The Impact of Chaos on Youth Development

Strict Structure as a Pathway to Growth: Lessons from Military Schooling and Crisis Nurseries

This editorial argues that highly structured environments characterized by strict rules, highly structured routines, high expectations, rewards, and consequences - akin to military schools - could benefit many schools struggling with student chaos and misbehavior. The rationale is that vulnerable youth, especially those from unstable homes, benefit developmentally and psychologically from external structure and control while they build critical self-regulation abilities. Intense regimens eliminate distractions, provide security, teach discipline, and focus attention. With disorder and ADHD on the rise, and bullying and fights increasing, schools may need a tough military-esque approach to instill order. Strictness serves as scaffolding until students can practice self-management. While intense control alone is oppressive, paired with care it can empower youth with skills to direct their lives. Thus, the article advocates that amid chaos in schools today, adopting military-style discipline could provide stability while readying students for self-control.

By Sean David Taylor M.Ed. 

As a cadet at a military high school, one of the core lessons we learned was attention to detail in even the smallest of actions - shining shoes, crisply making beds, marching in formation. While seemingly trivial tasks, they contributed to an environment of order, discipline, and routine. I would later discover similar climates in university ROTC programs and in an unexpected place: crisis nurseries for at-risk youth. These three environments on the surface appear drastically different - one training soldiers, one supporting families in crisis, and one educating teenagers. Yet they share in common a strictness and almost micromanaged control aimed to provide stability, safety, and growth for their populations.

Key points contrasting the current approach in many schools with the proposed military-style discipline:

- Many schools today have moved away from strict discipline towards a warm, nurturing environment focused on positivity, encouragement, and avoiding anything too harsh. 

- This "rainbows and cupcakes" approach centers on creating a happy, magical place for students filled with affirmation and praise. The goal is to surround kids with unconditional love and acceptance.

- However, this extremely lenient environment often fails to provide the structure and accountability students need to build critical self-management abilities. Without clear expectations, consequences, and regimentation, children lack external discipline to shape their conduct.

- The result can be students who become entitled, struggle with self-control, and never learn personal responsibility. The warm, nurturing approach fails to scaffold youth towards exercising mature self-direction.

- In contrast, the proposed military school-inspired model would provide orderly structure, firm expectations, rewards and punishments, focused attention, and regimented routine. This strictness gives students the external control they require to eventually master self-regulation.

- So while the current "rainbows and cupcakes" model aims for a positive climate, it may neglect the real psychological benefits of strict discipline in facilitating student development. The argument suggests schools blend care with the kind of intensity characteristic of military education.

In this paper, I draw from my experiences as a cadet to explore the sociology and pedagogy behind highly structured environments, arguing they provide critical foundations of security and skill-building necessary before one can successfully take on risk and responsibility. I examine the need for control and order particularly among vulnerable populations with chaotic backgrounds, how strict expectations coupled with clear rewards and punishments shape behaviors and mindsets, and why ultimately structure enables self-management and self-control. While intense regimens of rules could be viewed as oppressive, they are often deemed essential by leaders and educators to prepare their populations for success.

The Impact of Chaos on Youth Development

In my volunteer work at a crisis nursery, I was struck by the militaristic atmosphere. Children whose parents were incarcerated or abusive were regimented throughout the day. The strict schedule included march-like transitions between activities, firm consequences for acting out, and zero tolerance for deviations from rules. I questioned the nursery supervisor as to why such rigidity seemed necessary. Her response reflected an understanding of the psychology of the youth served. Most children arrived at the nursery from backgrounds of chaos. Absent or abusive parents and households provided no stability, model of discipline, or sense of security in their lives. The crisis nursery therefore had to provide the order and control absent in the home. High external structure served as a surrogate parent, shaping and molding the children’s conduct until they could one-day exercise self-control.

Research in developmental psychology supports this approach. According to studies, chaotic households with no routine or guidance can severely disrupt youth development. Disorder undermines a child’s emerging sense of security, identity, and competency (Evans et al, 2005). Youth may fail to learn self-regulation and instead develop impulsivity, attention problems, and aggression (Vernon-Feagans et al, 2016). Strictness provides what their environment lacks. Order and routine facilitate cognitive growth and emotional regulation (Fiese et al 2002). Clear expectations and consequences aid youth in internalizing rules and monitoring their own behavior (Kochanska et al, 2001). External control instills discipline until youth can practice self-discipline.

The Science Behind Strict Structures

Why are regimented environments so crucial for vulnerable youth who lack order at home? Psychology and neuroscience studies have illuminated several reasons. First, routine and predictability fulfill a basic human need for security and allow youth to feel safe enough to explore, learn, and develop a sense of competency (Moore et al, 2002). Clear expectations provide guidance on how to think and act until youth have sufficiently internalized rules. Repetition and practice aid in developing automaticity in meeting expectations (Logan 1985). Strict cause-effect linkages between behaviors and negative consequences help shape conduct through principles of operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938). Rewards for compliance versus punishments for defiance provide clarity and shape patterns of actions. Such clarity allows youth to make sense of guidelines and facilitates self-monitoring (Bandura, 1991). Finally, the intensity of military-style regimens may work by focusing attention. Youth must concentrate on immediate behaviors versus being distracted by disorders in their external environment or internal state (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). In total, highly structured systems provide external control necessary to develop youth’s eventual self-control. They compensate for chaos and allow the mastery of skills requisite for success. As the nursery supervisor aptly noted, without order, vulnerable youth are left without a model for discipline.

Parallels in Military Education

The theories behind intensive structure were clearly manifested in my military school education. Though we cadets came from relatively stable homes, the regimented system served similar purposes - facilitating attention, discipline, order, skill acquisition, and eventual empowerment. Our days were scheduled to the minute with strict protocols dictating everything from marching, to cleaning, to dress. Through repetitive practice, expectations for precision and perfection became engrained. Rewards like promotions and privileges, combined with sanctions for failures like demerits and detention, shaped our conduct. We learned to monitor our own actions and take pride in living up to ideals. The intensity of the system focused our minds and eliminated distractions. Like those at the crisis nursery, we were being trained in skills needed for later life through external control.

And the parallels extended beyond my high school JROTC years. In ROTC at the university level, I witnessed a similarly strict climate. Cadets arose early for intense physical training. Their days continued with challenging military science classes, leadership seminars, and field exercises. A merit/demerit system enforced expectations for performance and discipline. Exacting standards and micromanagement again aimed to ingrain critical skills and prepare cadets cognitively and attitudinally for military preparedness (Sookermany, 2012). Those who initially struggle under the intensity are shaped over time into focused, responsible leaders adept in skills like strategic decision-making, stress management, and crisis response (Matthew et al, 2009). For both populations, intense structure provides essential scaffolding.

The Path from External Control to Self-Management

Importantly, neither military schools nor crisis nurseries intend regimentation to be permanent. Rather, they employ external control with the end goal of developing internal control. Concerns over strictness are valid if the system is oppressive or persists indefinitely. However, in these settings, it constitutes an initial phase. Young children and adolescents cannot leapfrog directly to exercising mature self-management. They must transition incrementally from dependence to independence (Steinberg, 2015). In the military, for instance, initial training aims to ensure basic discipline and skill competence considered prerequisites before personnel can handle risk and responsibility (Sookermany, 2012). Once adequately prepared, service members are then empowered to show initiative, make rapid decisions, and lead others. They graduate to directing operations with supervision transitioning to mentorship and guidance versus micromanagement (Matthews et al, 2009). Structure enables freedom.

Similarly, crisis nurseries loosen control as children internalize coping skills and self-regulation. Initial intensive structure does not reflect a permanent belief in the inadequacy of youth. Rather, it functions as a psychological prosthetic until youth can exercise agency on their own (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Once equipped with skills like self-control, planning, and confidence in their competence, they are freer to take on increased autonomy. The goal is always to eventual self-empowerment.

Implications for Education and Youth Services

For young people facing the chaos of adverse home environments, strictness serves a vital purpose. The psychological need for order and security is met through external structure until youth can assume responsibility for themselves. For those already possessing inner regulation, intensive systems impart critical skills and focus to enable leadership. In education, schoolwide implementation of strict discipline practices has been a controversial topic given concerns about becoming too militaristic. However, my experiences aligned with psychological research suggest clear benefits for youth facing conditions of disorder. Regimen and control provide the stability to allow students to feel safe, learn missing skills like self-control, and focus on their progress versus dysfunction around them. Such intense scaffolding appears necessary in the short-term to empower youth in the long run with the tools for success. Of course, strictness must be balanced with care and support. Yet paired together, order and nurturance allow youth to gain the inner strength to direct their own lives. In the end, that is the goal of all good parenting, education, and youth development - equipping the leaders of tomorrow through the thoughtful structure of today.