Great post, anon. I think I can explain some of this to you.
On 2005-10-20 14:40:00, Anonymous wrote:
All I know is that anyone who is out there profiting from this industry is sick, in my book, because the industry is sick as a whole.
Yeah, but most of them really don't know it. Like any good zealot, they think they're the nobel martyrs in this story.
I still don't get how a parent can fall for this, I just can't. I'm a parent and I have never gone a day without talking to my child. I can't imagine that anyone on earth could convince me it would be a good idea to let someone, a total stranger, completely control every aspect of my child's life, force me to go to seminars, and not allow me to even speak to my child. Nothing in me believes that could be a good thing, nothing.
Really? Do you plan on sending your kids to school? Granted, it's not 24/7 or thousands of miles away. And you can, if you sign in at the office, check in on your kids in class whenever you wish. But they also take great liberties w/ telling other people's children how to view the world, what is and isn't important, how to think and behave, etc. It seems perfectly normal to us now--everybody did it, everybody does it. But it's really just a matter of degrees. When mandatory schooling first made it's entrée on the American scene, there were riots. Some kids were actually taken from their homes at gunpoint by authorities over the protests of weeping parents.
There's been a gradual shift from total faith and fidelity in family more toward faith and fidelity to various other authorities; the state, the professionals, daytime talkshows modeled after encounter groups for just a few examples. But it is just a matter of degrees. Some are further along down that path than others.
As to the seminars, why that's not a bug, it's a feature! LOL. Really, I cringe whenever I read some well intended person suggest that what this industry needs is
more parent involvement! That's exactly how they sell the seminars; as extra bonus treatment for the whole family, and all included in the price of tuition. I've read many times that they really don't emphasise the mandatory seminar completion till they've got one in the chair already and looking toward the door before a very biased and potentially hostile audience of peers.
I don't have time to keep writing right now but I am disappointed that our society has gotten to this point, that parents can't even feel empowered to parent their own children, that they think they have to turn them over to someone else for help.
Yeah, me too. But I think this is like a lot of other problems that we face today; an unintended consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Luddite! I think there are plenty of good and valuable technologies and philosophies coming to us from the Greatest Generation. But the law of unintended consequences dictates that, in order to settle the estate, we have sort the good and valuable from the worthless and destructive and try to improve on their work.
Parents, if your child is out of control or if you feel life is out of control, try seeking some good counseling and try talking to your child. The thing is with teens you need to listen, to find common ground, to spend time on their level, their interests, you'd be surprised.
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Yeah, about that. All good advice, but one more thing. Very important! Don't check your skepticism at the therapist's door! Listen to what they say, tell them only as much as you're comfortable confiding in them, and think for yourself about whether or not they're making any sense. There are still 'family therapists' out there who identify strongly w/ Dr. Phil. I know there are a couple, at least, still refering people to Straight, Inc. spin offs.
Every man has a property in his own person.
This nobody has any right to but himself.
The labor of his body and the work of his
hands are properly his.
--John Locke
