Two tents for therapy

ABC's Brat Camp asks an interesting question. Can teens exiled to the wilderness for a couple of months really stop being lying, scheming, thieving little druggies?

I watched the two-hour opener of this docu-reality show with one eyebrow raised. Would it be Real World Goes Walkabout? Road Rules with More Rules?

By the end I was surprised at how engaging it all was. The kids in this thing really are the dregs of teendom. But they have their reasons. Pasts full of sexual abuse, emotional trauma, parental splits and more grief than any 14-year-old needs. The clips of their parents have that American Gothic feel -- mom and dad standing side by side, blinking straight into the camera lens. You can read in their faces the confusion and exhaustion of dealing with their awful kids. The moms cry. The dads look stoic and kind of disengaged.

In this episode we met the counselors at Sage Walk, the wilderness camp in Oregon. Each has an "earth name" like Little Running Bear or Mountain Wind. The kids are ID'd on the TV screen as "habitual runaway," "hyperactive," "compulsive liar" and "habitually violent."

I kept thinking, what words would they stick under my face? "Cranky old bat." "Chronic carbaholic."

By the end of Brat Camp, you know you'll see tears, redemption and hugs. These things are predictable.

But along with A&E's excellent series Intervention, Brat Camp shows a pretty gritty look at the secret lives of real American families.