Troubled Teen Alternative: The Way of the Ancient

The Anasazi way is an ancient way, based on proven principles that helps a child within to grow as the man or woman they should be, reaching divine potentials that no ordinary treatment center could comprehend.

Let me share some of my new discoveries with this new hope i found with Anasazi Foundation;

The Ten Guiding Principles
First presented at a special reunion of the BYU 480 Survival Alumni, August 24, 1990 in Provo, Utah.)

1. The emphasis of the entire program focuses, first and foremost, on the Young Walkers.

Not:
a. money
b. convenience
c. personal interests
d. logistics

2. Every Young Walker is a person of worth, is inherently good, and deserves the respect and protection of his agency and dignity.

Not:
a. seen as bad kids
b. abused or degraded in any way
c. punished
d. forced

3. Each experience in the Young Walker's wilderness walking is authentic and legitimate and is based on a reality that is subject to the causes and effects which occur naturally in that environment.

Not:
a. manipulations
b. contrived activities
c. psychological games
d. contrived consequences

4. ANASAZI Trail Walkers walk with the Young Walkers and participate fully in all aspects of daily life on the trail, serving at all times as role models.

Not:
a. privileged with special food, supplies, equipment, and paraphernalia
b. merely unskilled wardens leading a trek
c. relieved of the daily hardships of trail life

5. The ANASAZI curriculum is a series of Makings that grow naturally out of the experience of living with one another on the land.

Not:
a. theories and models
b. outlines, workbooks, or classes unrelated to the wilderness experience
c. busywork

6. Therapeutic interventions at ANASAZI consists of the intimate, personal availability of one who gently assists the Young Walker in the Making of an Awakening resulting in a Change of Heart.

Not:
a. behavior modification
b. manipulative or coercive
c. focused on perceived weakness but on individual strengths

7. Participation of the parents in the ANASAZI Parent Program is essential in the Making of a Healing for the entire family and completes the foundation upon which the family can start a New Beginning.

Not:
a. viewing the Young Walker as being the problem
b. an intervention independent of the family
c. ignoring the fact that the whole family has contributed to the problems
d. teaching parents techniques of control

8. Safety and concern for the physical and emotional well-being of each Young Walker is a primary element in all aspects of the ANASAZI Way, and every situation and activity is monitored with that in mind.

Not:
a. putting Young Walkers at risk
b. watering the program down with over-protection
c. dismissing their physical complaints as being merely manipulation efforts
d. requiring them to do things beyond their individual capabilities

9. Surrounding all of the principles of the ANASAZI Way is a tender concern for the spiritual well-being and growth of every Young Walker.

Not:
a. a toughening up exercise
b. an imposition of religious beliefs
c. a contrived inquisition or purging of the spirit of the Young Walkers
d. secular, academic treatment, which denies access to matters of the spirit

10. The ANASAZI Way recognizes the absolute, separate, and individualized rights and concerns of each Young Walker.

Not:
a. a herding through the wilderness
b. a prescribed set of generic activities and interventions
c. a set of arbitrary rules or restrictions unrelated to the safety and well-being of each Young Walker