Actually, I think Fornits does just fine, with or without the flame wars and seriously demented trolls who drop in from time to time.
Maybe if you stop thinking of Fornits as the great white hope that's gonna kill the big, bad evil troubled teen industry, you will get it?
How many times does Ginger have to say it? As long as there are PARENTS there will always be a troubled teen industry.
I think more accurately would be as long as there are TEENS there will be a trouble teen industry, but I guess without parents there would not be teens, so we can argue that they both apply.
Why? Because this is a societal issue - and deeply rooted in America's long obession with children as imperfect little adults.
It's called Blame the kid so the Parent gets a free pass on their lousy parenting skills, and program owners and their sleezy network of referral agents get to laugh all the way to the bank.
I believe most parents feel it is a family issue not just the problem of one of their children?s and , although, parents always feel responsible for how their kids turn out they realize that the problem is not due to their parenting style. Most kids that go to TBS?s come from families with multiple kids and the other kids in the family are flourishing and doing fine. The parents with only one child probably feel guilty and think it is their own fault, which is too bad
I don?t think there have been any studies (I am not aware of any) to determine cause and effect on this subject, but based on the fact that it cannot be isolated to a single type of family, economic level or parenting style the probability that the parents are the cause, for the most part, is remote.
Now until you can think of a better way to give lousy white, mostly middle-to-upper-class parents a free pass on failing Parenting 101, you best get used to the troubled teen industry being around for a very very long time. So far, we're going on more than 40 years.
The industry has come a long way. If you listen to and read about the stories of the kids who went to straight in the 70?s and compare them to the TBS?s that are available to kids now we can see that the industry has come a long way (i.e. fences are coming down, families are more involved, the education element is improving and more kids are being helped thru qualified therapists). It continues to grow and change to better serve the kids and with sites like fornits the schools short comings will continue to be exposed which will result in the schools to continue to evolve and improve. The schools that fail to step up to the challenges and pressure will ultimately shut down.
