Inside the head of a shithead parent

[RobertBruce]

Don't go anywhere Cindy, I'll be right back with you.

[TheWho]

Hypothetical:

For example we could say 9 children were hurt at a TBS last year and then go on to say:

3 were hurt in the cafeteria, 4 during wilderness and 2 during exercise program.  Then you could break it out further and detail the types of problems each had.  So the upper level report might only say 9 kids were hurt.  It depends on how you want to present the data.

I followed the same format as the NCES so as to have a direct comparison.  But we could expand on that later on if we like and break it into further sub categories that may interest parents.

[AtomicAnt]

Brainwashed just like The Who. He has joined the ASR cult and actually believes it is okay to force a belief system onto an unwilling person.

And that 18 months in an institution with nice trees and shit is not incarceration :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:

No its not, no fences, no lock ups.  The kids can leave anytime they want.  Incarceration leads one to believe they are held against their will, this isnt true at ASR.

Shawn Horbeck could have left anytime he wanted, too. I'm not recommending his 'program' to anyone.

[TheWho]

Bob, got to run:

Here:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/crime03/1.asp

In the NCES site , click on Figure 1.1 and you will see the totals and then how it is broken out into the sub sets of at school and away from school.

[RobertBruce]

Hypothetical:

For example we could say 9 children were hurt at a TBS last year and then go on to say:

3 were hurt in the cafeteria, 4 during wilderness and 2 during exercise program. Then you could break it out further and detail the types of problems each had. So the upper level report might only say 9 kids were hurt. It depends on how you want to present the data.

I followed the same format as the NCES so as to have a direct comparison. But we could expand on that later on if we like and break it into further sub categories that may interest parents.

Fine, but you're trying to have it both ways. If we are comparing school safety kids who died outside of school do not factor into that comparison. I have told you on several occasions that if you are so set on including that data do so, but do it as a seperate category, and we can discuss it as a seperate issue. What youre doing when you combine the data and dont differentiate between in school and out of school is to state that 2100+ kids were killed in public school between June 2000 and July 2001. This couldnt be further from the truth and youre just attempting to paint public schools more dangerous than they actually are.

Seperate the two just like NCES did and there isnt a problem.

[RobertBruce]

In the NCES site , click on Figure 1.1 and you will see the totals and then how it is broken out into the sub sets of at school and away from school.

Cindy that's exactly what Im asking you to do and youre refusing.

[Anne Bonney]

Psy wrote this in the Carlbrook thread and it's been requested to keep that thread about Carlbrook but I'd like to respond to his post so I'm doing it here as it pertains to how these parents think.

Karen.  I've been thinking about programs...  I think the reason most people on fornits hesitate to recommend any school in this industry, even if there are no allegations of abuse is partially for this reason:

Ever read about the Stanford prison experiment?  A bunch of normal college students were selected to participate in an experiment... Some would be prisoners, some would be guards. The guards, slowly but surely, began to "assert their authority"...  The situation soon became so abusive that the experiment had to be shut down prematurely... and these were normal, peacenik type people before they became guards...

What happens?  Power happens.  Absolute power, in the hands of a few, quickly tempts people to take advantage of it.  That is the entire reason for the system of checks and balances, in our government and the justice system.

Kids, whose parents send them away to program because they see them as troubled kids (manipulators, etc...)... they make the perfect prisoner.  The guards, in this case, know full well that they can do whatever they want to the kids, and nobody will believe them since their credibility is next to nil (and systematically destroyed even further due to inevitable bad reports from the program).  Since they control the environment, they also control all the means a kid might collect evidence with.  All a kid has is his/her word...

So how is it possable to know if this is not one big hoax, perpetrated by a bunch of rebellious, druggie, fucked-up, manipulative, program-failures-with-a-grudge?

Well to answer that question.. let's ask mister interrogator.  Mister interrogator goes and interrogates person A, and then he goes and interrogates person C, and then he goes and interrogates person B.  The interrogator does not have to be a psychic.  he simply has to look for places where their stories line up...

Benchmark used this technique on a large scale with a "dirt list" that they would make everybody write.  They never missed anything.  Becuase after repeated interrogations where you were handed back your "dirt list" to re-write it (standard procedure), you never knew what you missed.  They got everything, every time, using this procedure...

How did they make sure people didn't "fix" their stories in advance?  The same way interrogators do.  If 5 people know about something, the first person to break gets a lighter punishment...  When the dirt lists were handed back again and again, you never knew if somebody broke.  What always happened?  Somebody always broke.  That person got off easy.  So what was it in your best interest to do?  Rat out friends (for often ridiculous or frivolous offenses(ie. breaking bans))

So what's my point?  When you have kids coming out of these schools year after year, and telling the exact same detailed story...  It can't possibly be a lie.

The staff in these programs know full well the power that they wield over people.  They know they can abuse it. So inevitably, it will happen.

Many (most) of the staff at these programs are recycled from school to school (most often within the same family of school).  They have been in the system a long time...  Look at politicians.  Regardless of their values coming into office... given enough time and temptation... the power will get to them.  It's a universal truth:  power corrupts.

The kids in these places have nobody to believe them.. and when you have no hope.. nobody to turn to, no friends... you break.  The abnormal becomes normal, and what would once be thought of as abuse becomes "emotional growth".. or "the tools i needed to suceed"...  Most kids don't realize the abuse that they have been put through, and many go on to become staff... why?  Because the higher you get in the levels, The more ruthless you are expected to be in your reporting of others... as a benefit, you are awarded "semi-guard" status...  The higher levels get to taste that power.. and just like the staff.. they think what they are doing is "helping" everybody else... in reality, victims simply become victimizers...

I hope that sheds a little light on things for you.

Yep, that's it.  Part of it at least.  The way they are designed to "work" is dangerous.  They can't "work" without these things.  The isolation, "dirt" revelations, groupthink, LGATs, levels etc.  The Stanford experiment is a perfect example and has been cited here many times before, specifically to you Who. It's based on a flawed premise.   There is just no way in hell you can have any type of coercive "therapy" that isn't inherently dangerous.    Period.

[TheWho]

Its all the same Bob:

Time frame:  July 1, 1999 thru June 2000
For school aged shildren :

There where 2,140 Homicides and 1,928 suicides.

16 of these homicides and 6 suicides occurred during the child?s school hours

In TBS's during the same time frame there were
0 Homicides and 2 suicides

0 suicides occured during the school hours.

[psy]

Psy wrote this in the Carlbrook thread and it's been requested to keep that thread about Carlbrook but I'd like to respond to his post so I'm doing it here as it pertains to how these parents think.

Karen.  I've been thinking about programs...  I think the reason most people on fornits hesitate to recommend any school in this industry, even if there are no allegations of abuse is partially for this reason:

Ever read about the Stanford prison experiment?  A bunch of normal college students were selected to participate in an experiment... Some would be prisoners, some would be guards. The guards, slowly but surely, began to "assert their authority"...  The situation soon became so abusive that the experiment had to be shut down prematurely... and these were normal, peacenik type people before they became guards...

What happens?  Power happens.  Absolute power, in the hands of a few, quickly tempts people to take advantage of it.  That is the entire reason for the system of checks and balances, in our government and the justice system.

Kids, whose parents send them away to program because they see them as troubled kids (manipulators, etc...)... they make the perfect prisoner.  The guards, in this case, know full well that they can do whatever they want to the kids, and nobody will believe them since their credibility is next to nil (and systematically destroyed even further due to inevitable bad reports from the program).  Since they control the environment, they also control all the means a kid might collect evidence with.  All a kid has is his/her word...

So how is it possable to know if this is not one big hoax, perpetrated by a bunch of rebellious, druggie, fucked-up, manipulative, program-failures-with-a-grudge?

Well to answer that question.. let's ask mister interrogator.  Mister interrogator goes and interrogates person A, and then he goes and interrogates person C, and then he goes and interrogates person B.  The interrogator does not have to be a psychic.  he simply has to look for places where their stories line up...

Benchmark used this technique on a large scale with a "dirt list" that they would make everybody write.  They never missed anything.  Becuase after repeated interrogations where you were handed back your "dirt list" to re-write it (standard procedure), you never knew what you missed.  They got everything, every time, using this procedure...

How did they make sure people didn't "fix" their stories in advance?  The same way interrogators do.  If 5 people know about something, the first person to break gets a lighter punishment...  When the dirt lists were handed back again and again, you never knew if somebody broke.  What always happened?  Somebody always broke.  That person got off easy.  So what was it in your best interest to do?  Rat out friends (for often ridiculous or frivolous offenses(ie. breaking bans))

So what's my point?  When you have kids coming out of these schools year after year, and telling the exact same detailed story...  It can't possibly be a lie.

The staff in these programs know full well the power that they wield over people.  They know they can abuse it. So inevitably, it will happen.

Many (most) of the staff at these programs are recycled from school to school (most often within the same family of school).  They have been in the system a long time...  Look at politicians.  Regardless of their values coming into office... given enough time and temptation... the power will get to them.  It's a universal truth:  power corrupts.

The kids in these places have nobody to believe them.. and when you have no hope.. nobody to turn to, no friends... you break.  The abnormal becomes normal, and what would once be thought of as abuse becomes "emotional growth".. or "the tools i needed to suceed"...  Most kids don't realize the abuse that they have been put through, and many go on to become staff... why?  Because the higher you get in the levels, The more ruthless you are expected to be in your reporting of others... as a benefit, you are awarded "semi-guard" status...  The higher levels get to taste that power.. and just like the staff.. they think what they are doing is "helping" everybody else... in reality, victims simply become victimizers...

I hope that sheds a little light on things for you.

Yep, that's it.  Part of it at least.  The way they are designed to "work" is dangerous.  They can't "work" without these things.  The isolation, "dirt" revelations, groupthink, LGATs, levels etc.  The Stanford experiment is a perfect example and has been cited here many times before, specifically to you Who. It's based on a flawed premise.   There is just no way in hell you can have any type of coercive "therapy" that isn't inherently dangerous.    Period.

Bingo.



power corrupts
coercion requires absolute power
--------------------------------------
coercion absolutely corrupts




// Consent is binary //
one consents
----------------------------
or one does not consent
----------------------------
when one does not consent
that is coercion




therapy requires consent
consent cannot be coerced
-------------------------------
therapy cannot include coercion

Therefore.

Therapy without consent cannot exist, is inherantly destined to corruption



or something like that... i'm tired.

[Anne Bonney]

Psy wrote this in the Carlbrook thread and it's been requested to keep that thread about Carlbrook but I'd like to respond to his post so I'm doing it here as it pertains to how these parents think.

Karen.  I've been thinking about programs...  I think the reason most people on fornits hesitate to recommend any school in this industry, even if there are no allegations of abuse is partially for this reason:

Ever read about the Stanford prison experiment?  A bunch of normal college students were selected to participate in an experiment... Some would be prisoners, some would be guards. The guards, slowly but surely, began to "assert their authority"...  The situation soon became so abusive that the experiment had to be shut down prematurely... and these were normal, peacenik type people before they became guards...

What happens?  Power happens.  Absolute power, in the hands of a few, quickly tempts people to take advantage of it.  That is the entire reason for the system of checks and balances, in our government and the justice system.

Kids, whose parents send them away to program because they see them as troubled kids (manipulators, etc...)... they make the perfect prisoner.  The guards, in this case, know full well that they can do whatever they want to the kids, and nobody will believe them since their credibility is next to nil (and systematically destroyed even further due to inevitable bad reports from the program).  Since they control the environment, they also control all the means a kid might collect evidence with.  All a kid has is his/her word...

So how is it possable to know if this is not one big hoax, perpetrated by a bunch of rebellious, druggie, fucked-up, manipulative, program-failures-with-a-grudge?

Well to answer that question.. let's ask mister interrogator.  Mister interrogator goes and interrogates person A, and then he goes and interrogates person C, and then he goes and interrogates person B.  The interrogator does not have to be a psychic.  he simply has to look for places where their stories line up...

Benchmark used this technique on a large scale with a "dirt list" that they would make everybody write.  They never missed anything.  Becuase after repeated interrogations where you were handed back your "dirt list" to re-write it (standard procedure), you never knew what you missed.  They got everything, every time, using this procedure...

How did they make sure people didn't "fix" their stories in advance?  The same way interrogators do.  If 5 people know about something, the first person to break gets a lighter punishment...  When the dirt lists were handed back again and again, you never knew if somebody broke.  What always happened?  Somebody always broke.  That person got off easy.  So what was it in your best interest to do?  Rat out friends (for often ridiculous or frivolous offenses(ie. breaking bans))

So what's my point?  When you have kids coming out of these schools year after year, and telling the exact same detailed story...  It can't possibly be a lie.

The staff in these programs know full well the power that they wield over people.  They know they can abuse it. So inevitably, it will happen.

Many (most) of the staff at these programs are recycled from school to school (most often within the same family of school).  They have been in the system a long time...  Look at politicians.  Regardless of their values coming into office... given enough time and temptation... the power will get to them.  It's a universal truth:  power corrupts.

The kids in these places have nobody to believe them.. and when you have no hope.. nobody to turn to, no friends... you break.  The abnormal becomes normal, and what would once be thought of as abuse becomes "emotional growth".. or "the tools i needed to suceed"...  Most kids don't realize the abuse that they have been put through, and many go on to become staff... why?  Because the higher you get in the levels, The more ruthless you are expected to be in your reporting of others... as a benefit, you are awarded "semi-guard" status...  The higher levels get to taste that power.. and just like the staff.. they think what they are doing is "helping" everybody else... in reality, victims simply become victimizers...

I hope that sheds a little light on things for you.

Yep, that's it.  Part of it at least.  The way they are designed to "work" is dangerous.  They can't "work" without these things.  The isolation, "dirt" revelations, groupthink, LGATs, levels etc.  The Stanford experiment is a perfect example and has been cited here many times before, specifically to you Who. It's based on a flawed premise.   There is just no way in hell you can have any type of coercive "therapy" that isn't inherently dangerous.    Period.

Bingo.

power corrupts
coercion requires absolute power
--------------------------------------
coercion absolutely corrupts

// Consent is binary //
one consents
----------------------------
or one does not consent
----------------------------
when one does not consent
that is coercion

therapy requires consent
consent cannot be coerced
-------------------------------
therapy cannot include coercion

Therefore.

Therapy without consent cannot exist.



Someday i'm going to distill that down even further.

That was pretty damn good.

[psy]

i fixed it. now it's clearer... and it's what i was trying to say.

[psy]

Therapy without consent cannot exist,
Without concent there is coersion
With coercion comes power
and with power, corruption

=======================

//eeh.  when i'm less tired i'll try again

[RobertBruce]

Its all the same Bob:

No Cindy, it really isn't. Despite it being a ridiculusly simple concept you seem unable to grasp the difference between deaths occuring during school versus deaths occuring outside of school hours.

A key point for determining safety in school.

Time frame: July 1, 1999 thru June 2000
For school aged shildren :

There where 2,140 Homicides and 1,928 suicides.

All of which occured outside of public school, therefore having nothing to do with school safety.

 

16 of these homicides and 6 suicides occurred during the child?s school hours

Translating to 1 out of every 3,250,000 kids in public school dying as a result of a homicide during school hours.

and

1 out of every 8,666,667 kids in public school dying as a result of suicide during school hours.

versus

In TBS's during the same time frame there were
0 Homicides and 2 suicides

Actually it's 16, but that's okay I can see now numbers arent your strong suit. As for the suicides I'm not sure so we'll stick with 2 for the moment until we learn new information.

So with a population of 30,000 that comes to.....

1 out of every 1,875 students in TBS's being murdered.

and

1 out of every 15,000 students in TBS's killing themselves.


 

0 suicides occured during the school hours

Funny thing is not only does this not matter in the slightest but you have no way of knowing if it's true, nor do you have any means of discovering whether or not its true. Cindy, please do try and keep your manipulations and misinformation down to a minimum.

 :roll:

Well then with these numbers in place it looks as if the odds are a kid is more likely to be murdered  or end up killing himself in a TBS than he does in a public school. Hmmmm, I guess that means public schools are safer than TBS's. How about that.

With that matter settled I suppose now we can move on. That is of course assuming youre still going to grace us with your presence. I'd hate to think you'd be such a poor sport you'd leave just because you were proven wrong on something. I'll tell you what Cindy, I won't even ask you to man up and admit you were wrong, only because I know you aren't man enough to do it.

Moving on then.

There where 2,140 Homicides and 1,928 suicides.

That's roughly one of out every 25,000 school age kids died as a result of a homicide.

and

Roughly 1 out of every 27,000 school age kids committed suicide during this time period.

Lets look first at the homicides. Cindy what would you estimate is the percentage of those kids that were "at risk" and could have benefitted or been saved by a TBS?

[RobertBruce]

I did promise I'd respond to this:

No look at them as a select group (TBS) and then try to rate them from good to bad as more information comes in.

We dont want to lump them all together with wilderness, mental hospitals, group homes etc.

What we need to do is start breaking out select groups and looking at them independently and then start looking at individual programs, schools. This info will give the parent the first cut he needs, should he consider a TBS at all? If the answer is yes then the next step would be which ones. We havent got there yet, we need more data.

Cindy let me offer you another analogy, I'm assuming that on occasion you and your mail order wife go out to eat ? Assuming again by the age of your daughter you two have been married somewhere around 20 years? During that 20 years I'll bet you've been to alot of resturants, some of them probably had really great food, some of them probably were really bad. I'm guessing that you recommended some of the really good ones to your imaginary friends and stuffed animals, just as you told those same stuffed animals not to bother with the really bad ones.

With that in mind you wouldn't say something like, "All resturants have great food." anymore than you would say "All resturants have terrible food." The prudent thing to say would be something along the lines of "Some resturants have great food and some have really bad food." Or if you want to get more specific you could say something like "Resturant 'A' had really great food, but resturant 'B' was awful."

What you're trying to do with TBS's is backwards from this. You're making generalized statements like "TBS's are safer than public schools" or "TBS's are good places." When the reality is that you don't know, you're just guessing. The smart move would be to look at each individual TBS, and then be able to say things like "ASR is good and ASR is safe, but Straight is bad and dangerous." Then once you've looked at all of them you can make an all encompassing statement like "Most TBS's are bad and dangerous but there are a few that are good and truly care about the kids, let me mention a few to you....." .

What's ironic about the whole thing is that you're doing exactly what you get upset at others for doing. You often beg others to acknowledge that some kids benefit from TBS's because you feel they are being overly general in their criticisms. Well I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander huh Cindy?


I hope this helps.  

[AtomicAnt]

 I also read quite a bit about what ginger had gone thru and how it affected her then and still does now and I truly think that sucks.  To me straight (the stories I have heard) seems so cruel and far from what I experienced at ASR, although you mention your father still seems to think it was a good decision, I would hope that with the evidence of how it operated and affected the entire family he would see that maybe it wasn?t all that positive.  I see that but it may be easy for me because I wasn?t a part of it.  My experience with ASR has been so different in comparison.  

  How do we know who will succeed and who will get hurt?  

Perspective.

The problem, Who, is that you lack the proper perspective.

You and others can argue about data and numbers all you want. They really don't mean anything. There is a perspective that is visceral, that defies your numbers, your rationalizations, your word games. Even the focus on obvious physical abuse and deaths in programs is nothing more than a smoke screen.

The perspective of many of those posting against your arguments is the perspective of those that have been there. It is the perspective of those who found themselves trapped  (psychologically, physically or both) in situations during which they were emotionally boxed in and intellectually stifled. They know what this feels like. Because they know and understand what this feels like, they know it is wrong. They don't need data. They don't accept rationalizations. They don't care about efficacy or outward behavior improvements. They experienced injustice. They survived injustice. It had a major effect on their lives, their perspective, who they are, and what they believe in.

Theirs is the perspective of the victims of abuse, of the (temporarily) powerless, of the survivors.

Your perspective is that of the victimizer, the powerful, the one who feels he has the right to do this to another human being, but would never venture to believe that this could, should, or would, ever be done to you. Yours is the perspective of one who callously makes the decision for the other, against the other's will, in the mistaken belief this is for the other's own good. Yours is the perspective of arrogance. You believe you know better than the other what is right and wrong and better than the other what is in the other's best interest. You are the worst kind of oppressor. You believe you have the right and have the expertise to choose for others what should be done to them, not because you are an evil pursuer of power, but because you actually believe you are helping; that you are doing right.

Your perspective is of someone who does not understand the concept of rights. You believe a young person's rights are merely privileges which can be revoked. Kids have rights, Who. Rights cannot be taken away like privileges, they can only be violated.

God save us all from people with your perspective.