I was not attacking your previous line of work.
I was referring to the dilemma every professional in this business will meet.
You have a child. Sure something can be adjusted. There is always room for improvement. If they did break the law, it is vital that they are shown in the right direction.
But.... Then you meet the parents. They show such a lact of structure and unwillingless to take a good advice that you know that regardless how good the child will do and how well you guidance is received, the entire project will be a failure.
Here in Denmark they have been trying to work on what they call the social heritage. For 30 years they have given students cheap loans, grants etc. Fact remains that if you have parents with an academically education, the chance of a kid making it to the university is 10 times bigger.
And we are not alone. When I saw the research we had on Visionquest, I notice a reference to a
story about a family with poor social background. Spoiler: It ends with a family reunion in jail and a burial. Also remember the story of
the boys from Baraka. Kenya was not the answer but a local boarding school took care of the problem with the neighborhood being the feeding line to the jails.
Of course each and every boy and girl has a choice in any given situation. They can make good choices or bad choices. What they decide is based on a number of factors.
You can teach them the best possible basics so they hopefully will do right, but you cannot be sure. But if you don't try as the parents in the Dr. Phil show so clearly don't before they phone the doctor the chances of bad decisions are huge.
If the show had been the other way around and they had tried to make a change for a period and maybe taken some family expeditions as some wilderness programs offer, I would not have written about it. But of course it would not have been as good a kind of entertainment as the show turned to be for the doctor.
