The current "My teen wont forgive me" thread on ST

[Anonymous]

4/10

[Anonymous]

4/10    what does this mean??  I am not a troll and I
am being totally honest with you.

[Anonymous]

Hi all

I must admit that I did not read everything on this thread before responding to you here.  When I have more time, I will.  Just wanted to say I sent my son to a Wilderness (for 6 weeks), then on to a TBS, and he graduated from high school (i was there for his graduation), and (he had dropped out of high school here, so he would not have graduated from high school), with almost all A's.  He is not mad at me to this day.  He told me that he knows why I did what I did, and that he was spinning out of control.

However I do want to say, that I think that the only thing he got out of all of this was that he was spinning out of control, he learned lots of things in the wilderness, and he is totally off drugs and he graduated from high school with high grades, however, he is back to gambling which should have been addressed more in counseling at the TBS and wasn't.  All I can say is that he does admit that he is adicted to gambling, and the last month he went on a spending trip to CA with a "gambling friend", and spent thousands of $, and lost it all.  He also neglected himself, and is a diabetic and wasn't taking his insulin and he finally called a relative who came and picked him up at the casino, and my son (18) was in really bad shape, dirty, and was taken to the ER, and his sugar level should not be over 180, and it was 668.  If he had not been taken to the ER that day, they say his sugar level would have gotten higher since he was not taking his insulin and he would have soon, passed out and gone into a coma, and prob. died.  So he realized what he had done to himself, but I know and he knows he is hooked on gambling.  He is going to do counseling, but will this really help?  

Just thought I would tell you our story.

Addiction is addiction, and the object of the addiction can be just about anything -- drugs, alcohol, gambling, the internet, video games, work -- you name it. Find a way to suggest to him that he find a therapist that specializes in addiction and get himself some help. If he doesn't control it, it will control him.

[Anonymous]

Thanks  I agree totally!  His gambling addiction is already controlling him.

There is a therapist/counselor for him to see starting in early December, hopefully this will help, but I have no idea.  He is living with Grandparents in another state than I live in.  

I hope this person can help him, however if he doesn't want to be helped then it won't, it is up to my son.

Thanks!!

[Anonymous]

Oh, so this is Leslie back again.  Won't your ST friends help you?

[Troll Control]

No, she's a pariah there.  She didn't follow their orders, so now they just ridicule her for being weak.  They're nice people.  :roll:

[Anonymous]

Hi all

I must admit that I did not read everything on this thread before responding to you here.  When I have more time, I will.  Just wanted to say I sent my son to a Wilderness (for 6 weeks), then on to a TBS, and he graduated from high school (i was there for his graduation), and (he had dropped out of high school here, so he would not have graduated from high school), with almost all A's.  He is not mad at me to this day.  He told me that he knows why I did what I did, and that he was spinning out of control.

However I do want to say, that I think that the only thing he got out of all of this was that he was spinning out of control, he learned lots of things in the wilderness, and he is totally off drugs and he graduated from high school with high grades, however, he is back to gambling which should have been addressed more in counseling at the TBS and wasn't.  All I can say is that he does admit that he is adicted to gambling, and the last month he went on a spending trip to CA with a "gambling friend", and spent thousands of $, and lost it all.  He also neglected himself, and is a diabetic and wasn't taking his insulin and he finally called a relative who came and picked him up at the casino, and my son (18) was in really bad shape, dirty, and was taken to the ER, and his sugar level should not be over 180, and it was 668.  If he had not been taken to the ER that day, they say his sugar level would have gotten higher since he was not taking his insulin and he would have soon, passed out and gone into a coma, and prob. died.  So he realized what he had done to himself, but I know and he knows he is hooked on gambling.  He is going to do counseling, but will this really help?  

Just thought I would tell you our story.

I just poked my head in after being away from Fornits for 6 months or so...but anyhow...this post looks familiar to one that I saw in the past regarding a program parent that actually took their son to a casino for his graduation present.

[Anonymous]

This may seem like an odd question, but not having dealt with drugs/alcohol before (son went to RTC for other issues), I'm wondering what my boy might have been on last night. His friend drove him home, he was weaving as he came across the deck, stumbled in the door, slurred his words and went straight to bed. According to his "friend", they'd gone out to eat, went to another boy's house where our son repeatedly threw up, then (several hours later)he brought him home. Sounds like a first time drinker chugging too much at once, to me. I'm just wondering if there are other possibilities? Some drug or substance I'm not aware of?

Now THAT is funny.  No.  He was drunk.

Sounds like he was slaughtered to me, maybe he smoked a little pot as well, the two together are guaranteed to make anyone sick[/quote]

 :rofl: Okey dokey.  Pot is given to leukemia patients to keep them from throwing up from the chemo.  If your kid blew chunks, he probably wasn't smoking.  His friends might have been.  Pot, in no quantity, will make somebody throw up.  It will keep them from throwing up.  This is actually dangerous in some cases (throwing up is the body's way of doing a stomach pump, avoiding alcohol poisoning), and the real reason why the two should not be mixed (at least not in mass quantities).

Look.  So your kid got drunk and threw up.  Woop-e-di-doo.  I did it once when i was growing up and never drank that much again.  No really.  I never wanted that headache again.  Screwing up is part of growing up.  It's a learning process.  How else are you supposed to know when to stop than to get sick at least once.

Well.  Back to my wonderful vacation in sunny Romania.[/quote]Wrong wrong wrong, I smoked pot ONCE! never again because I threw up all night long

Wrong again on the drinking, my own 19 year old got so drunk at the age of 12 he had to have his stomach pumped, he now has a pretty bad drink problem, it never stops him, nor did it stop either of my brothers

Wrong again on it being an excuse to send my child away to alleviate my 'guilt as a bad parent' I haven't sent any of my children away because I can't! The fact that I ask for and want the help instead of burying my head up my arse and pretending it'll all go away if I deny it (the "oh no, not mine, they wouldn't do that" syndrome) makes me a good parent.....I want my children to grow into responsible, cionfident, mature human beings who can take responsibility for their own actions, how does that make me a crap parent?

I am the poster who said the child had probably smoked pot, I am also the poster who said she would never forgive her mother for not caring enough, I hope to God my kids will never say that about me - I fight tooth and nail to get help because I DO care!

[psy]

tip: make sure to do a preview before posting to make sure you haven't screwed up a BB tag. (my bad as well)

Wrong wrong wrong, I smoked pot ONCE! never again because I threw up all night long

I don't believe it was pot then.  Might have been opium or pot laced with opium or something else.  Unless: you were already very very drunk when you first had a hit (and i'm guessing you didn't smoke cigarrettes).  What probably happened is you coughed until you threw up becuase your lungs couldn't handle the shock and you were already drunk.

Wrong again on the drinking, my own 19 year old got so drunk at the age of 12 he had to have his stomach pumped, he now has a pretty bad drink problem, it never stops him, nor did it stop either of my brothers

Yes.  He had to get his stomach pumped.  That happens.  So?  I said that happens.  It is more likely to happen if your kid smokes pot before binge drinking because he won't throw up as easily (or at all).  That's all i'm saying.  Still you shouldn't take any action against him unless you know for a fact that he is smoking pot.  And even then I wouldn't consider it a problem unless he was regularly smoking pot at home and it was negatively affecting his school work / social life. If he tries it one time at a party and you condemn him to a "emotional growth school" for that it would be pretty messed up in my opinion.

Wrong again on it being an excuse to send my child away to alleviate my 'guilt as a bad parent' I haven't sent any of my children away because I can't!

And what.  Would you really do it if you could.  Who has his head in the sand?  Look around this board if you don't immediately see what i mean.  I've been in program (not for drugs, but it's where i learned all about them) and it's not a nice place to be.

I never said you were a bad parent.  Where do you get that?

The fact that I ask for and want the help instead of burying my head up my arse and pretending it'll all go away if I deny it (the "oh no, not mine, they wouldn't do that" syndrome) makes me a good parent.....I want my children to grow into responsible, cionfident, mature human beings who can take responsibility for their own actions, how does that make me a crap parent?

I never said anything about you being a crap parent.  And if you want your kids to grow up like that DONT SEND THEM TO PROGRAM.  If you did, i would label you an "idiot (as in uninformed or having done poor research) parent" not a crap parent.  If you knew about the abuse your kid would inevitably go through which you might never find out about, then i would label you a crap parent.

I am the poster who said the child had probably smoked pot, I am also the poster who said she would never forgive her mother for not caring enough, I hope to God my kids will never say that about me - I fight tooth and nail to get help because I DO care!

Well my advice is to ask a psychotherapist what to do.  Programs will solve nothing and i'm guessing you won't listen to whom you most likely already assume to be "program rejects" or some such.

@milk:

let me explain why i am answering the above as if he/she is an actual poster and not a troll (95% sure in this case).  It looks better to the uninformed than "fuck off ST troll" and makes a conservative parent more likely to read the whole thread and not dismiss it as a bunch of junkie-scum-program-reject-failures-typing-out-of-thier-moms-basement

[Anonymous]

Psy, this isn't a troll; I can say without much doubt that the post you responded to is, in fact, the poster on ST- it's the same ISP.

I haven't sent any of my children away because I can't!

And you never will.

There is a British poster who occasionally stops by these boards. He is many, many times as smart, politically connected, wily, etc as you are, and he has a number of friends as adamant as he is. You can beat your head against that particular wall all you like; your kids will have grown up, you will REALLY be at your wit's end, and you will not have budged the British system one inch in the direction you wish. Especially since most of the British authorities in charge of such things are horrified at what's being done to kids in America. You know, by the people you post with on ST.

As for an actual solution, let's start here: From your other posts, it looks to me like they're systematically avoiding your home. Why? Step back for a moment. Take a deep breath. Ask "What happens in my home to make my kids avoid it?" How well do you really know your kids? What do they really think of you? Why? What is going on between you and them? It's very rare that a family with three children is going to have all three of them come out violent. And where's their father in all this, anyway?

Without details, the only thing I (or anyone) can say for sure is that whatever you're doing, it's not working. Don't do more of it. If you're going to keep trying to discipline, ground, etc them, they're just going to continue to avoid you, and it's not going to end well. Have the people on ST gave you any answers worth a shit? Odds are, no. They don't have any.

I'm not a professional, so I'll just conclude with this: Stop, sit back, and think. Everything else comes afterwards.

If you can't come up with answers that work on your own, go into a professional psychiatrist's office, even if your kids don't come with you. Sit back, pay the money, swallow your pride, and ask questions of a real professional. His opinion is probably going to matter a lot more than anyone you might meet on the Internet.

[Anonymous]

Well, Aardvark said that this sort of thing doesn't exist there.

If you know of such places, I'll gladly crowlunch, but I'd love to know their names.

But by PM or at some other time, if you don't mind. We have an ST poster here and the last thing we want is to give her ideas...

*gets a sudden, disturbing vision of the ST poster going around asking "Yes, I've heard online that there are abusive places to send my kids in Britain, but I'm not sure where they are. Can you please point me in their direction?"*

[psy]

Psy, this isn't a troll; I can say without much doubt that the post you responded to is, in fact, the poster on ST- it's the same ISP.

Can it not be both?  But my mistake.  95% leaves a 5% margin of error.

Also.  To correct Three Springs: I lived in the UK for a year (boarding school).  They have a thing called "child line" there.  The number is plastered everywhere.  Their social services are really really finicky and I truly doubt anything close to WWASP or CEDU could possably operate with the amount of state oversight and opportunity for kids to report abuse.

If you can find one example.  Please go ahead.  Apart from the American "fat farm" import, can you find one example of an abusive program on british soil.  Consider it a challenge to shut up a liberal commie hippie etc...  I would actually like to be proven wrong.  I'm an American after all and all this shit is very embarrassing.

[Deborah]

Have you read "exhausted"'s posts? She sure seems to be at a loss about what to do with her kids over there in the UK. I often get the sense that she's really hoping some program will offer to take all three of her kids on scholarship or recruit them for the next Brat Camp UK series.
Aspen has a fat farm there. While "parent choice" incarceration may not be propular with the Brits, they might consider weight loss camp okay. Little would they know it's not any different than any other program, just a different problem to "fix".
While Brits may not be ready for the industry, Aspen etal are slowly working on changing the public attitude toward private pay incarceration.

[psy]

All is "well" in merry old England.

This of course is not the case. I have a mate who survived both the foster care system and a youth authority placement. His stories tend to run quite the contrary to the established myths being put out in some quarters.

While the UK might not be home to private torture facilities they certainly have plenty of abusive incidents in their own public institutions. Like all other countries they make a song and dance about getting right on top of the problem. Outrage is expressed by members of parliament and so on and so forth.

Yes this is true.  But it is far less prevalent than it is here.

I think people routinely tend to forget the obvious.


Kids get shat on in every country in the world. It doesn't matter what country you can name, kids are, have, and will be abused.

This private torture program issue isn't at all unique to the USA. Where did boarding schools orginate? Europe.. Where did boarding school hazing being? Europe.. Where did it become popular to subcontract out the raising of your children so that you can carry on with your daily sodomization of polo ponies and eating scones? Europe..

For a moment i thought you were going to blame Clinton. :lol:

Also.  Boarding school hazing in the UK cannot be compared to what program does to kids (i've experienced both, personally.)  Although it was frownd upon, there were ways of reporting abuse but not many people bothered to becuase it never really got that bad, at least where I was:  Ampleforth, just north of Leeds.  There were also councelors who you could go to (and i mean licenced school shrinks) and talk about things if you were really down.  There was always a means of reporting abuse if you needed to.

You are right that the british are far more likely to send their kids away to boarding school but most of them don't really mind.  It's not like it's hell.  Boarding school doesn't have to be a bad experience.  Yes it's no substitute for proper parenting but it's not abusive.

Behavior modification if you think about it is merely a new twist to an old idea. Send your kids away and they will become a better person by enduring hardships and deprivation. Military academies and so forth began as a very unique European institution that thankfully have not caught on more than they have here in the United States.

I hear alot of people toot their horns about their countries. I like that Covergard fellow and his statements about how superior Denmark is to the rest of the world. Excuse me when Denmark amounts to more than a postage stamp in world existance then I will give a shit.

And you wonder why they all hate us.

Of fucking course Denmark can focus more on their domestic affairs. The only international affairs of recent notice have been their embassies being torched for some islamic cartoons. When they do 1/100th of what America does in the international scene then I will give a toot.

At least they had the balls to publish the cartoons.  At least they realize freedom is more than just a catchy slogan.  There is only one newspaper in this entire land of the free that was willing to publish those cartoons.  And i could do without what we do on the "international scene" personally.

Still though I don't immediately disregard Covergard. He does mean well, his ideas are sound, and he gives a damn.

The sad tale being played out in America at the moment is only another chapter in a long sad tale of abuses in a very long and sicken book.

Now someone fill me in on what this broad is blathering about? I can't be arsed to read this retarded thread.

Basically

[psy]

Yes this is true. But it is far less prevalent than it is here.

Validate this claim old son.

Gladly.  How many british programs do you see complained about on Fornits?  The internet is global.  Why yes fornits doesn't get reports of every single program (my school was missed until i started organizing people and posting) but if there were more than one or two instances programs in the UK, don't you think we might know about them.  I could see maybe one going under the radar but if they existed in the same volume as they do here, we would know about them by now.

You want another reason?

Doesn't matter either way to me. My point is simple.. No country is free from the taint of their own ballsack stinking from abuse to children. You can view child abuse as a condition unique to America or a condition systematic of the entire Human Race. I tend to see it from the larger perspective myself, yet choose to focus on a very select element of the larger problem.

I focus on what can be fixed from where i am.  Good luck changing human nature.  I see the big picture but i know it cannot be fixed on such a large scale.  Local change gradually spreads.  Exposing these programs here helps create global awareness and sets a precedence.  I see the program "globally" as all abuse.  I see the problem "locally" as programs.  I'm not using "local" and "global" literally, but more in a figurative sense.  Yes i'm a programmer, and an artist... long story.

Don't think just because you're American your shit doesn't stink.  Yes it all stinks everywhere, but in my opinion, our shit is just a little stinkier right now.

I lived through both Boarding schools and TBS programs. Abuse is abuse. Hazing in a Boarding School or systematic torture from staff in TBS is wrong no matter what the severity.

Yes it's all bad.  I agree with you there.  And i'm tired of arguing about this anyway so let's agree to disagree because it's really irrelevant to the goal at hand anyway.