Prince Charles says: "Initiation ceremonies good"

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Prince Charles claims 'initiation ceremonies are good for teenagers'

Prince Charles says a return to the ways of primitive societies by introducing an initiation ceremony for adolescents would help them grow up.

He argues that challenging and even dangerous experiences are what adolescents respond to best.

Charles says there is nothing better than facing challenges for guiding teenagers through the difficult change into adulthood. His son, Prince William, made a gap year expedition to South America.

Speaking at the Prince's Trust Civil Service Recognition Awards in St James's Palace, Prince Charles said they benefit from being given some sort of responsibility for helping others.

"We need to find a way of reintroducing what so-called primitive societies had, which was an initiation ceremony which marked the transition between childhood and adulthood - that very difficult phase which we all have to go through," he said.

"We need to mark it by providing people with extra challenges and adventures and opportunities."

Charles said many problems facing Britain's youth could be eased by fostering the idea of community service with an expansion of the work carried out by groups like the Prince's Trust.

Holding young offenders in youth detention centres was not always the best way to tackle these issues, he claimed.

"I still believe that we could play a very important role in terms of dealing with some of the problems that are now facing this country - crime, disorder, anti-social behaviour. I still believe that very often the answer can lie in alternatives to custodial sentences."

Charles underlined the value of the work of the Prince's Trust in giving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds "some belief in themselves which they have never had before" and showing them "that somebody cares about them, very often for the first time in their lives".

Story filed: 06:57 Tuesday 30th April 2002