Carlbrook

[Nihilanthic]

Above post mine.  I keep getting logged out.

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[Nihilanthic]

I read aspens own study on this. They based the success rate on "less symptoms" of the kids who went. Charlie you mention your son came out with an appreciation for his family. Do you think that this was the only way he would have achieved this? does he? If you had no option to send him to an emotional growth school how do you think this might have been achieved?

My first (albeit emotional) reaction to that is "oh if he doesnt appreciate me I'll hurt them until they appreciate how I was!"

Coersion is not respect... a family over a torture-camp is not an accomplishment.

[Charly]

Oz Girl-  Neither my son nor we (parents) can envision how we could have repaired the family relationship without our son going away.  It just wasn't happening.  He didn't come out thinking we were the Cleavers, but he came out with an understanding of where we were coming from.  Part of this was the letters we sent to him in wilderness. He had nothing to do but process them and respond.  He would not even agree to converse with us while he was home.  He was acting out and depressed about getting kicked out of his school and some other things.  He was engaging in increasingly risky behaviors which I have finally learned to not air any further on the internet.  

A lot of the parents we met at both programs seemed like really good parents.  Some were not.  We were very willing to admit how and where we had massively screwed up with our parenting. That was some of the problem, but not all.  One family had a really young son at wilderness- 14 or so. He really looked up to my son.  He was the only one in the group who got to go home and not to some kind of program.  He was in and out of rehab and other programs for the next 2 1/2 years and still is.  The girl my son got busted with is still in and out of rehab and she is 21. She only lasted a semester in college.   So-I am by no means saying these programs have a high success rate.

[Nihilanthic]

You've yet to show if they would have not done as well as they are now without the program...

Coallation is NOT causation. That is a big part of science and psychotherapy.

Also, do you not see any moral or ethical problems with forcing someone to live in filth, outside in austere conditions getting his buttons pushed and force-exercised by people with stupid indian names to make him write to you?

Do you not see any sort of duress present in the letters to you while living through that kind of environment?

Why is HE the one in filth, eating shitty food, cold, forced exercised, and being emotionally pushed for your mistakes?

[psy]

I disagree, Nihil.  It was an important discovery for my son that he had cost himself something important- life with his family (even though a lot of it was at a boarding school).  It isn't a matter of the program's GOAL being to bring about that.  I am just stating facts as they pertain to MY kid and OUR situation.  I personally sat in groups at Carlbrook and heard kids say they would rather be at Carlbrook than with their families.

What the hell else could they say?  Would you expect a kid to sit there and say "i hate Carlbrook" in front of parents?  What do you think would happen to the kid?

In some cases it is true, in some cases it is not.  In my case (another cedu clone as you know) the program lied to us about our parents, telling us they "didn't want you back", that they didn't care.  They lied to the kids about what the parents said, did, and wanted, and lied to the parents about what the kids said, did, and wanted.

If a kid wanted to succeed, he had to speak positively about the program to his parents if he didn't, it was either "negative attitude" or "manipulations".  After enough time, workshops, punishments, bans (which is really cruel in all reality), etc etc etc... a kid gave in, telling his parents "i love it here, I need this place, they are saving me,  i messed up at first but now i realize bla bla bla I LOVE THE PROGRAM... WHEEE!!!".

At this point, the parents think "oh gee, my kid is really getting the help he needs" (and is willing to pay for as long as it  takes).  By manipulating the kid into telling his parents these things, they program holds a carrot on a stick, running the parents around in circles (and charging them for the stick rental.)

There were some really unfortunate family situations.  My son hated us and thought it wasn't worth following a few basic rules to live in our home.  

Another thing he learned was that it was OK to have (and show) feelings.  He had grown up keeping everything in until he "blew". That did not serve him well.  He didn't come out gushing with emotions, but he was a whole lot better than when he went in.  He learned this from other kids in the programs who he liked and respected. They were kids like him in many ways, and they were learning to express anger, fear, sadness and joy in healthy ways.  This worked for my kid.  I'm not saying it makes the program great and worth it.

So by dragging personal shit out in public in group, and forcing the kid to speak about his feelings, it makes him seem "open" while in program.  What happens after a while of being out?  Many shut off completely.  You feel like never trusting another person with your feelings after you were forced to disclose things like you did in program.

When we were faced with the decision on a program, we met a family in town who had a kid who had just graduated from Cascade. He had the same general profile as my son-  private school kid, no respect for authority of any kind, some substance use, defied all consequences.....  He was starting at University of Michigan.  There was little info out there about Carlbrook- it was pretty new.  I did talk to two local families with kids there and one person from ST who had a kid a lot like my son who got kicked out of C-brook.  

I didn't say Carlbrook helped school options (although it did) or peer issues.  I'm saying that is why coming home wasn't an option (my son's statement this week).  

My kid ONLY got into his next school because Carlbrook gave him the green light.  They didn't like doing it, but they did.  They could have told those schools what they really believed, which was that my son was a disaster and would corrupt their community and not succeed without finishing the C-brook program.

Couldn't the program have been sued if they did that?  It's my understanding that many employers rarely answer questions from a former employee's new job for this reason.  They merely state "he worked here from this time til this time"

What I see you saying, is that your son wasn't really helped by Carlbrook apart from his own introspection, and that he did fine after maturing a little.

Instead, the head guy crossed his fingers and let us go.  

You are going to be all over me for this, but I am a parent.  I knew my kid was ready to come out just as strongly as I knew he couldn't stay at home any longer when we sent him to wilderness.

Another thing to remember- even if parents were to be told there is only a 30% success rate- even if they are told the things you point out with statistics and studies- if there is a CHANCE your child will be helped- you are willing to take it.  This is why there needs to be options that are not abusive in any way and rely on proven therapeutic techniques.

Agreed.  If only those options could be as profitable...

It is hard for me to generalize, because what is right for a kid with a huge substance addiction is not right for a kid with anger and depression.

And yet they lump them all together in program and claim they can fix it all with the same techniques. (although they are careful to only imply (not state directly) that they can fix the problems... if they did it would make the program "therapeutic")

[psy]

he had cost himself

Why must you keep hanging on to this? Why?

It's another fact.  His parents did not get him kicked out of the school he loved so that he had to move away from the friends he loved. No one made him do the other things that led to a situation  where he had to be in a program against his will.

He  Cost Himself.    He does not dispute that at all.  It's a pretty obvious statement.

Did he dispute it before he was sent to wilderness?  Carlbrook?

[psy]

You've yet to show if they would have not done as well as they are now without the program...

Coallation is NOT causation. That is a big part of science and psychotherapy.

Also, do you not see any moral or ethical problems with forcing someone to live in filth, outside in austere conditions getting his buttons pushed and force-exercised by people with stupid indian names to make him write to you?

Actually, in her defense, i looked up the wilderness program her kid was at, and i couldn't find a single accusation of abuse anywhere.  That's really rare for wilderness.  From what she described the place actually seemed legit.

Do you not see any sort of duress present in the letters to you while living through that kind of environment?

Why is HE the one in filth, eating shitty food, cold, forced exercised, and being emotionally pushed for your mistakes?

[Nihilanthic]

Then please do explain to me how a nonconsentual 'wilderness experience' works without abuse. I'll listen!

[hanzomon4]

I do believe parents have options, I just think they lack the the patience to follow through with the more traditional therapies.. I'm not saying that's the case in your situation Charly but generally speaking parents want the fix him now option. However if a parent is looking for options they must realize that somethings are just not options.

Any unlicensed facility, that hires unqualified staff with the mandate of breaking the child down by using thought-reform or other abusive means is NoT an option. The danger of accepting any option thats presented is a major flaw in the desperate parent. You truly don't know who or what you're giving your child to, staffers could be sexual predators for all you know.... Just because someone says they're an option doesn't mean they are. We all know about various cons, from car mechanics to email scams. So how can we justify shipping our kids off to people who have no credentials just because it's an option, which it's not.

Look at it like this: If your child had cancer, and you had tried everything, and nothing worked. Would you allow a person with no credentials from a medical school give chemo therapy and preform surgery on your child just because it was the only option you hadn't tried?

[Charly]

Good question, psy.  He was so filled with anger and depression that he wouldn't really articulate it.  He did not dispute that his actions had, once again, resulted in him getting kicked out of a school.  However, he didn't think he could "help it" and resented that places ran out of patience with him.  He certainly did not agree that his actions got him to wilderness.  His first letter to us was all about what we had "done to him".  By week 6, he figured a lot of things out and was ready to come home (he thought).  Maybe he was, but we weren't ready for him. During his year away, he gained an appreciation for the need to follow rules in a community in order to remain part of that community.  This was the case at C-brook, of course, but more importantly, it is the case at all private schools, teams, jobs etc.  He learned to do a risk/benefit analysis before acting.  He convinced his father and me that if the type school he wanted to attend would give him a chance, he would not let them (or us) down.

[Nihilanthic]

Karen, what he did is called 'growing up', and people do that on their own. One thing, though, is the crux of why fornits and ST lock horns so much.

Maybe he was, but we weren't ready for him.

 :flame: Thats a very, very, very selfish and sick thing to say. You cant just dismiss your own flesh and blood (to a PROGRAM no less!) when you're not ready to be a parent, you don't have that option, you are the ADULT, he is the CHILD, is he not.

So, again, why was he in the sticks and then a program because of your parenting mistakes that you only generally admit to?

[Nihilanthic]

I'M not ready to deal with Karen!!

[psy]

Also, speaking from a little experience and a little education, trauma in general and the kind of bullshit a program does is not what a sane educuated PROFESSIONAL would ever do to help someone who can't 'feel feelings' or express them. What programs do is FORCE their disclosure, and that can be extremely traumatic and horrible for a lot of people to endure, and oftentimes is used as a vehicle to make them 'break down' moreso than some psycho-cryfest disclosure sob-party goal like most of the Erhard derived LGATs are.

Programs generally don't help kids to get in tough with their true feelings.  More often than not they tell kids what their feelings are, and drill it in until they believe it. (see LGATs)

Forcing someone to say what they feel about everything and disclose everything (and then hurting them for it one way or another, as well as telling them how they SHOULD feel...) is pretty similiar to punishing someone for hurting themself becuase they can't handle the suffering they're going through so they just hold it in.

This is not to even mention how traumatic it is to sit there and have to disclose every detail about your private life to the group (or else you are either hounded, or they disclose your details for you).  This is not to mention that after you disclose traumatic events, they re-interpret things for you, telling you how you felt, and why you were wrong.

Its control of your communication and your mind, control over what you can feel and express, and its not a good thing at all, its psychological quackery.

Programs are about as good for learning how to express yourself and feel feelings and confront them as ballgags are.

Arguably, ballgags are much less harmful in the long run.

[Nihilanthic]

Consentual ball-gagging is hardly bad, but explain the distinction to a programmie  :roll:

[psy]

I'M not ready to deal with Karen!!

Then chill and take a break for a while.  Seriously.

The way you help parents to empathize with program kids situations is by talking to them calmly.  I had to do this with my parents and they eventually came around to seeing things my way.  Karen is not so much of an anomaly as many people think.