My 18-year-old son spent most of the month of August in the woods, by himself, in a fairly remote part of the Swanson River lake system. When he graduated from high school in June, he came to me and said, "Now I'm supposed to spend a month in the woods, right?" I had forgotten that many years ago I told him that to leave home he needed to finish school, get a driver's license, and go to the woods for a month to get to know himself. I was surprised he remembered.

When he asked me, "What am I supposed to get out of living alone in the woods?" I told him I hoped he would find two things. "First, I want you to find a way to be your own best friend. Isolation encourages that. Second, I want you to have the experience of being totally free and totally responsible for yourself, which is an experience you have never actually had before. With those two things in the bag, life as an adult will be a lot easier. I do hope that you get more out of this adventure than those two things, but if not, those two will do you well in the future." And off he went.

In this column, as well as in other venues, I have been ranting about the lack of cultural support for the unique needs of teens. Those needs fall into two basic categories: a series of rites of passage, and an apprenticeship program with healthy role models. Teens need these; our culture does not provide these.

Rites of passage are needed twice -- once at puberty and once at the end of the teen years. Apprenticeship begins with the first rite of passage and ends with the second. During the apprenticeship, boys learn from healthy male role models to be men; girls, to be women. When this does occur with our teens, it occurs because knowledgeable parents make it happen. School does not make it happen, churches do not make it happen, hanging out at the mall does not make it happen, nor does plugging into a video game or surfing the Internet.

I have been concerned about this lack of teen support in society since 1988. At that time, a few juvenile probation officers asked me to develop a diversion program for violent teens. These juvenile probation officers told me that there were many diversion programs for non-violent teens, but none for the violent ones. The only option available for violent teens was incarceration. I got to work researching what a viable diversion program would look like and then developed one. I handed it in and it was rejected on the basis that I had included a martial arts component in the program. The thinking was that "you don't teach violence to violent kids." Those who rejected the program obviously did not see the paradox that martial artists learn how to fight so that they do not have to fight.

My interest was captured by the unique needs of teens at that time, and I have continued to research this area and develop programs to address those needs. The current evolution of this is a series of one-day workshops we are offering during the three Anchorage School District in-service days this semester.

By spending most of August in the woods, my son has completed the second rite of passage. He ended his solitary stay with a journal filled with his thoughts and feelings, positive experiences of self-reliance to remember when he meets life's tough times in the future. I think he has a better sense of himself. And my two younger sons now have a tradition to follow, a challenge to prepare for.

Bruce Bibee, MTP, is a counselor in private practice. He is also the owner/instructor of the Kung-Fu San Soo Center.