The BIG Conduct Disorder Myth

[Anonymous]

http://forum.conductdisorders.com/ubbcg ... 7;t=000993

Note the way the parents sign their posts, labeling their kids with one conduct disorder after another.

IMO, this is sick, twisted and very very scary.

Also, some of the whiney, overly controlling parents sound just like the parents on Struggling Teens.  Wonder if they bounce back and forth?

[Anonymous]

Check out this thread.  A dad looking for advice on how to find a residential treatment program for his son who just finished the pre-requisite wilderness therapy experience.

And so it goes .... parents helping other parents follow the yellow brick road.


http://forum.conductdisorders.com/ubbcg ... 7;t=000969

[OverLordd]

::sighs:: another sick forum just like ST its really disturbing how they talk behind their kids back to complete strangers.

[Antigen]

Well, right in the first couple of posts in that thread someone recomends ST. If you look at the domain contact info, you find...
Administrative Contact:
      Paci, Fran  capfrag@aol.com
      5308 Seascape Lane
      Plano, TX  75093

Who's that?

If you think about why you hate me, you might find that it's not me.
--Antigen

[Anonymous]

My son went to a secure (locked) long-term (he was there 10 months until his 18th birthday, but could have stayed longer if they or we thought he should) dual-diagnostic (psych and substance abuse) RTC.

 :eek:

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-07 09:30:00, Antigen wrote:

"Well, right in the first couple of posts in that thread someone recomends ST. If you look at the domain contact info, you find...

Administrative Contact:

      Paci, Fran  capfrag@aol.com

      5308 Seascape Lane

      Plano, TX  75093



Who's that?

If you think about why you hate me, you might find that it's not me.
--Antigen

"

Be careful what you post, Karen might sue you!  :lol:

[Truth Searcher]

OK.  So who is to blame?  The parent for believing what the medical profession is telling them?  "Your child has a conduct disorder.  He must be medicated into oblivion."  Or is is the medical professionals who are simply giving parents what they ask for?  A label.  A prescription to "fix" the problem.  Or is it a societal problem?

Gosh.  I wish I had such simplistic answers.  I know that we were told by professionals that "your daughter is depressed, manic, borderline.  Here is a scrip for her every ill".  I'm glad that I didn't buy into it.  However, I do have a child who would like to pop a pill for everything from weight loss, to acne, to a good nights sleep.  I don't know where she gets this, but I do know it is difficult to get her to understand that losing weight requires cutting calories and exercising.  That acne requires taking good care of her skin consistently.  

So yes we do tend to slap labels on our kids.  It is wrong.  I think many kids take their label as their identity.  A terrible obstacle to overcome.
But, again, whose to blame.  And more importantly, how do we change it?[ This Message was edited by: Truth Searcher on 2005-09-07 11:29 ]

[Antigen]

Searcher, I think this sums it up: "From the bottom of any large organization looking up through the ranks, human greed and stupidity look a lot like a conspiracy."
--S. Gilbert

Or, to put it another way, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I think we're in one hell of a fix as a civilization. And the troubled parent industry, especially in it's most horrible excesses, is just one outcropping of that.

I passed on the idea of trying to identify and punish the guilty a long time ago. I don't think it would be any more apropriate or productive than, say, punishing every pediatrician who ever bullied a young mother to bottle feed their child or administer aspirin at the first sign of low grade fever. This kind of advice, though tragic in some cases and just sadly but mildly harmful in most, were commonly accepted wisdom; supported by well... damned near everyone at the time.

I think we just need to take a step back as a society and reexamine much of the prevailing wisdom on every issue. One of them (just one, but it's a biggie) is the basic concept that human kind needs professional help in raising our offspring. That's a rediculous notion, of course. But, well, it's been long accepted and so will take a good long while to overturn.


 

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  
-- Ethiopian Proverb

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-07 11:56:00, Antigen wrote:

"Searcher, I think this sums it up: "From the bottom of any large organization looking up through the ranks, human greed and stupidity look a lot like a conspiracy."

--S. Gilbert



Or, to put it another way, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."



I think we're in one hell of a fix as a civilization. And the troubled parent industry, especially in it's most horrible excesses, is just one outcropping of that.



I passed on the idea of trying to identify and punish the guilty a long time ago. I don't think it would be any more apropriate or productive than, say, punishing every pediatrician who ever bullied a young mother to bottle feed their child or administer aspirin at the first sign of low grade fever. This kind of advice, though tragic in some cases and just sadly but mildly harmful in most, were commonly accepted wisdom; supported by well... damned near everyone at the time.



I think we just need to take a step back as a society and reexamine much of the prevailing wisdom on every issue. One of them (just one, but it's a biggie) is the basic concept that human kind needs professional help in raising our offspring. That's a rediculous notion, of course. But, well, it's been long accepted and so will take a good long while to overturn.





 

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  
-- Ethiopian Proverb

"

What's hard for me to understand is why the baby-boomer parents are buying into the criminalization/medicalization of adolescence?  Not all of them, but enough to help the industry  grow from just 30-40 programs a decade ago to over 400 today.

What's wrong with these people that they see nothing wrong with paying somebody to kidnap their kid and force them into one of these hellcamps?

Speaking of hell, these parents are part of the Viet Nam era ... "HELL NO WE WON'T GO ... don't trust anybody over 30" generation and yet they march their kids off to these facilities that treat them like P.O.W.'s.

What I hope and pray for is that the generation of youth (now adults) who survived these hellcamps will continue to speak out against the teen help industry.  The former Straight, Seed, KHK parents who post on Fornits and maintain their own websites are all helping to build critical mass, along with the new generation of cult programs (WWASPS, CEDU, etc).  You are all the unsung heroes.

 :nworthy:

[Anonymous]

Public Enemy #1 is C.H.A.D.D.

This massively funded organization has close ties to the pharmaceutical industry and appears to be very proactive in perpetuating the big conduct disorder myth (A.D.D.)

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-07 12:27:00, Anonymous wrote:

What's wrong with these people that they see nothing wrong with paying somebody to kidnap their kid and force them into one of these hellcamps?

I think that's the $64Bn question. Why? While we're at it, why do these same people accept the obvious bullshit that an active, high energy kid is disordered? That bordom w/ a school curriculum that has been steadily dumbed down over the years is indicative of disorder? That rebellion against our ever more restrictive demands on kids to behave in a professional, adult, dispassionate, conformist manner are all signs of disorder.

Worse? How come so many of these yuppies will entheusiastically endorse and support the DARE cop w/ their fear mongering about methamphetamine while forcing their own kids to swollow Desoxyn,
Amphedroxyn, Desfedrin, Methedrine, Norodin, Syndrox, Edroxine, Methampex, etc. (which are all brand names for Methamphetamine Hydrochloride)

The question boils down to this; why are we so fucking stupid and gullible? How did we get this way? How do we turn it around and get people to wake the hell up and start thinking again?

Maybe we just have to wait until enough people have been directly effected by these high demand cults so that the rest of them will know the deal and know better than to buy into their bullshit. Or maybe not. Maybe it's end differently. Maybe the next generation will be so entirely inane and mindless as to follow the next generation's leaders right over a cliff like lemmings, leaving the smarter ones to rebuild society as they see fit.

Sorry, it's frustrating. Why would anyone buy into these obvious lies? Don't know, really. But they do.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
--Thomas Paine

[Truth Searcher]

So, does ADD exist?  Or do kids just need to get out of the house and run and play in the neighborhood and burn off that extra energy?

Do conduct disorders truly exist?  Or are kids acting out for parental approval and attention because parents are too caught up in a materialist culture?

Do personality disorder actually exist?  Or are kids messed up who have been institutionalized since birth?  

Are we too quick to allow ourselves to be victims and not take responsibility for our actions?  Do other countries have such alarming rates of medicating their children and do their doctors ship them off to psychiatrists and institutions when things go haywire?

Rhetorical questions I know, but I do desire to understand the big picture...

[Truth Searcher]

That boredom w/ a school curriculum that has been steadily dumbed down over the years is indicative of disorder? That rebellion against our ever more restrictive demands on kids to behave in a professional, adult, dispassionate, conformist manner are all signs of disorder.

Antigen~
Please expound your thinking on this.  You have described my daughter to a T.  HATES, HATES, HATES school.  Is currently doing the Gothic thing.  Complete with gaged ears, black hair, funky cut, lotsa, lotsa black.  She says she wears black because there isn't anything darker.   :smile:  

I am trying desperately to understand.  I am trying to stay supportive and connected.  I know that parents have never understood their adolescents.  I thought I was going to be one of those parents who could identify with her daughter.  But, I confess I am struggling to do so.

[Antigen]

Well, I think it's not true that parents have never understood their adolescent kids. Generally, they do. It seems to be just the post industrial age where we have this problem. And I think it's largely just misconception.

What's the difference, really, between today's gothic black and, say, disco, roller skates and Farah Fawcett "wings"? Or, to go back a step, poodle skirts and bobby socks and the shocking (shocking!) way in which that Elvis boy thrust his hips on stage?

Back one more generation, how many young men joined the French Foreign Legion and came back home w/ Syphilis? Remember that, before we knew about AIDS, there were other deadly, incurable diseases. And young people were just as likely then as now to go out for some risks and adventure.

Yeah, I thought I was always going to be my oldest daughter's bestes friend too. Rude awakening, huh? But that's life. Kids grow up and need their independence. I think we used to just accept it better. But that doesn't necessarily mean it was actually any easier.

One bit of advice; just something to check into as a lot of ppl just don't know about it. If your kid is really bored w/ school and rejecting the more humiliating aspects of it, there are other options. To start with, you can probably just send a letter of intent to the local school district and declare yourself the supervisor of her very own home education program. In most states, there's not much more to it than that.

What you and she do from there is wide open. If she's accademically inclined, she can probably kill some time wracking up some college credits at the local community college. If she's more hands on, maybe a part time job would be better. Or maybe she'd like to go do some serious volunteer work of some kind.

http://libertarianrock.com/ always has some good ideas. And here's a good book that just sort of explains the situation and offers another viewpoint from that professed by professional educators.
http://www.lowryhousepublishers.com/Tee ... ndbook.htm

From my pov, you really can't blame a kid for being unhappy w/ the state of things in most of our school system. But it's one thing to just be resigned to unhappiness. It's quite another to get some practice at dealing w/ the problem like an adult and actually do something better w/ her time and energy. Or, maybe, stay right in the thick of it and do something worthwhile to try and improve the situation?

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid
of the dark. The real tragedy of life is
when men are afraid of the light.
--Plato

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Apostate 10/82 -
Anonymity Anonymous

[OverLordd]

Is currently doing the Gothic thing. Complete with gaged ears, black hair, funky cut, lotsa, lotsa black. She says she wears black because there isn't anything darker.

Hmm thats cool. I have a thing for goth girls. I have dated alot of them.  :smile:

They are generally fun people with a great imagination when you get to know them.