The Who

[Anonymous]

You should know people can't handle that shit. You hand it to them and it just squishes down in between their fingers and then they freak out and spread it all over their face and then look at you like, hey man, why did you just put a terd in my hand.. you dig me?

[Oz girl]

The way it works?? everyone is responsible for different areas (their own rooms of course) my daughter was in charge of the lobby and keeping it up.  She had to work herself but she also had to direct others.  This is great for self esteem, team building, work ethic, working with others etc. it is very beneficial
I really don?t expect kids to understand this, I didn?t when I was in high school so blast away, I don?t mind.

You are aware that normal boarding school also has kids do basic chores like vacuming and keeping their rooms clean? What they dont have is kids performing maintenance work. The reasons are twofold
1. it is an occupational health and safety risk to have a kid with no professional expertise to such work because they are less likely to do an adequate job and thus things fall into disrepair.
2. The student is thetre for an education so needs enough time to actually study.

You also mentioned date night. My understanding was that a kid got to ask someone out for this 1950s ritual once right before graduation. It hardly represents a plethora of social opportunities

Tell me do ASR students play sports against other schools? Does anyone get to sign out on a saturday evening and go into the local town the way they do at a normal BS?  Because most normal boarding schools allow this and have cerfews which are lame and early so there is very little trouble you can get into. (this is what exeat weekends are for and ASR does not have those) if ASR is not prison like then why would they fear such a tradition?

I wonder too how these kids adjust at college when everyone else in their dorm does not want to share their feelings every night at 8 pm. After all when something becomes a habit formed over 2 years it is hard to break this habit or even realize that this is not how people interact outside of "the bubble"

[TheWho]

Good questions Oz Girl:

You are aware that normal boarding school also has kids do basic chores like vacuming and keeping their rooms clean? What they dont have is kids performing maintenance work. The reasons are twofold
1. it is an occupational health and safety risk to have a kid with no professional expertise to such work because they are less likely to do an adequate job and thus things fall into disrepair.
2. The student is thetre for an education so needs enough time to actually study.

ASR is far from a normal boarding School.  It is a Therapeutic  Boarding School or TBS. ?At Risk? Kids attend for about a year and a half so some graduate others go home to complete their high school education.  Education isn?t really an issue for some families because their child isn?t going to school anyway, for those that are, many of the kids that graduate from ASR go onto very good universities.  

The kids are not doing professional work to my knowledge, mostly lower level jobs with the focus on self esteem.  But if they were it isn?t a crime as long as they are getting the correct supervison.  I had a place called ?College pro?s? do work around my place last summer.  They were great, they were learning something new, working as a group.  I don?t see any health or safety problems.

You also mentioned date night. My understanding was that a kid got to ask someone out for this 1950s ritual once right before graduation. It hardly represents a plethora of social opportunities

Sure, the kids don?t go out every night.  But it shows ASR is far from a lock down, fenced in facility.  The kids get out and do stuff?.they don?t swim every day, or cross-country ski everyday , but kids at other schools don?t do that either.  Many kids living at home cant even go out on a 1950?s type date (as you call it) if their grades are low or get grounded.  

Tell me do ASR students play sports against other schools?

No they don?t.  I don?t anticipate this to ever be the case because of the time the kids spend there.  They have a similar handicap as the Ivy League schools do.  They just don?t have the time allotted to them.  Ivy League schools do not practice all summer or 12 hours per day like non ivy league schools do.  That is why you rarely see them beating any top 10 seeded teams, that why they created their own league.  The players are required to focus on why they are there and sports come second.  At TBS?s you add that to the fact that they are only there a short time and it just doesn?t work for the kids, just wouldn?t be fair.  I guess it is possible at some point to create a TBS league where like schools could compete on a level field.  It is a good point and would be benificial, but it seems like a long way off.

Does anyone get to sign out on a saturday evening and go into the local town the way they do at a normal BS? Because most normal boarding schools allow this and have cerfews which are lame and early so there is very little trouble you can get into. (this is what exeat weekends are for and ASR does not have those) if ASR is not prison like then why would they fear such a tradition?

ASR isn?t a normal boarding school it is a TBS.  There are no traditions of signing out on Saturday nights that I am aware of.  Doesn?t make it a prison just non-traditional.

I wonder too how these kids adjust at college when everyone else in their dorm does not want to share their feelings every night at 8 pm. After all when something becomes a habit formed over 2 years it is hard to break this habit or even realize that this is not how people interact outside of "the bubble"

That?s a good question.  My daughter had trouble with this when she first got home.  She went back to her old friends a short time after being home and then found (after about 3 weeks) she really couldn?t relate to them any more and had out grown them.  One of the many things that ASR/TBS?s does is accelerate the maturity process which results in a development of a healthier choice of friends/relationships.  Many kids mature several years in a very short time.  So yes this is a problem at first and the kids typically find they relate better to a more mature group after they get home.

[Anonymous]

One of the many things that ASR/TBS?s does is accelerate the maturity process which results in a development of a healthier choice of friends/relationships. Many kids mature several years in a very short time.

:roll:

What planet are you on? Do you actually expect anyone who wasn't born yesterday to take that seriously, or are you just brain damaged? Didn't we just finish the fiction thing on this forum?

[Oz girl]

I would argue that not being able to leave the school at all (except for date night) without strict supervision, having limited homework time in the afternoon, having monitored and limited access to all media and  censorship of reading material make it a prison without walls. You mentioned normal kids dont get to go out when they are grounded but nobody i know gets grounded for 18 months because this is not being grounded. It is home detention!
i would also suggest that being unable to relate to peers who have not been through such a process does not indicate maturity, it indicates that social and intellectual development have been stunted. The bubble as ASR kids have called it, promotes a cult like fear of a world that other yonug people are able to live in with confidence. No one struggles to relate to the big scary world after normal boarding school.
I realize this school is not regular but you still have not articulated what is therapeudic about any of the above restrictions.

you also compared ASR to an Ivy league college as a reason for banning sport(even tho kids have to rush through their homework for al the therapy sessions)  :rofl:
but when i looked at the harvard website there were a wide variety of sporting options available for a young person who wanted a friendly and competetive way of getting exercise and socialising with their peers!!!
http://www.gocrimson.com/
You also mentioned that normal boardings schools dont devote the majority of the time to fun. You are absolutely right. But then here is what i remeber of my time at an american boarding school with no therapeudic component.

-Leaving on a saturday night to got to the cinema with my peers or to just hang and get a coffee or a meal completely unsupervised by adults. Sure the sucky cerfew was a bit unreasonable but it kept kids out of trouble
-regular exeat weekends where people would visit the family home. Familes considered themselves compotent enough to set the rules. Sometimes this meant that kids cut loose and had sex or got sufficiently dunk or stoned to vomit on the family pet. No one went to jail. i believe most of these kids also got into college in spite of such indiscretions
-unrestricted access to all media. No book being banned. No form of music being banned. While kids did not watch a lot of TV this was because it was communal and they had to share it. imagine using real world negtotiation skills without once booking an appointment to share feelings with a random stranger!
-No friendship being banned. Not even if you were friends with the school bad boy.

I guess those benedictine monks were pretty crazy, let it all hang out kid of guys!!!

[Anonymous]

What you consider bad, Who considers good. What 99% of the population considers coercion, Who considers therapy. Who doenst have the experience to even discuss this program in detail like this. Program parents have no fucking clue... the one common theme with all prgoram families is the kids dont like their parents and lie to them and never care enough to talk about it to them because they become stronger than the parent, who is pathetic.

[RobertBruce]

Or you could delude yourself into thinking what you experienced for yourself is standard for the industry

Right on the money !!!  That is exactly what I have been talking about all along.  There are kids posting here who come out of places and had a bad experience and wrongly think that the entire industry is the same and like you pointed out, its delusional,  nothing is further from the truth.  Each school is different some better than others it is inaccurate to base ones experience with one school and apply it to all others.  If schools present themselves with policies that you are uncomfortable with i.e. strip search, fences, academics etc. then the parent needs to keep looking.  The right solution is out there.

I'll ask the question again. Is HLA a disreputable school considering there are reports of opposite sex being present during strip searches? Assuming of course the reports were true.

Based on that statement I would say ?No? it is not, not based on random reports.  I would say if a situation like that occurred and the school took appropriate corrective action to assure it did not happen again then I would not say it was disreputable.  If the school did nothing to respond to reports and correct the problem then I would view the school as disreputable, in my opinion.

You seem to ignore the fact that there are more of us coming out saying "we had a bad experience, I saw others having a bad experience." versus people like you who claim " I had a great expereince, it must be the same across the board."

If it was the same across the board why are there so many kids from so many schools across the country all saying similar things?

[Anonymous]

The Who should pull the chain on the side of his head and flush his mind...

[Anonymous]

:rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:

[TheWho]

I would argue that not being able to leave the school at all (except for date night) without strict supervision, having limited homework time in the afternoon, having monitored and limited access to all media and censorship of reading material make it a prison without walls.

I respect your opinion.  I just see it differently.

You mentioned normal kids dont get to go out when they are grounded but nobody i know gets grounded for 18 months because this is not being grounded. It is home detention!

Nah, it?s a boarding school with lots of rules, you need to stay on campus most of the time

i would also suggest that being unable to relate to peers who have not been through such a process does not indicate maturity, it indicates that social and intellectual development have been stunted. The bubble as ASR kids have called it, promotes a cult like fear of a world that other yonug people are able to live in with confidence. No one struggles to relate to the big scary world after normal boarding school.
I realize this school is not regular but you still have not articulated what is therapeudic about any of the above restrictions.

I believe I suggested she moved beyond her peers in maturity.  The restrictions may not be therapeutic at all, some may be in place to keep kids safe, others to allow the kids to focus on individual problems etc.  Therapy is only one component.

you also compared ASR to an Ivy league college as a reason for banning sport(even tho kids have to rush through their homework for al the therapy sessions)  
but when i looked at the harvard website there were a wide variety of sporting options available for a young person who wanted a friendly and competetive way of getting exercise and socialising with their peers!!!
http://www.gocrimson.com/

I don?t think I said they banned sports.  My comparison was to show that the ivy league schools provide sports but can not effectively compete (with some of the top 10 schools) because of restrictions they have on  practice time.  TBS?s have a further component (Therapy) which is thrown into the mix and also the kids are not there 4 years like other school, so forming a league would be difficult.  The kids do play sports, compete and socialize, though.

You also mentioned that normal boardings schools dont devote the majority of the time to fun. You are absolutely right. But then here is what i remeber of my time at an american boarding school with no therapeudic component.

-Leaving on a saturday night to got to the cinema with my peers or to just hang and get a coffee or a meal completely unsupervised by adults. Sure the sucky cerfew was a bit unreasonable but it kept kids out of trouble

Exactly, you had a curfew, which is a restriction.  TBS just have more of them.

-regular exeat weekends where people would visit the family home. Familes considered themselves compotent enough to set the rules. Sometimes this meant that kids cut loose and had sex or got sufficiently dunk or stoned to vomit on the family pet. No one went to jail. i believe most of these kids also got into college in spite of such indiscretions

The kids get to go home towards the end of the program for family visits and if they want to get sick on the family dog I don?t see why they cant.

-unrestricted access to all media. No book being banned. No form of music being banned. While kids did not watch a lot of TV this was because it was communal and they had to share it. imagine using real world negtotiation skills without once booking an appointment to share feelings with a random stranger!

My daughter didn?t have to book an appointment with random strangers.  I can see you have a uninformed view of TBS?s, this is typical so don?t feel I am attacking.  The children see the same therapist throughout the stay.

-No friendship being banned. Not even if you were friends with the school bad boy.

This is not the case at ASR anyway.  If you fall into an unhealthy relationship it is addressed.

I guess those benedictine monks were pretty crazy, let it all hang out kid of guys!!!

Yeah they sure were, I heard some of them even made their own wine !!!

[TheWho]

You seem to ignore the fact that there are more of us coming out saying "we had a bad experience, I saw others having a bad experience." versus people like you who claim " I had a great expereince, it must be the same across the board."

Is this your opinion or do you have numbers.  I have met more people who have had a positive experience with TBS?s

If it was the same across the board why are there so many kids from so many schools across the country all saying similar things?

Simple, Because that is what you are hearing.  I don?t believe it is the same across the board.  I believe there are kids who have a good experience and some who have had a bad experience.

[teachback]

I think the only good programmie is a dead programmie.  :skull:

[Oz girl]

This is not the case at ASR anyway.  If you fall into an unhealthy relationship it is addressed.

But in What it takes to pull me through friendship bans ocurred for the most random and petty things. For talking about video games etc! Kids were not seen as doing the appropriate therapeudic work for not booking appointments with their peers where they were expected to talk about their issues. Nobody in the real world does this! This is why kids come out unable to relate to their old friends. They cant relate to anyone.
3 visits to the family with strict rules of conduct which are set by the school throughout the visit does not constitute regular exeat weekends. Moreover when the students invariably break the rules set down not by their legal guardians but by the school they are coerced into confessing and being punished.
ASR and schools of its ilk are not schools they are cults. Nobody goes to normal BS because the outside world needs to be feared.  Nobody at normal BS feels so "safe" they refer to it as a bubble

[TheWho]

But in What it takes to pull me through friendship bans ocurred for the most random and petty things. For talking about video games etc! Kids were not seen as doing the appropriate therapeudic work for not booking appointments with their peers where they were expected to talk about their issues. Nobody in the real world does this!

I agree that some of the rules are silly, but far from abusive.

This is why kids come out unable to relate to their old friends. They cant relate to anyone.

They relate very well to kids who are more mature than their old friends.

3 visits to the family with strict rules of conduct which are set by the school throughout the visit does not constitute regular exeat weekends. Moreover when the students invariably break the rules set down not by their legal guardians but by the school they are coerced into confessing and being punished.

Many kids in what you call ?Normal boarding schools?  don?t go home more than a couple times per year.  The schools have strict conduct, if you break the rules you get tossed out.  If a kid wants to leave ASR he can, no coercion or physical punishment.

ASR and schools of its ilk are not schools they are cults. Nobody goes to normal BS because the outside world needs to be feared. Nobody at normal BS feels so "safe" they refer to it as a bubble

Feeling safe isn?t a bad thing especially for many of the kids that are there.  In a safe environment kids can blossom and grow.  The trick is the transition from the bubble into their old environment with all its triggers and memories.  It can be very scary,  ASR has developed a very nice transition program I have heard.

[Oz girl]

Six conditions are simultaneously present in a thought reform program: (margaret singer)

    * obtaining substantial control over an individual's time and thought content, typically by gaining control over major elements of the person's social and physical environment,
    * systematically creating a sense of powerlessness in the person,
    * manipulating a system of rewards, punishment. and experiences in such a way as to promote new learning of an ideology or belief system advocated by management,
    * manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in such a way as to inhibit observable behavior that reflects the values and routines of life organization the individual displayed prior to contact with the group,
    * maintaining a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure in the organization and
    * maintaining a non-informed state existing in the subject.

ASR does all of these things!