Teen entitlement issues? Trade-in the smartphone for a campfire!

Some experts have labeled the youth of today as the "entitled generation".  Many teens today have become accustomed to getting what they want immediately.  Delaying gratification is the ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward.  Many teens today have a desire for nice things, but they don’t want to work hard for the money to obtain nice things. Too many struggle with entitlement believing that they “deserve it” or “they are owed it”.  Many youth today are incapable of handling discomfort on any level due to the ease of their lifestyle.

Parents don't do their children any favors when they reward an entitlement mentality in the home. When parents provide their children with unwarranted reinforcement, they stagnate their coping capacity for handling the future realities of what it takes to be a successful young adult.  Recent studies show that this new "entitled generation" display high rates of mental health problems, loneliness, isolation and failure in their young marriages.

Family Bootcamp is the ideal intervention for assisting parents to eliminate the entitlement mentality from their teens and provide them with a first-hand experience in delaying gratification.  Upon arriving at the Family Bootcamp offices, the ceremonial “trade” happens where the teen hands over his/her smart phone and other hand held digital devices, and in its place is given a stainless steel cooking pot which will be used for cooking meals on a camp fire for the next five days while the teen experiences life unplugged from technology and learning to survive in the high desert of Utah. 

Those five days allow the teen to explore who he/she outside of their technology, friends and other material items for which they had previously developed a sense of entitlement.  Without these dependencies to hide behind, teens have to face who they really are, which sometimes can be an uncomfortable realization and reveals their vulnerabilities.

A mistaken belief many parents possess is assuming that children can't handle difficult situations. Too often parents assume that if kids start getting into difficulty they need to rush in and do it for them, rather than let them flounder a bit and learn from it.   Family Bootcamp allows children to navigate a difficult situation on their own.