ONE LUCKY BOY CELEBRATED HOME

[Anonymous]

Thank God this boy's parents listened to their hearts and some REAL GOOD DOCS instead of the advice of an ed con or other parents advocating they leave their "manipulative" son in a program that was clearly doing more harm than good.  

http://www.strugglingteens.com/cgi-bin/ ... 2;t=000641

It's a good feeling, isn't it? Knowing a child has been reclaimed and is homeward bound.

 ::hatter::

[Anonymous]

Good God, those people are fucking nuts!

None of these programs can "cure" depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide.

Because there is no cure.

Modern psychiatry has no cure for these problems.

The only real workable treatment is supportive talk therapy to weed out the patient's bad coping mechanisms, and the right drugs.

The last thing in the world you want to do to a depressed kid is stick him in a day in day out punitive environment.

As for the destructive kid, it's at least fair to tell the kid he moves out and works to support himself and become an emancipated minor or he goes in a program.  And then if he chooses the program and changes his mind, you take him right out, have him find somewhere else to live, and you let him go until he straightens himself out or doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Damn parents dispensing advice, it's a wonder any of these kids ever get out of these institutions.  Talk about control freaks!  There was only one parent that seemed to have their head on straight about placing their kid in the least restrictive environement.  The others were all pretty much telling the parent not to let her son MANIPULATE his way outta a bad program. Be strong, patience, faith and no waivers.  What a bunch of crap.  

Anyway, that whole bulletin board is infested with program parents and it is a magnet for recruiters disguised as parents-who-have-been-there.  

But it is heartwarming that a kid is going home. These aren't bad kids.  They are depressed and in need of help.  Why do their parents send them so far away in the first place?  Don't they know the damage they are doing?  

Damn ed cons and parents-helping-other-parents.  What a scam!  

:cry2:

[Antigen]

I feel for this kid in a big way! There's a little clue in there as to what the kid's original crime was. He didn't want to be involved in his parents' church youth group. I didn't want to be involved with those folks either when I was a kid. Not that I hated them, I didn't, some of them were very nice people. But I just really didn't have any interest whatever in spending my Saturdays discussing biblical philosophy with my deacon/brother-in-law and a bunch of other equally bored kids, on top of Christian school with Temple on Thursday mornings, Sunday school and Church on Sundays. I figured I had just about enough religion in my diet.

My pastor understood completely and just reminded me that the door was always open. He was a real saint. But Mom flipped out!

Maybe the kid was punching holes in walls and breaking things because his parents are assholes and he'd rather take it out on inanimate objects than to hurt them. I hope the kid has some reliable friends outside his control freak family! Thank God he's nearly 18 and will soon be able to just walk away if he needs to.

It really puzzles me to see Marijuana connected with Narcotics - Dope and all that crap?it's a thousand times better than whiskey - it's an Assistant - a friend.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002ORZ/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>Louis Armstrong

[Anonymous]

I don't think there's an excuse for property destruction, or physical violence against people.

Nobody gets to do that.

Still, if you give the kid the opportunity to go live with anyone who'll take him, or get a job and move out, and he *picks* a program over all those other options (or nobody will have him because he really is a little pain in the ass), then that's his choice.  

Like I said before, provided if the kid changes his mind after seeing the program and wants one of those other options, you let him have them.

I don't think anybody should have to live with someone who deliberately destroys their stuff.

[Anonymous]

I once knew a parent who deliberately destroyed her 16 year old daughter's property because she (the mother) was out-of-control on valium and chardonay.  She lived next door to me and it was rare not to hear that lady ranting and raging at her kids, but especially the teenager daughter.  Last I heard, the girl had run away and the mother had joined some toughlove support group.  The mother, btw, was an attorney.  

 :roll:

[Antigen]

I don't think anyone should have to live with anyone who deliberatly destroys their mind.

We're sending these kids off to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually broken simply for responding like children to abuse and neglect by their own families. Well, they are children, for Christ's sake!

"Our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe will soon be subject to forms of intimidation by an Iraqi government bent on dominating the Middle East and its oil reserves,"
http://www.sptimes.com/' target='_new'>Project for the New American Century (were they talking about themselves?)

[Anonymous]

If there is abuse and neglect, then that's one thing.  Sometimes there isn't.  Sometimes there's just a destructive kid in a family that otherwise has pretty average problems.

It doesn't justify sending the kid off to be abused and neglected, but it maybe does justify sending the  kid off to a place that is not abusive (if you can find one).

What are they supposed to do?  You can't kick the kid out on the street without getting arrested, and if you keep the kid at home and the kid destroys other people's stuff, you're liable.

I mean, after you've tried family therapy, and everything else you can think of.

What if your kid is Kip Kinkle?

Sometimes, commitment is the only rational choice you've got left.

However, there are a lot of parents who send kids off for trivial reasons, or too soon, and I do think that a kid should have the same protections against involuntary commitment that adults have.  If the kid is destructive of his/her parents' home, then it should be treated in juvenile court just as if the kid had done the same damage in a neighbor's home.

[Antigen]

There are two primary differences between the private teen prison industry and the criminal justice system. In the criminal justice system, it's customary (not always done, but at least there's the expectation) to require some kind of objective evidence of some kind of real problem before you can lock someone up. And once a person is locked up in the criminal justice system, there's only so much they can do to them.

If your kid is shooting up the school, naturally they need to go down. But these kids are not shooting up any schools. That hardly ever happens. They're just cussing their parents or throwing tantrums or smoking pot. I know, I know. Gone Way Down and Not My Kid instruct you to interpret this kind of behavior as definite precursors to future psychosis, wreck and ruin. And Sally Jesse Raphael, Oprah and Good Morning America will all chime in and support that rediculous assumption. But that doesn't make it true.

If your kid is in real trouble, the criminal justice system gives better odds of a good outcome for your family than the teen gulag industry ever well. I would NOT recomend calling the cops on your own kid. If it's bound to happen, leave that to someone else and you just be there for them when they remember that they need you. That's what parents are supposed to do, after all, isn't it?
 

Never attempt to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
--Unanimous

[Anonymous]

What I gathered from the posts is that many of these parents are afraid of losing control of their kid's attitude and behavior and are forcing them into some therapeutic (or not) locked residential school or program for a couple of years in exchange for a better engineered kid. One that makes all the right choices on cue (read low maintenance).  

 :silly:

[Anonymous]

Ginger, I agree that juvie has better outcomes than programs, and I agree that the lion's share of these parents are putting the kid in for trivial reasons.

I blame the War On Drugs for a lot of this.  The sane thing to do if your kid is smoking pot is to tell them to cut it out, try to supervise them better, talk to them and try to straighten out whatever problems are making them think they need chemical assistance to have a good time.

Unfortunately, in this day and age if you do that, you could lose your house--RICO confiscation.

I suppose a parent could protect themselves from that by putting the kid up in an apartment or trailer or something so the kid and his pot is not in the parents house, but it's stupid as hell for them to have to do that.

I think there are things your kid can do that mean you have to call the cops on them.  If your kid is violently attacking people, torturing animals,  destroying large dollar values of property, or stealing in the grand larceny range, you have to call in the cops.

If your kid is psychotic and threatening violence, or depressed and actively suicidal, you pretty much have to commit the kid to a mental hospital, get him stabilized on medication, then bring him back home.  Or, if he can't be stabilized, he may have to stay there.

The problem isn't the few Right people being incarcerated, the problem is the many Wrong people being incarcerated.

There need to be safeguards---especially to check for the possibility that the parents are the problem and that moving the kid to a relative's home or a foster home could fix the "problem".