#3 THE STRENGTHS OF A ONCE TROUBLED YOUTH WHEN REFORMED
The troubled youth who has successfully overcome adversity and resolved problems often has great potential for understanding the problems of other troubled youth and helping them to master similar difficulties. This principle has not found widespread application except in isolated instances, most notable in Alcoholics Anonymous. In this organization, the fight against alcoholism is not waged by professionals trained in the characteristics and treatment of alcoholics; rather, it is the reformed alcoholic who is the core and power of such a program. The most potent influence on the alcoholic is that exerted by another alcoholic. As the reformed individual attacks what he once embraced, he both directs others away from involvement and counteracts his own tendencies to resume such behavior. This powerful treatment concept has been little understood except by those who have directly experienced its impact.
Help Strengthen Troubled Youth
When working with troubled youth, we all too often see only their limitations and not their strengths. The traditional mental health view is that behavior problems result from emotional disturbance or mental illness. Since these troubled youth have experienced much conflict, neglect, and rejection. We assume that somehow they were severely damaged and weakened by such experiences. In reality, the tremendous pressures in the lives of these troubled youth have in some respects made them stronger than many “normal” youth. What “normal, well-adjusted youth” would even dare to simultaneously challenge parents, principals, and police, declaring that no one can tell him what to do? Yet troubled youth frequently show such “strength”; with stubborn determination and at considerable personal risk, they stand up against powerful individuals. Although such behavior may be foolish and even self-destructive, it does show considerable fortitude. Seldom have these troubled youth been viewed as a potential resource. In Positive Peer Culture, negative, rebellious troubled youth frequently become the strongest and most positive teenagers of the group. Once the “toughness” is redirected, they can become as strong in providing help as they were in provoking conflict.
Boot Camp Youth Can Help Your Teen
The difficult youth who is beginning to understand his own problems becomes truly an expert in dealing with other troubled youth of similar background. He will acquire considerable knowledge about those in his troubled youth group, and other teenagers will not find it easy to deceive him. The best expert on defending, excusing, and shifting the blame is the teen who himself uses these procedures. Nobody can deal better with a con artist than another con artist. The troubled youth who is caught up in the spirit of change and helping other troubled youth will expect nothing less than total honesty form his teenage peers.
Once such a troubled youth finds a positive means of self-expression he may display much greater enthusiasm in helping other troubled youth than do those who have always been “well adjusted.” The troubled youth who has become positive by choice rather than by upbringing knows, not only the pain of living with unsolved problems, but also the personal triumph that comes in mastering hardships. This motivation should not be surprising; it is well know that the convert to a movement often displays more zeal than the regular.
Successful Troubled Teens Encourage Other Problem Youth
Strong and reforming troubled youth present to those not yet committed to change a particular challenge whose influence cannot readily be dismissed. The new teenager in a group knows that this reforming teenage peer has experienced many of the same problems, and his work has to be given special credibility. Criticism cannot be viewed as it would be if it came from an adult or from a “square” peer; criticism is not condemnation or rejection when it comes from a concerned teenage peer. In time, the new member looks to the changing troubled youth and says, in effect, “If he could do it, so can I.” such is the strength of the aggressive problem maker who becomes the aggressive problem solver.
