How to Save a Troubled Kid?

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It took John practically all summer to get with the program at Spring Creek. He would get 25 points for good behavior (well on his way to earning brown sugar for his oatmeal as a reward) and then mouth off and return to square one. It took him three months to earn his first phone call from home. But he eventually came around and completed the two seminars necessary to qualify for the visit from his family. Their first moments after the group hug were awkward but, haltingly at first, they began to talk. Mary and Randy told John about the arrival of his sister Bethany's new baby boy. He told them about the school. "I hear gunshots in the forest sometimes. It's a little scary," he said. "There are a lot of hunters around." Still, the Carbens liked what they saw, the polite way he spoke. Even the two piercings on his left ear had nearly closed up during his four months away.

Their impression of the school began to change, however, just before the family was about to depart for a trip outside the campus with their son. Strolling through the family clusters, Norum, the event's facilitator, stopped abruptly next to John. "Is that gum? There is no gum here," she scolded. Baffled by her response but determined to have a good time, the Carbens went off for the visit, shopping at a Wal-Mart for clothes that John would need for Montana's rough winter, dining at a Subway and driving through a bison preserve, content to be together even though they saw no bison. But when they returned to the school, they learned that the chewing gum, which his father had given him, would cost John two progress levels and hundreds of hard-won points. It would take at least two months for him to make up the demotion. The Carbens knew about the school's no-excuses philosophy, but somehow seeing it in action was different. Said Randy: "They need to motivate and inspire them, not just break them down." He and Mary decided to pull John out immediately.

Back in Bridgeview, the Carbens are cautiously optimistic about their son's future. Despite his outrage over the pettiness of the gum incident, Randy acknowledges the program's benefits. "They've improved his attitude and sense of responsibility," he says. John says he plans to re-enroll at his old high school in January. "I learned a lot about how not to talk back to people and how to resolve conflicts," he says. Even his grandmother is impressed: "He seems like he grew up a lot." But taking nothing for granted, the Carbens are instituting their own tough-love rules at home. "We'll have a lot more boundaries," says Mary. In the meantime, they have confiscated John's car keys.