Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parent

[Anonymous]

Oh my god you commie!  I can't believe you actually expect parents to parent their own kids!
Ummm, that would mean the ed-con artists would have to tell parents the truth:  If you have to send your kid away then YOU ARE A BIG FUCKING FAILURE AS A PARENT!!!!!  I mean who is going to pay $5,000 a month to hear that?

[shanlea]

I put off ordering it for a looong time.  I am only at page 34 and I am so sickened... So much reminds me of what happened at CEDU. Part of the reason I am so angry is that it is still widespread and public awareness is so small.  I am glad this book is out; But I would like to see it incorporated in a visual medium. I hope this trickle becomes a flood.

It is already bringing up such rage and anger toward the people who perpetrated this... And I also just realized that the program had a more traumatic impact on me then some trauma I dealt with at a young age.  That trauma was straightforward; this was insidious and made me lose sight of what was acceptable human behavior.  It basically validated abuse by making the lines unclear. If your parents and pastors send you to a place where you are psychologically, emotionally, verbally, and in some places, physically abused, and you are told it's love and therapy--how the fuck do you ever figure out what real love and therapy (which I'm skeptical of) is?

The truth is that I bear more scars from the program than from any experience prior to that. It messed up my relational boundaries in a way that I only recently discovered.  

I'm an educator now and I found out one of my students was sent to a similar program. Basically for being a normal kid. He has a wonderful attitude about life and his mistakes.  He is an involved teenaged father who works his ass off at work and school, and his religious zealot parents shipped him off to a school that uses Jesus Christ to shame him. He is already so convinced of his sinfulness (basically for having premarital sex and then doing it again!), he went away willingly...

I felt so helpless. (Just like I felt when I was dropped off for the first time.)  I couldn't, in my professional capacity, say anything overt, but I begged the parents to please look at all the fora available on this program before sending him away. But to them, anything with JC in its Mission Statement is A-OK.

I feel like I had finally put the lid on this can of worms,and they all popped out again.

[Deborah]

Thanks Shanlea. I always appreciate your perspective.
I felt bad too when a neighbor sent her son to Skyline Journey where he was killed. How do you begin to address this with people? Was I too soft in my description of wilderness programs? But, if I had been too strong she might've had the same reaction.
Good wishes for your student.