Parenting Newsletter Aspen Education Group

In this issue:
What Is a 'Locus of Control' and How Does it Affect My Teen's Behavior?

The No-Resistance Approach to Wilderness Therapy

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Call (866) 845-1391 to learn more about Aspen's programs for children, teens, and young adults.

Stone Mountain School is a long-term residential school in an outdoor environment that is geared to help families of boys with emotional issues or behavioral problems. Stone Mountain specializes in boys ages 11-17 with learning differences or disabilities and/or ADHD.

Aspen has wilderness programs in:

Idaho - SUWS
North Carolina - Phoenix Outdoor

Since 1981, SUWS has been giving children and their families hope for a positive and productive future. Combining the wilderness environment with experiential learning helps students learn to value themselves, access their own abilities and build upon their strengths.

Phoenix Outdoor is a licensed wilderness-based substance abuse and chemical dependency treatment program for teenagers ages 13-17. Phoenix Outdoor offers the adolescent and their family hope, support, knowledge and a process to create a substance-free life.

Call (866) 845-1391 to learn more about Aspen's programs for children, teens, and young adults.

What Is a 'Locus of Control' and How Does it Affect My Teen's Behavior?

It's the ultimate million-dollar question - one that parents and other caregivers have been asking themselves for centuries, and one that could bring fame and fortune to the person who answers it: Why do teens act the way they do?

Who's In Charge Around Here?
Discussions about a teen's behavior often center upon the classic nature/nurture debate; that is, was the young person "born that way," or did environmental influences (including parents, peers, and personal experiences) cause him to adopt the attitudes and beliefs that are indicated by his actions? And while this certainly leads to questions that are worth asking, it is also true that the belief of the individual regarding how the world has influenced and impacted her may be just as important (or perhaps more so) than the actual source of the impact itself. This leads us to "locus of control."

Parenting Teens

In psychological terms, peoples' locus of control refers to their perceptions about who or what is ultimately responsible for the course of their lives and the positive and negative experiences they have. Locus of control can be broken down into two distinct subdivisions, though most individuals fall somewhere along the continuum between the two extremes described here:

Internal Locus of Control - Individuals who have an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for their own successes and failures.
External Locus of Control - People with a strictly external locus of control see themselves akin to pawns on a chessboard, with their progress and setbacks determined by a power beyond their control (for example, fate, luck, or other external factors).

The concept of locus of control was developed by American psychologist Julian B. Rotter in the middle 1950s, and has been expanded upon and clarified by dozens of others during the intervening fifty-plus years.

Learn how you can encourage personal responsibility in your teenager >>

The No-Resistance Approach to Wilderness Therapy

Troubled teens are often resistant to just about everything, including authority, rules, advice, structure, and therapy, just to name a few. Because of their oppositionality and defiance, treatment programs like boot camps that feed resistance right back to them are frequently ineffective. A better approach is the one taken by Outback, an innovative wilderness therapy program for troubled teens ages 13 to 17, whose core philosophy emphasizes giving adolescents the power of choice and the ability to experience the natural consequences of their decisions.

According to Neal Christensen, Ph.D., the clinical director at Outback, facing rebellious teens head on is a losing battle. "Students who are defiant or resistant to treatment enjoy the fight. They are looking to throw a ball at a hard wall and have it bounce back," he says. "We surprise them with 'pillow walls' that offer no resistance, which forces the student to do the work of picking up the ball and throwing it again. Soon, they begin to realize they're resisting to their own detriment. Their negative behaviors are only preventing them from getting where they want to be and living the life they want for themselves."

The therapists and field staff at Outback reach struggling teens with a no-resistance approach to wilderness therapy. "We pride ourselves on taking a warm, humanistic approach to wilderness therapy," says Ryan Anderson, Ph.D., a clinical field therapist at Outback. "I will challenge students without them realizing they've been challenged, I will learn enough about them to make them realize how much I care, and I'll roll with the resistance until I roll through it."

Teens learn from the natural consequences of their actions during a wilderness program like Outback. Learn more. >>

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