“Do you understand?” asked Eden Dankowski.

“Sir, yes sir!” shouted the 12 recruits lined up to go to group therapy at Get Motivated Boot Camp off New Hope Road in Aubrey.

Get Motivated Boot Camp is designed for troubled teens and the parents who no longer know how to handle them, said Dankowski, who founded the program on a 14-acre site in northeast Denton County.

But the program isn’t about breaking teens down; it is about building their self-confidence and self-esteem, said Jenny Sheegog, director and psychologist at the camp.

As the name implies, employees of the camp hope to motivate the teens.

“It’s a program that involves the whole family,” Dankowski said. “The parent is critical to this process. … We require the parents to be part of the program.”

Dankowski calls the camp “empathy on steroids.”

“We’re a therapeutic camp that has exercise involved,” Dankowski said, adding that 25 percent of the program involves exercise, which helps the students settle down and focus when the therapy begins.

“That is critical to this whole thing … communication and focus,” he said.

The camp, which meets every Sunday, has 18 paid employees, including seven drill sergeants and a psychologist who conducts interventions and therapy.

The drill sergeants don’t yell, Sheegog said; they project.

The camp’s program is designed to last 12 weeks. Parents are required to attend every other Sunday for group therapy and to march — a listening exercise for them.

Sheegog said children often feel that they are not being heard and their parents aren’t really listening to what they are saying.

“Who holds the parents accountable?” she asked rhetorically.

During the camp, the parents are separated from the teens so that the teens don’t become defiant or try to convince the parent to leave, she said.

The idea

“We have a lot invested in our kids, obviously,” said James Collins, a former police lieutenant and current camp board member.

He was asked to offer advice and suggestions for improving the camp.

His experience has shown him that children get out of control for a lot of different reasons and, if they don’t watch it, can end up in the court system, Collins said.

And, he said, parents are fed up and looking for solutions.

“Ideally, this is going to provide the parents with the tools to help their kids become successful,” Collins said of the program.

He believes the camp provides parents with an alternative.

The process helps show the parents that they are not alone and that there are other parents dealing with similar issues, Collins said.

On the other hand, he said, it also gives the children something to be a part of.

Dankowski said the program, which developed from an idea several years ago, involves getting parental permission to bring students to the weekly program.

“The parents need to know they [teens] are in a safe environment,” he said.

Costs range from $115 per week for the teens to $59 every other week for the parents.

Teens are put through the 12-week course of therapy combined with military-style physical exercises to help them learn respect as well as how to focus and communicate with family members, Dankowski said.

Intervention

Although interventions are not required of families before beginning the camp, that is often the starting point, Dankowski said.

That’s how Debbie Onate’s family got involved with the program in January.

Two drill instructors went to her house on a Friday night at the request of a parent and began trying to get down to what was going on with the family.

Onate, who has five children, said one of her sons, Alvino Jimenez, 15, was skipping school and getting into trouble.

“My son would be in jail if I wouldn’t have signed up,” she said.

During the intervention, she also found out that her daughter, Maria Balderas, 15, was getting into trouble.

“I thought it was just one of them,” Onate said. “And then come to find out my daughter was doing things I wasn’t aware of.”

Onate said she often worried about what her son was doing when he wouldn’t come home, and she considered checking him into a detention center but didn’t think that was really going to help.

There was a sign on the side of a road she drove frequently that displayed the boot camp’s information, and one day she decided she had to make the call.

During the intervention, once the drill sergeants have everyone in the family listening to one another, each family member older than age 10 makes a list of his or her negative and positive behaviors, Sheegog said.

The family combines the lists, deciding which behaviors are the most important to focus on, and adds consequences such as up/downs for negative behavior or having a friend over for positive behavior.

An up/down is when the one who misbehaved has to go down to a squat, then to a pushup, then back up to a squat and finally back to standing.

Even the parent is required to do those if he or she does something that is on the negative list, Sheegog said.

But it doesn’t stop with the intervention. The entire family is asked to maintain a clean house, have three meals a day, go to bed at 9 p.m., exercise for 30 minutes five days a week and eschew foul language, she said.

The family members also are asked to keep daily journals and hug each other at least three times a day.

Sheegog said it is surprising how long families go without hugging.

She said the camp sends out drill instructors for “knock-and-talks,” or visits during which they go in and make sure the house is clean and the family is following the rules.

“We are trying to teach them that what is most important is family,” Sheegog said.

While interventions have been going on for about 11 months, the boot camp part of the program is just getting started.

The camp, which is in the process of seeking nonprofit status, is also gathering paperwork to seek accreditation by The Joint Commission for health care organizations, a process Dankowski says is similar to accreditations sought by medical facilities. The Joint Commission is an independent, nonprofit organization that accredits and certifies more than 17,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, according to its Web site, www.jointcommission.org.

It will “hold us to a higher standard,” Sheegog said.

Governed by a board of directors, camp officials are beginning to contact area judges to let them know about the program as a potential reference in teen-related issues, Dankowski said. Future plans include opening similar camps in Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, he added.

Adjusting

Onate’s children were upset about some of these requirements at first and are still not too excited about all of them, but they are adjusting.

Even Onate said it was hard for her to adjust her routine.

“You’re used to living in a different way,” she said.

The children like the hugs and mealtimes together.

“I think it’s good,” Maria Balderas said. “We didn’t use to hug each other.”

She thought the intervention and boot camp would just be for her brother Alvino Jimenez, but she and her other brother Levi Jimenez, 12, were signed up to participate as well.

The children aren’t thrilled with camp requirements such as the boys having to keep their heads shaved and having to be in bed by 9 p.m.

“I don’t like going to bed early,” Alvino said.

Other rules, approved by parents, include turning in cellphones and wearing uniforms while at camp.

But despite the tough adjustments, Alvino has decided to wear his uniform to school every day and plans to do so until he has completed the program, he said.

“I guess now I think it’s worth it,” he said.

Leadership

It is the third week for Onate’s teens, and each week brings new recruits.

So far, the camp has brought in up to 40 for a weekend and is expecting the number to increase, Dankowski said.

Because they already know what is expected of them at boot camp, the teens are expected to lead the others by showing them the proper way to do what the drill instructors command.

Maria stepped out of line to show the new recruits how to fall in line.

Her actions are part of what the drill instructors hope for the teens — that they gain leadership skills through the experience.

“Parents that are having kids out of control really need to look into this program,” Onate said.

Staff writer Dawn Cobb contributed to this story.

RACHEL MEHLHAFF can be reached at 940-566-6897. Her e-mail address is rmehlhaff@dentonrc.com.

GET MOTIVATED BOOT CAMP

Where: 650 New Hope Road, Aubrey

For more information: call 940-365-1818 or visit www.getmotivatedbootcamp.com