On 2005-12-05 10:13:00, Anonymous wrote:
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On 2005-12-04 21:36:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Quoted from above: some kids are going to need Residential Treatment or Schools, -END
This is like saying some wives need to be abused."
No its not, all the person is saying is not all kids are the same some need treatment others dont, just like anything else there are people at both ends of the spectrum, everyone needs something different,just the way it is.
Sorry you relate this to violence in the home, hope this isnt something you are living with, or have experienced yourself."
I have bipolar disorder. Sometimes people with what I've got need to be hospitalized or institutionalized. Whether we're children, teens, or adults.
It's not unusual for us to go through periods in our lives where we are immediately dangerous to ourselves and others. How long we stay that way depends on how well we respond to medication, and if we respond physically, how well we comply with taking it.
As a daughter in law of a woman with bipolar disorder, a grand-niece of another, a cousin of another, a parent of another, and having it myself, I know hospitalization and institutionalization are absolute last resorts.
Almost all of the parents I see show up on Fornits are so far away from needing that last resort it's painful, and they start trying to jump the gun straight to institutionalizing their child because the programs make it sound like that's not *exactly* what they're doing. The programs make themselves sound easy and foolproof and like cures. They make them sound like you're just going to spend a big but limited amount of money and your kid is going to come home healthy and be the beautiful, healthy teen you envisioned when you were holding your beautiful baby.
Almost none of these parents has completed the gamut of pre-institutionalization options, most of which are there because they usually *work*. Or their expectations are unrealistic.
The very few who *have* gone through all the pre-institutionalization steps are frequently not looking at the right kind of institution for their kid's needs. And have let the institution they're looking at sell them an impossibly rosy picture of the results they'll get.
If you get a model kid back out of an institution, the kid didn't need to be there in the first place. You could have gotten more good with less harm by a less severe option than an institution.
If your kid really *needs* to go in an institution, when you get her back out, she's still going to be severely mentally screwed up for most of her life. To the point of needing to be on full social security disability, which they don't give out easily. Or to be doing good to be barely hanging on to a paying job most of her life, while always needing significant supportive care from family. If your kid is *not* incurably ill, your kid is *not* sick enough to need to be institutionalized.
Hospitalizations, short-term drug rehab, day-hospitalization programs offered by hospitals in the community that allow the patient to live at home and stay at home after the parents get home from work and on weekends, short term commitment---those are what you need (if you need anything) if your child is not incurably, severely, dangerously, life-long mentally ill--the minority that is the most ill of the most ill with extremely bad cases of bipolar or schizophrenia.
Outpatient therapy of some sort is what you need if your kid's life is in danger not from being suicidal or homicidal, but from bad lifestyle choices. Rehab if there is an actual drug dependency rather than casual abuse.
Juvie is what you need if your kid is a criminal. You need to not rescue your kid from juvie, or institutionalize your kid on your own someplace harsher than juvie (like the programs). You need to let the kid experience exactly the same society-run consequences as a kid in the ghetto for his criminal behavior. You need your criminal kid to learn the lesson that *society* will spank them and doesn't give a crap who their mommy or daddy is. Otherwise the kid can just blame it all off on bad ol' mom and dad. A lot of criminal kids will stay criminal. Letting them go through the full juvie process right off, with a lawyer to make sure they get justice instead of railroaded, is their best chance to learn from their mistakes and eventually become a law-abiding adult.
The Programs all take the attitude towards suicides and psychiatric casualties that you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
If you go through the full, correct order of all the steps before institutionalization of your child or teen, even if you do everything right your kid could still end up a broken egg.
At least if you go through all the steps instead of jumping straight to a Program, you have *less* of a chance of getting a broken egg.
That's my personal opinion.
Julie
