbo when your child is destroying themselves and their family around them !!! there must be a better way than word therapy !"

I suggest you tune into Dr. Phil this afternoon on your local station. It should help. Then check out Oprah. You can't get enough Oprah.

[Antigen]

Yeah, ya wimp! I have had crazy teenagers. And we all survived w/o the use of private kiddie prison. Imagine that!

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.


--P.J. O'Rourke

[Troll Control]

On 2005-10-12 14:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I just want to know what are the qualifications of all of the people who continually comment on these things, HAVE THEY ever had out of control teenagers, theory WHATEVER, try living with them and listening to the experts mumbo jumbo when your child is destroying themselves and their family around them !!! there must be a better way than word therapy !"

Well, you can try beating them, starving them, locking them in closets for days on end, humiliating them and abusing them verbally.

If you don't have the guts to do it yourself, call an escort service and send them to a program.  For $5000/month they'll do all the above-mentioned work and they'll most likely derive great personal satisfaction in doing it for you.

Yeah, why bother TALKING to your kids.  That's sooooo outdated. :roll: