Today’s youth clearly face a myriad of complex challenges both within the family itself and in society at large, for which they need increasing support. While the various economic and socio-political issues facing our society today are too numerous to discuss in this context, as a family therapist since 1979 I am all too familiar with the issues that arise within what I call the “family matrix.” The family matrix includes such aspects as one’s parents, siblings, and extended family, as well as one’s cultural background, economic status, and even one’s physical home environment. Each aspect of the family matrix can function as a source of stress or support, but often at least a few of these aspects create particular difficulties within the home life. As a meditation teacher for the past 20 years, I have seen that the development of healthy life skills (such as meditation, relaxation, and the cultivation of positive states of mind) can enhance a youth’s ability to cope with the various challenges he or she may face on a daily basis.

To begin with, today’s youth come from a wide variety of homes. One’s primary care givers, for example, may range from biological parents, to adoptive parents, to appointed guardians, to one or more step-parents, or to just a single parent. In addition, one’s parents may be heterosexual or may be gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual. One may also live with various siblings or extended family members. Further, one may live in a variety of home situations: foster homes, communal homes with several families living together, homes with parents who may have multiple partners, homes with divorced parents living together in the same home along with their new spouse or partner, or situations with divorced parents who each live in different homes.

The family matrix may also include various cultural backgrounds within a single family, such as those from European, African, or Asian heritages. Increasingly, therefore, many children are actually from several backgrounds, making them a mix of various heritages of which they may or may not be aware. Economics also plays a major role in determining the social background in which one lives. For example, one’s family income may influence the actual physical living environment in which one grows up: whether living on the street, in a mobile home, in an apartment complex, or in an individual home, as well as whether one lives in a suburban or urban neighborhood.

Ultimately, all of these various experiences contribute to how our youth view themselves and the world in which they live. Depending on the particular family, each of these living situations / environments may provide a relatively healthy or unhealthy living situation. In any case, the family matrix may create complex psychological issues with which the individual must learn to cope. Most obviously, the quality of the interpersonal relationships within the household will clearly affect a youth’s development. Further, how a child feels about aspects of their family life / heritage (whether they are aware or indifferent, proud or ashamed, etc.) can also affect them and influence their self-esteem. How others respond or react to them based on their various backgrounds can also affect their self-image. Thus, how a youth feels about living in these various situations—based on their own or others perceptions—affects their mental health. The specifics of one’s family situation and the quality of one’s interpersonal relationships, therefore, contribute to one’s behavior and understanding of life.

In May of 2000, after I had left the monastic life in Asia, this program was created. The program includes two full days of retreat time, along with a half-day of orientation and a half-day for closing. The program generally runs from a Wednesday 3:00pm through Saturday 3:00pm. The Leadership Program begins at 9:30am on Wednesday. The entire population, including staff does not exceed 25 people.

The program was initiated as one such structure outside of the family matrix that can support the positive development of our youth. The retreat offers training in basic skills of meditation and mindfulness. Research has proven that meditation can enhance learning, memory, self-awareness, and emotional balance, as well as increase one’s concentration, creativity, and sense of inner harmony. Meditation has also been shown to promote physical healing of various illnesses. [In fact, the words “meditation” and “medicine” have the same Latin root word (medi), meaning healing.] Meditation is essentially the cultivation of mindfulness. In this retreat we teach a basic meditation practice that begins with an awareness of the breath. This process develops focus and concentration that lead to increased mindfulness in one’s daily activities. Through this training youth become more aware of their actions born of body, speech and mind and learn to speak and act with greater compassion, wisdom and clarity.

No previous meditation experience is needed to attend the retreat. In fact, the majority of the participants have their first exposure to meditation practice at this retreat. Excluding the participants of the leadership program, the youth who attend are between the ages of 8 and 13 years. This age group presents particular challenges that must be handled skillfully in designing a youth program.

By attending this retreat, these youths have already begun the first step in separating from some of the damaging effects of peer pressure —first, by making an individual decision to attend the retreat alone (and not with his or her group of friends), and secondly, by making this decision in communication and collaboration with their parent(s) or guardian. They therefore tend to arrive at the retreat open-minded and ready to learn. Further, by this age most youths become capable of more complex abstract thinking, which both expands the various meditation practices and techniques that are offered, as well as allows them to discuss the concepts associated with the meditation practices much more deeply. Some of these concepts include concentration, mindfulness, compassion, good conduct, loving-kindness, wise reflection, and other skillful means of communication and action. Thus the retreat provides each participant with a strong community—a new, though temporary, peer group—similarly interested in self-development.

Through meditation practice, participants in this retreat gain an awareness of their thoughts, words and actions, and begin to recognize unhealthy patterns--and work toward transforming them. In this way youth are supported to develop a practice of meditation and mindfulness that promotes self-understanding and self-esteem. Such skills also enhance a youth’s interpersonal skills such that he or she interacts more effectively with others. Meditation thus helps youth to become a healthy part of-- and a more skillful participant in--their family matrix. Further, as these youth re-enter their school systems and local communities, they become role models in such skillful behavior—and gain a solid foundation for transition into early adulthood. From my experience with this retreat over the past seven years, both youth and their families alike experience the benefits of this three-day retreat in the most profound of ways. This program is a residential retreat designed to provide youth with an in-depth experience of the practice of meditation, as well as time for reflection and discussion of related philosophy.

Leadership Program:

The retreat is also attended by a small number of older youths ranging in age from 14 to 21 years. These youths present similar, yet distinct, challenges. At this particular age, regardless of their behavior, their life experience is still limited. However, they may be (or believe themselves to be) in some ways the equals of their parents and teachers, making it harder to introduce the theory and practice of meditation to them. When they are engaged in a leadership role (such as through our leadership program), however, these teens tend to show much more interest and so become positive role models for the younger youths. Further, they become more enthusiastic about their breath meditation practice as they recognize that the skills they learn in this retreat have concrete and practical applications to their daily lives, such as an ability to be more effective and balanced within various life situations. They see that meditation is a practical life skill that can help them for years to come.

The teen leadership program provides teens with an opportunity to learn both organizational skills and interpersonal skills. By participating in the staff meetings, the teens learn how the program format is developed. During the camp, they also experience the program in process and witness how change is dealt with, such as when adjustments must be made to the daily schedule. This teaches them to be organized and flexible at once, adapting to the needs of the group.

The leadership program also develops interpersonal skills as the teens work with individuals and with the group. They gain valuable insight into dealing with conflict. While conflicts tend to be quite minimal during the retreat, some conflicts may arise, such as in relation to following some of the rules at camp. For example, perhaps someone is missing his or her parents and requests to make a phone call at bedtime. Learning how to deal with those kinds of situations develops one’s communication skills and teaches teen leaders to communicate in a kind and yet skillful way.

To support this process, leadership training includes periods of voluntary reflection / feedback that help teen leaders to become more skillful in their communication. For example, during or after a situation requiring intervention on the part of a teen leader (like the phone-call-at-bedtime example above), a staff may ask the teen a question, such as, “what other ways might you use to offer kindness to this person?” This question encourages the teen to see other perspectives of viewing the situation. Those who are involved in and/or witness this conversation also gain insight into ways in which to shift perspective and use wise speech in such a situation. This kind of process occurs throughout the retreat among the adult staff, teen leaders and youth participants.

All of these experiences in the leadership training (meetings with staff, feedback sessions, etc.) provide this older group of participants with an opportunity to skillfully take on more responsibility, thus helping them transition into early adulthood.

The retreat staff includes five full-time adult staff. Ralph Steele has consistently served as the retreat director and primary meditation instructor each year, while the other four full-time adult staff members have varied from year to year. They have brought training in psychotherapy, education, movement, Yoga, theatre and music to the camp. The staff also includes four to eight teen leaders, who fully participate in the retreat.

The retreat itself is structured with various activities throughout the day (from wake-up to bedtime) in order to provide an engaging day for this active age group. Activities include meditation, music, movement, outdoor games, discussions, as well as the development, production and performance of theatrical plays. From our experience, the use of such a wide variety of learning experiences (encompassing visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and cognitive learning modalities) contributes to the success of the retreat by providing participants with diverse means of learning, development, and participation.

Parents are highly encouraged to participate on the final day. This is a key component in completing the family matrix. So often kids go and return home from various camps, into an environment that makes it difficult to receive support of one’s changes. Because of the parents participation this process furthers healthy changes in the home environment, supports the youth’s new values and learned skills.

As of the date of this document, 2007, the camp is now seven years old. We try and track the performance of the participants as they go through “life”. Back in school, the camp participant who had lower grades gets higher grades. Some youths who started out in the lower age group years ago, continued on into leadership training and moved from there on to higher education, performing better than average. Others are working good jobs and re happy with their accomplishments. Last year the first teen leader graduated to a full adult staff position.

All black and white photos by Jennifer Esperanza

All color photos by Ralph Steele