Possible alternative??

[exhausted]

i think a lot of parents and teachers (and this is not to say that everything is ALL their  fault) make the error of assuming that 1 approach will work with all kids. It may depend on the differing temprament of the kid to see what works. I also think exhausted that gender can at times have something to do with it.

Which is why i said "yet the two I did bring up have been treated exactly the same way (bar the obvious individual needs they have simply because they are very different people) as their sister,"

[Nihilanthic]

In terms of TBS yes but what About normal school? there are a lot of different options but most ppl go for the most conventional because it seemed to work for them. I would not say this makes them bad parents

Anyone who uses a debunked, not only unproven, but DISproven, inhernatly dangerous "approach" is negligent at the very least... or any entity.

[Oz girl]

What if the Llama is really smart?

"Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham!"

Sorry, enough people quote Napoleon Dynamite as it is.


Otherwise, this is an interesting discussion, with a lot of interesting perspectives, but I as of yet don't know what to think of it all. Still processing. Will let you know when the hard drive stops spinning.

Are you drinking 1% because you think youre fat?

[sick of child torture girl]

I have to agree with truth searcher Guest - yes I have made the comment that Psy has quoted me on (and he asked me very politely for permission too) but that was a private conversation between us, the quote was part of a whole conversation that isn't to be confused with what is being suggested here.

As an exampe, in my own situation, I have 3 off the rails boys, one I didn't bring up, two I did, so they've had totally different upbringings, yet the two I did bring up have been treated exactly the same way (bar the obvious individual needs they have simply because they are very different people) as their sister, who is motivated, polite, kind, very very hard working, at college, happy go lucky, loads of confidence, in fact everything her younger brothers aren't, the same parent, same upbringing, same household, same tears and laughter shared - i honestly do not believe it's all down to my parenting that my boys have been like they are, I believe alot of it has been and that my daughter is just the way she is because its the way she is, but she had to have got some of that from my parenting if we are to assume my boys got their ways due to my parenting

That may have not been intended, but its what the sentence means. It is an accurate description of how kids get to program. I am not going to comment on your particular parenting flaws as that is not my place. But undoubtedly there are things you could do better and  have serious failings. I could point failings out, tell you to accept resonsibiliy for creating your children & recognize that kids are not robots and take effort or I could tell u  your kid is terribley ill, its not yur fault, and to abandon the kid immediately -go take that vacation youve been wanting. One approach is difficult and  rough on the ego, the other makes one feel godlike and is easy. Which do you think is more attractive to the program parent?

The idea that one kid turning "bad" the other "good" implies there is quality parenting and one kid was just beneath it is ridiculous. There is a saying-"No child is raised in the same family".This reffers to how parents treat their children differently. Abuse& neglect  is a matter of scapegoating. Rarely are all children scapegoated equally. it interferes with having one vulnerable "bad" symbol on whom lifes miseries may be dumpED.There are issues of timing too, maybe the parent got crazier when one kid was in a partiuclar life phase
The book "A child called it" descries a ca one child bein tortured and starved while his siblings led a normal life.You might have read about 4 boys being starved by their parents. They were 14=20? and weighted 45 lbs each, were stunted at 3-4 ft  and their teeth had rotted out. The female children were fat and tall. The program-type parents,  blamed their sons for their condition by accusing them of having an eating disorder.

Abuse is not usually so extreem, but  treating children differntly & causing different life tragectory is common. One family I know personally abused the youngest daughter and spoiled the 2 others.  I was around them often as our parents were freinds.  The youngest was always told she was stupid and incompetant. I saw the older kids sexually abuse her. Her father stabbed her with a pencil. He had her write essays becasue, unlike his other girls, she was stupid. Anyway of course this girl had "problems"-that is to say she didnt acheive like the others did. Spent as much time away from her house as possible, in clubs, did not do well in school, was unhappy etc.

Porgram appeals to parents like these. Parents who either imagine  their child isnt acheiving enough, or whom have created a household where acheivement is impossible. There is a heiarchy of needs and the lowest level is security and safety.If you lack those the higher pesuits- "achievemnt" becomes impossible.

Then these horrible parent shows up and says look heres the porblems with my kid, the program gives them the speil you decribed and off a kid goes to program

The parent is thusly releived of accountability for creating  problems, over reacting to non existant "problems" which are coping skills for unbaleanced homes, and for having expectaions for a human child that are more befiting a young vegetable, and seeing failure to meet those unfair expectations as problems. They are relived of the effort of child care. And, the acomying gult/shame of abadnonment. Normally, if you leave a kid with someone else it's a form of parental failure.Not in program-you're a hero


 Then the kid goes to hell. If they perish there-its THEIR fault, poor poor parent! They did so much for kid :cry2: .

Childs funeral 4:00 pm. Sunday send donations in leiu of flowers to program X

[Antigen]

I think parents are more vulnerable to this sort of thing today than they have been in past generations. When I was a kid, my parents were decidedly weird in the eyes of the neighbors for getting involved in the Seed. Even the cop across the street forbid his kids to play with me anymore once my mother went over there on a recruiting mission. Broke my heart. His daughter had been my best friend and I had a mad crush on her brother. But I understand their concern.

Now it's seen as sort of normal, even honorable to ship your kids off to rehab. 100 years ago, the authorities had to take kids from their parents at gunpoint just to enforce the new compulsory schooling laws. My, how things have changed!

Yes, of course, no doubt most of the culpability lies with the parents. They are, after all, the ones who request the service, sign the checks, go through with the exit plans. That's why all of the marketing is directed to them, not to the supposed benefactors.

But why are parents falling for this obvious bullshit? I think this is the bigger issue we're up against and we're not doing all that much good by continually focusing on our little piece of the puzzle out of context. We've come to a point as a society where we no longer have any strong community or family culture. I can see the difference clearly between So Fl and SW Pa. Moving here has been like stepping back in time in a lot of ways. Say all you want about the hillbillies and their backwoods ways, these people still have enough sense to oppose random piss testing in schools and simply ignore stupid dictates that conflict w/ their own self interest and common sense. Sure, they're delivering their lines and taking the handouts. But they're not laughing with us! They still give more weight to custom than to whatever bullshit proceedeth from the mouth of some stuffed shirt.

These people don't send their kids to programs!

But there is creeping encroachment. Walmarts going up followed by Westinghouse Planned Community style developments. A neighboring agency already has the Wackenhut colors and we've just started getting those nifty counterdrug task forces. I think that'll get cut short, though, the FIRST time somebody's grandmother dies in a hail of bullets when the Keystone Kops hit the wrong address w/ a SWAT raid. And she'll probably get off a few shots, too, and the remaining team members will be lucky to make it another two years--hunting accidents, bar room brawls, winter time car wrecks, misadjusted furnaces... They play rough and tumble here.

It may seem lawless and chaotic, but at the end of the day the actual violent and property crime rates here are something like 30% of any urban area I've ever lived in. It's not that absence of regulation = absence of order. More like there are two general choices; trust in edicts from on high and strangers on the tv or go with tradition.

This is not the only area in which parents are falling for counterfeit wisdom or in which people in general are. I've heard so many times of people who had no clue that anything was wrong with their kid till they sent them to school and the "experts" informed them of acute dysfunction and dire consequences (legal or otherwise) for failure to comply with their recommendations. People send letters spilling their private business and begging for advice from Dr. Phool, stepcraft pushing talk radio pop shrinks and Oprah Winfrey, then ignore their friends and family so make sure they don't miss the broadcast answer.

What do we do about that now?

I know.... art... and wait a generation. Damn it, I want it now!

[exhausted]

The idea that one kid turning "bad" the other "good" implies there is quality parenting and one kid was just beneath it is ridiculous. There is a saying-"No child is raised in the same family".This reffers to how parents treat their children differently. Abuse& neglect  is a matter of scapegoating. Rarely are all children scapegoated equally. it interferes with having one vulnerable "bad" symbol on whom lifes miseries may be dumpED.There are issues of timing too, maybe the parent got crazier when one kid was in a partiuclar life phase
The book "A child called it" descries a ca one child bein tortured and starved while his siblings led a normal life.

I have read all 3 of the books yes, and the author was actually treated differently to his siblings ... he was the only one abused, as I said, my kids ahve all been treated the same bar the obvious different needs because they are different people.

I didn't say that a 'bad' kid was beneath it because there are good ones ?? I actually said that my daughter is probably the way she is just because she is that way - I also accept responsibility for how my boys are, which is why I spend so much effort getting our family back on track .. yes I could have taken the easy for me route and placed them in a program, but, i decided it was my job to deal with it.

However, if you are going to accept that a kid is the way he/she is because of the parenting, then you have to accept that the parent has some good parenting skils when he/she has kids who grow up to be perfectly well behaved, you can't just say "It's your fault as a parent" when kids go wrong in life and then say "It's not your good parenting" when kids get it right - don't be so down on the parents al the time, babies don't come with manuals, we do our best for our kids, we can't always get it right being that we are only human

[Karass]

I think parents are more vulnerable to this sort of thing today than they have been in past generations...Now it's seen as sort of normal, even honorable to ship your kids off to rehab.

I agree completely. I just wish I knew why and how this change came about. I lay a lot of blame on the government for the idiotic "war on drugs," but that's only part of it. Somehow societal norms and expectations of young people have changed a lot from when I was a kid, and I guess I didn't realize just how much they had changed until my own kids became teens.

Behavioral expectations are much higher today -- kids are supposed to be 'perfect' and are severely punished when they're not. Long gone are the days when getting caught by the cops with some weed meant a phone call home and a lecture from mom & dad. Likewise for getting in a fight at school, or for skipping class. Do teens even have kegger parties anymore?

Academic expectations are a lot higher too. When I was in high school, it was perfectly ok to get mediocre grades if that was all you were capable of. It was ok to want to be an auto mechanic or a construction worker or whatever. It seems like most parents I know today are uptight about their kids getting maximum GPA, going to college right away, choosing the right career, etc. And the stuff kids learn today is way more advanced than what we got at the same age/grade.

The bar has been raised pretty high over the years, and yet we as a society not only expect perfection, but can be brutally punishing when some of our youth act out, rebel, blow off steam, or develop emotional problems. With the stress some of them must be feeling, what did we expect?

This is not the only area in which parents are falling for counterfeit wisdom or in which people in general are. I've heard so many times of people who had no clue that anything was wrong with their kid till they sent them to school and the "experts" informed them of acute dysfunction and dire consequences (legal or otherwise) for failure to comply with their recommendations. People send letters spilling their private business and begging for advice from Dr. Phool, stepcraft pushing talk radio pop shrinks and Oprah Winfrey, then ignore their friends and family so make sure they don't miss the broadcast answer.

What do we do about that now?

I know.... art... and wait a generation. Damn it, I want it now!

People today, even educated adults, seem to be trained to doubt themelves and their abilities. They look to 'experts' for wisdom, even when some of those 'experts' are mere actors on TV -- not just "doctor" Phool, but obvious actors in fictional serials. Medical dramas, for example, are the primary source of "information" about medical issues for many Americans. That's part of the reason the producers of shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy hire real doctors as consultants -- they want to make sure they don't spread any medical mis-information to the morons who are likely to take it as "real."

Art does make a difference. Not just art, but "the arts" -- including music, movies, TV shows, and popular internet content. The real solution is cultural change, and unfortunately that doesn't happen overnight.

But thanks to the internet, each individual know has the power to amplify his or her message, and we are all much bigger consumers of information than we were a decade ago. Hopefully the next cultural shift will happen more quickly and will move us in a more tolerant, enlightened direction.