Possible alternative??

[Anonymous]

Quote:
How is being 17 relavent to your original point when you stated that the parent should wait till their kid is 18. If the kid is 17 I still say they can save up their cash and pay for their own traveling. I was traveling all over the place, alone, by the age of 17, though none of it was out of the country. I paid for the majority of it myself.


But not every kid is going to have as good a work ethic, gookie. Does that mean they shouldn't have the opportunity? There are lots of "non-troubled" teens who do foreign exchange and don't have the money for it.


You said Foriegn exchange my comments were in regards to a kid buggering off for a year at the age of 18 to go drink and screw.

TSW

[Anonymous]

Hmmmm.

I suppose it depends on the "issues" that the teen is struggling with.  For my daughter, this would not have been a good option.  

She was clinically depressed.  Cutting herself.  Doing some hardcore drugs.   What host family would want to take on those types of issues?  

Yeah, this whole exchange program/overseas travel idea sounds great for kids whose only real issue is that they have dysfunctional parents or families. But it's ridiculous to think you can send an angry, depressed, hard-core drug addict with tons of emotional baggage to live with some strangers in another country...or worse, to travel alone in another country.

Not that you should send such a kid to a program either. But some kids really do need treatment, not just a 'cultural experience' or a change of scenery.

Doing hard core drugs is differnt than being addicted to hard core drugs. One is a problem the other isnt- not so much that it is going to affect a host family, unless you insist on snorting cocaine off of the lox and bookizklog at your celebratory wecome dinner

angry? sad, emotional baggage? you get that FROM living with dysfunctional parents. I dont think feelings are pathology

Depression is a genuine illness and its a descriptive term that gets bandied abuot innaproriately. there is a difference between being miserable and being depressed.

The only cure for medical depression (ie. brain chemistry issue is medicine.
 
People whom are in miserable situations(abusive homes) are going to be unhappy
The only cure for situational deppression ie my parents beat,- Im freindless is situational happiness. Put the youth in a loving home, or at least not one where they are with someone who endangers them and let them develop bonds talents...you get happiness from life -not an insitution.
the problem is with all vacation/time away therepies is that eventually yo have to go back.

I recomend that all troubled teens stay with the family of a freind to get away formt their torubled parents

[try another castle]

I recomend that all troubled teens stay with the family of a freind to get away formt their torubled parents

I totally agree that this is a valid option.  As Ginger and I had discussed earlier, this is what families did before the onset of the TBS industry. Maia talks about it in her book, too.

Like my idea, there are potential problems and will not fit with all situations, unfortunately. (Such as not having a family member who will take them in, or a functional family environment with relatives. [i.e. perverted uncle Frank, who-we-don't-talk-about]) But I think that both are good options, and much much better than the alternative, which does no good at all.

[Oz girl]

The other option for kids who have having a tough time at home (bitter divorce, not getting along with a stepparent) is to spend a lot of time at a friends house. This happened a lot when I was a kid. I dont know if it still does now. Obviously a kid with real mental health issues needs real help but otherwise this is something to think about.

[try another castle]

The other option for kids who have having a tough time at home (bitter divorce, not getting along with a stepparent) is to spend a lot of time at a friends house. This happened a lot when I was a kid. I dont know if it still does now. Obviously a kid with real mental health issues needs real help but otherwise this is something to think about.

I did that when I lived with my dad, right before I got shipped off. My stepmother even actually agreed that I should spend an extra day there one time, because they couldn't come to pick me up. (It was on the "wrong side of town".. i.e. where the regular people live.)

Anyway, I crashed over at Mike and Debbie's all the time that summer before I left. I felt bad for their mom, since she already had five kids and now had to deal with another one. Point is, my parents didn't like any of them. Maybe because of their class, maybe because they were into wicca and I was Mike's apprentice, whatever it was, it didn't keep me from CEDU.

If a parent is narrow minded enough not to accept their kid's friends for stupid reasons, especially when they are cool, decent people who just might be a little weird, or poor, or another race, or whatever, then there is nothing you can do about the staying over part.

[Truth Searcher]

Guest wrote:

angry? sad, emotional baggage? you get that FROM living with dysfunctional parents.

Well that is one possible cause.  There are a myriad of other causes of course.  Would you like me to spell a few out?



Guest wrote:

I recommend that all troubled teens stay with the family of a friend to get away from their troubled parents

Talk about overgeneralizing.  This comment takes the cake.  I understand that troubled homes/parents often result in troubled teens.  I also recognize that troubled teens can also come from homes where parents are fair, loving and consistent.  No home is perfect as it is made up of imperfect people.

To imply that kids get off track simply because their parents are "troubled" is way over simplistic.

You need a reality check Guest.

[Oz girl]

To imply that kids get off track simply because their parents are "troubled" is way over simplistic.
.

I would agree there Truth searcher. Although often if there is turmoil in the home it does increase the stress that a kid is under. Sometimes it is just a case of everyone driving exch other nuts for a whole lot of reasons. In this case where there are no serious mental health issues both sides can probably do with some respite.
Castle i doubt your friends mum would have minded. If there are already 5 bodies in the house 1 more rarely makes a difference. I am 1 of 5 and there was often somebodies friend/s floating about.

[Anonymous]

Guest wrote:

angry? sad, emotional baggage? you get that FROM living with dysfunctional parents.

Well that is one possible cause.  There are a myriad of other causes of course.  Would you like me to spell a few out?

Please feel free to. Life is hard. Grinding poverty, war torn battle ravaged continent. Except those Issues dont apply to program kids as they are white middle class folk in the good ole' US of A. And pretty much the only thing available to trouble them over the next kid over, is...you guessed it -parents!

It is not one POSSIBLE cause..it is, in alomst all cases THE cause of the selfish crackdown on imaginary or valid "toubledness".

On the rare occasion where their is sadness and anger which stems from something else than a parent, such as rape- anger & sadness & emotional baggage are understandable emotions. It is not the youths job to be lovely, it is the parents job to be nurtuing  It is only a toubled parent who cannot deal with these emotions .

 Parenting is not a lunch date. If a lunch date is angry, defiant, sad than by all means dont see the date anymore. But one has more obligation to their kid.

A parent is not entitled to lock away a youth for a perception of these feelings anymore than a husband can lock away his wife for not being feminine enough. No one has the right to qualify those emotions and characteristics as insanity risable to institutionalization

Guest wrote:

I recommend that all troubled teens stay with the family of a friend to get away from their troubled parents

Talk about overgeneralizing.  This comment takes the cake.  I understand that troubled homes/parents often result in troubled teens.  I also recognize that troubled teens can also come from homes where parents are fair, loving and consistent.  No home is perfect as it is made up of imperfect people.

To imply that kids get off track simply because their parents are "troubled" is way over simplistic.

You need a reality check Guest.[/quote]

Yes it is quite simple.Kids get "off track" becasue their parents are troubled. One does not have a "troubled teen" one creates or hallucinates a "toubled teen". 99% of the time.

As exhasuted said, However, yur not gonna make $ telling that to a parent..So enters program telling parents they are not responsible for the welfare of their kids and THAT-telling peple what they want to hear, that will make money.
.
What is it to be troubled anyway? Cutting class, being defiant? Annoying mom and dad isnt insanity, nor is struggling emotonally. That is called being an adolescent. That is being any human who has a low quality home or life situation

Being angry, sad and having emotional baggage is not a pathology.The trouble with these programs is they have redifined what mental illness is to the point that ANYTHING including not being perky as insanity.

After 25 years in prison I suspect Nelson Mendela has quite  bit of emotional baggage...anyone have a program for him?

Allowing parents who cant hack it to indulge their beleif that their intolerance to a human child is anything other than incompetance, selfishness, and barreness of spirit has made alot of folk alot of money. Everyone is making out like bandits...except the youth who pass their glory days wasting away or being broken inside institutions.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, this whole exchange program/overseas travel idea sounds great for kids whose only real issue is that they have dysfunctional parents or families. But it's ridiculous to think you can send an angry, depressed, hard-core drug addict with tons of emotional baggage to live with some strangers in another country...or worse, to travel alone in another country.

Not that you should send such a kid to a program either. But some kids really do need treatment, not just a 'cultural experience' or a change of scenery.

Doing hard core drugs is differnt than being addicted to hard core drugs. One is a problem the other isnt- not so much that it is going to affect a host family, unless you insist on snorting cocaine off of the lox and bookizklog at your celebratory wecome dinner

angry? sad, emotional baggage? you get that FROM living with dysfunctional parents. I dont think feelings are pathology

Depression is a genuine illness and its a descriptive term that gets bandied abuot innaproriately. there is a difference between being miserable and being depressed.

The only cure for medical depression (ie. brain chemistry issue is medicine.
 
People whom are in miserable situations(abusive homes) are going to be unhappy
The only cure for situational deppression ie my parents beat,- Im freindless is situational happiness. Put the youth in a loving home, or at least not one where they are with someone who endangers them and let them develop bonds talents...you get happiness from life -not an insitution.
the problem is with all vacation/time away therepies is that eventually yo have to go back.

I recomend that all troubled teens stay with the family of a freind to get away formt their torubled parents

Yes, all clinically depressed or otherwise mentally ill and suicidal teens should get away from their "troubled parents" -- especially if they have expensive drug addictions that can only be supported by committing daily felonies. But as they play out their final days on the streets or wherever, they should let someone back home know where they are, so the family that supposedly made them so miserable will know where to find the body. Much better for everyone if that corpse doesn't have to be shipped from overseas.

[exhausted]

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

[Oz girl]

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.
One thing I always remember hating at school was hearing about how perfect my sister had been. Unlike her i was not straight A head girl material but I never heard the end of it! My 3 brothers also went to the same fairly strict boys school. 2 did well and loved it 1 hated it and ended up getting expelled. My dad once said to me afterward thatr he prolly should have gone with a more relaxed school but at the time family tradition won. Nobody can get it right 100% of the time.

[nimdA]

What if the Llama is really smart?

[Nihilanthic]

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.

Isn't the problem using a debunked, not only unproven, but DISproven, inhernatly dangerous "approach" in the first place?

[Oz girl]

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

[try another castle]

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.