On 2006-02-15 15:33:00, Anonymous wrote:
" You make very good points. Hopefully you can stop a lot of kids from staying in this type of environment. I do know how it feels to be on the other side and I wanted to point that out. It appears maybe with Alex. He was escorted right?
Then he wasn't willing to go. So none of these places would help. That is how they get most parents to go with the program. I did google the school that is how I researched it after calling a teen hotline. I didn't find this site or anything bad. Someone that I worked with brought this forum to my attention. I am not even sure how she found it. When I googled Spring Creek Lodge I found nothing bad.
Denise"
According to the people who know him who have posted here, Alex agreed that he needed to get sober, and he wanted to get sober.
He wanted an outpatient drug rehab, which suggests he would have been willing to negotiate reasonably on a reputable inpatient drug rehab.
My child has pediatric bipolar disorder. Like other children with PBD she can very often be oppositional and defiant. She is less so with me, because I hit on the methods of handling opposition and defiance correctly, in the way the experts on ODD (which she doesn't have) recommend.
When I told her therapist how I handle her when she gets oppositional, the therapist held up a book on ODD and said, "Interesting that you should say that, because that's exactly how the experts recommend parents cope with that problem."
When a kid is oppositional, their brain is "stuck." It's all locked up, like a rusted lock or badly tangled hair. It's extremely counter-productive to force it. If you force a rusted lock, your key breaks off in it. If you insist on yanking a comb through bad tangles in long hair, they snarl up so bad you can rip out whole hunks of hair, or have to cut the knot out of the hair.
What you do with an oppositional kid is you get them to agree that they would rather not have whatever problem they have. Whether it's behavior or bad grades or interpersonal problems or whatever. A good parent only wants to alter a child's behavior for the child's good, anyway. All you have to do is gently and kindly appeal to the child's self interest to help the kid realize they would be happier without the hassle of whatever problem it is.
Then you make yourself the child's ally in fixing the problem. You solicit the child's ideas on how to fix the problem. After all, it doesn't matter whose idea it was as long as the problem gets fixed. You don't reject the child's ideas out of hand or put them down by flat telling them that won't work. You don't go into opposition yourself and lock heads with the child.
Instead, you talk through the possibilities of the child's suggested solutions and use them as a starting point to negotiate a workable approach.
The parent also has to be open to the possibility that the child won't see whatever it is as a problem even after discussion, and has to pick their battles carefully. If on minor things the child and parent can reason together and the parent always respects and sometimes accepts the child's point of view, then when the parent picks an issue that they just have to go to the mat on, the child is much more tractable. It has to be reason, not wheedling.
"I wish you'd do this differently, and I know you don't see it as a problem. Truly, this one issue is not that big a deal. We can try this your way and come back to it if it starts causing bigger problems. Is that a deal?" If the child is reluctant to make a deal, "Hey, you've got a victory. If I were you, I'd take it and quit while you're ahead."
When you make yourself the child's ally, when you quit trying to force it, you win on the big things. Even if you do have to take something to the mat and force the issue because you can't agree and it's a battle you have to win--because it's one of the *big* issues--if you have a long established habit of being your child's ally, your child gives in easier and gets over it quicker.
Alex had already agreed that he had a problem, that he wanted to correct the problem, and that he needed professional help to do it.
Wanting an outpatient problem was a heaven-sent opening to negotiate with him and persuade him that a *quality* inpatient rehab was a better idea.
If the parents had found three quality, supportive, inpatient rehab facilities, with programs of reasonable duration--three weeks intensive, minimum, to 100 days or less at a more measured pace--and let him pick from the three, he would have gone for it. That's the way kids work. If he had still been reluctant to go for it, then sit him down in front of Google and let him look around for a comparable inpatient facility that would take him that he liked better.
A three week intensive inpatient program that then followed up with the outpatient care he wanted would have been entirely reasonable. Three weeks of intensive inpatient care can do a *lot*---far more than most people would think. That's provided they're followed with outpatient care that takes rehab out to the longer 90 day or so duration.
They could have *easily* gotten this kid to buy into a three week intensive program and then the outpatient program he wanted as long as he stayed clean. They could have hedged their bets by getting him to agree, in advance, to a specific three month inpatient program *if* he went to the three week intensive and then didn't stay clean and sober on the outpatient program he wanted.
All they had to do was be reasonable.
As the situation stands now, the best thing they could do would be to pull him out and say, "Son, you were right, we were wrong, the outpatient care you want is a better choice as long as you can stay sober on it. This place is not a reputable rehab and was a huge mistake." Say it, be sincere, and mean it. "I'm sure you are confident of your success in that outpatient program or you wouldn't have picked it. We really want you to succeed at that, just like we know you are determined to succeed. Son, we've been in touch with *reputable* experts, not these bozos. They tell us long-term drug rehab is hard. We think you'll succeed, but because it's so hard, you need a backup plan--but not one with sadistic, power-tripping quacks." Wait for that to sink in.
"The inpatient rehabs adults use---adults who can leave any time they want if the treatment isn't what was advertised---have proven track record. Doesn't that make sense, since the adults can leave any time if they're with quacks. The *adult* rehabs don't have to tell family members to ignore allegations of abuse, because they're not run by abusive quacks." Wait for that to sink in.
"Strictly for a backup if *you* decide outpatient isn't helping you, we've gotten a list of *reputable* inpatient rehabs that serve primarily adults of all ages, not just young adults. People who can leave if it's a bad place. The particular ones we've got will also take an almost-adult like you. The decision of whether outpatient was working or not would be totally your call, as long as you were still attending outpatient. That's because we know we made a huge judgment error, and frankly, son, you couldn't choose much worse than we did." Wait for that to sink in. The parents *did* make a huge judgment error, and to get Alex to listen, they're going to have to eat loads of humble pie over it.
"You need a backup plan, but if you decide to use it, it would always be your choice if you wanted to call and have us come get you. The adult rehab facilities don't keep patients from making a phone call to leave. We want you to pick out one of these *reputable* adult inpatient rehabs so that if *you* discover outpatient isn't enough to support your sobriety, you have a backup plan waiting. For your backup plan, if there's an inpatient rehab not on the list that you would prefer, that's okay, too. It couldn't cost a bazillion dollars, but most reputable rehabs are comparable cost or less than what we were paying these quacks." Wait for that to sink in.
"Son, you're old enough now to take responsibility for your own sobriety. We just know you wouldn't be able to afford rehab on your own and want you to know that we'll support you and cover the costs of what you decide I want you to get and keep your sobriety. We made a terrible judgment call, so now, as long as you're going *somewhere* to help you with sobriety, we're going to go with *your* judgment calls about where and how."
If he relapses, the parents might have to ask him to move out so they don't enable the addiction, but they should let him know that helping him out with the costs of rehab is a standing offer.
He may be totally resistant to treatment when they go get him, because they have really screwed up and he'll be rightly paranoid about treatment.
The very best thing the parents can do to get him to go into and stay in *reputable* treatment is to make themselves his ally and recognize that whatever he chooses for help cannot possibly be worse than what they chose for him.
Admitting how badly they screwed up and eating double helpings of crow, while being extremely supportive of any efforts *he chooses* to pursue sobriety---those are the best chances they have for Alex to develop and maintain a clean and sober life.
He may go on a wild binge of drugs and bad behavior after they bring him home. If so, if they've handled it as I've recommended, then it was probably unavoidable. The good thing is that since he already wanted to get sober before, after the binge wears itself out--and it will--he'll want to pursue sobriety again.
All the parents have to do to get Alex sober is to grow some new and more appropriate parenting skills and learn to build a supportive alliance towards good behavior with their son instead of knocking heads with him.
I do it. By all rights, given what she has and how most kids with it funcion--or more accurately, don't function--my daughter should be much more of a handful than she is. What I do *works*, at all ages, with difficult, oppositional children.
The times my parents got the best results out of me as a teen was when they pursued exactly this strategy. The times they got the worst results was when they knocked heads with me, instead. I was a very difficult teen, my parents had excellent reason to fear for my life. I had PBD just like my daughter does. I have never met a difficult, oppositional teen for which alliance didn't work. I have met oodles of defiant teens for which parental oppositional, knocking heads was disastrous.
What I'm telling you is what the best experts--the experts the reputable, effective therapists listen to--recommend for how to handle oppositional and defiant teens.
It works.
Alex can still be induced to save himself, but his chances of success are a lot better if his parents go remove him and apply some more effective parenting techniques.
Julie
