Private Boarding School Puts Girls on Path to Successful Future

By Jane St. Clair

Girls today are growing up in a more difficult and confusing environment than the one their mothers and fathers experienced:

• Television shows with overt adult and sexual themes are available all day long.
• More than half of today's girls are dieting by fourth grade.
• One in 20 teenage girls has sent nude or semi-nude pictures of herself via cellphone or Internet, often responding to pressure from a boyfriend to do so.

When it comes to alcohol, drug use and other types of unhealthy behaviors, the picture isn't much better:

• High school and even middle school girls tell researchers they can easily obtain any prescription or legal drug they want within an hour or two.
• Girls are now drinking as much and as often as boys do.
• Many are left home alone too often with too much time on their hands, allowing them ample opportunity to associate with the wrong peer group.

Parents of troubled teenage girls often do not know where to turn. Their daughter has challenged and defied them many times, sneaking out with the wrong friends, experimenting too young with sex, drugs, and alcohol, or she has simply given up. Her self-esteem has become so low that she is passive and uncommunicative. The parents worry that she might even hurt herself.

Thankfully, there is a place where parents can turn to provide their daughters -- and themselves -- with the guidance and professional assistance they need to achieve the healthy and productive lives they desire.

A Healthy Place for Girls

Copper Canyon Academy, located in beautiful Rimrock, Arizona, is a private boarding school that helps troubled teenage girls get back into a more wholesome lifestyle.

Copper Canyon Academy is a school designed just for girls, specializing in girls’ learning. It is a place where girls can act their age, get the giggles, ride a horse, explore the outdoors, get excited about learning, develop self-understanding and set new goals for themselves.

It is a place where girls are completely free to be themselves.

When students ages 13 to 17 years old come to Copper Canyon Academy, they are struggling with issues such as addictions, emotional disorders and learning problems. With an emphasis on care and compassion, staff members direct students toward values such as reliance, self-management, self-confidence and achievement, and help them recover from their emotional problems.

Innovative and Effective

Teenage girls naturally adore horses and dogs, so a part of the recovery program at Copper Canyon Academy involves working with animals. Animal Assisted Therapy is especially effective for troubled girls who may act hostile, oppositional or resistant, or who have attachment issues. Such girls can learn to love and trust again by allowing themselves first to trust and nurture an animal.

Horseback riding is just one of the many vigorous outdoor activities at Copper Canyon Academy that enable girls to reach their peaks of physical fitness. Regular exercise combined with structured times for sleep, classes, recreation, study and nutritious meals make the students feel better physically and improve their mental acuity and overall outlooks.

Success and Empowerment

Copper Canyon Academy offers a superior academic program accredited by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. The girls attend seminars designed to help them find new positive directions and enhance personal growth, and they undergo individual, group and family counseling.

Copper Canyon Academy offers the structure, rituals and fun of a traditional girls’ boarding school, combined with the specialized therapeutic support that can address their unique needs.

The academy takes girls out of their usual environments and gives them the chance to identify, address and ultimately overcome the obstacles that are preventing them from pursuing the future they both desire and deserve.