Apologia - Serious debate only, please!

[Anonymous]

On 2004-01-09 10:03:00, Deborah wrote:

"Is this the article you're looking for?



http://www.rickross.com/reference/gener ... al440.html



"

Thanks, yes it is!  There was also an editorial published that raised serious questions about this event.  Must be in the same newspaper?

Excerpt from article linked to Rick Ross website:

"Until now, the seminars have been pitched primarily to teens and parents of teens in the five member programs of the St. George, Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs.

The pilot program in Seattle is the first step in bringing the seminars to a larger market.

Gilcrease said the new approach offers "a huge potential growth area" for his $2 million-a-year company, but the motivation isn't financial.

"We make pretty good money. I don't need money. We want to make a difference. We've got some serious problems here," Gilcrease said.

Family Visions Foundation, created by seminar graduates, paid nearly $10,000 for the middle schools' Challenge Days as part of an effort to reach a broader range of families, including those not in crisis, said Family Visions board member Michele Anciaux Aoki, who arranged the Washington and Meany workshops.

"It's been a gift to our family," Aoki said of the seminars she has attended with her husband since she took her struggling 16-year-old son to Spring Creek Lodge in Thompson Falls, Mont., three years ago.

Aoki, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Washington Middle School, is one of many parents who credit the seminars with motivating their children to straighten up and with bringing families back together.

Mort Hurt, who went through seminars to support his daughter nine years ago, called it "a life-changing experience. ... If we had a program like this worldwide, we wouldn't be having the problems we face today."

-------------------------------------------------

Like I said, welcome to the brave new world of MAGICAL ADULTS and CHILDREN.  Pass the pepto-bismo, please?

 :silly:

[Anonymous]

Bringing Families Back Together Again.  How quaint.  How lucrative!  Show me the M.O.N.E.Y.

 :rofl:

[Anonymous]

Are the last two posters Anti Family?

[Deborah]

And what is Family Visions Foundation? A group of WWASP parents who want to spread the word. They're on a mission to "create Whole and Healthy Families". They raised the funds for this program to be presented in a pubic school.

Pam Brown, Viki Jessop, Sue Blair, Ed North,
Wanda Matthiesen, Curt Creswell, Greg Casteel and Ed Hartzler
Read their bios at:
http://www.nwfamilyvisions.org/whoweare.htm#Our%20Story

How did the seminar get into the public school?
Jacqueline Price ~ Ameilia Earhart ~
I've worked for the Franklin Pierce School District for 10 years and currently work as a Career Specialist at Washington High School in Tacoma.

My purpose is to create a whole and healthy family in my own home, my own community, my own county, and the rest of the world. I have joined the Foundation because it is in alignment with that goal.

I have been very happily married to my husband Tom for 31 years. We have 5 adopted children: Jaimee, 26, (married with the 2 cutest children in the universe); Thomas, 23, (to be married in July); Megan, 17; and twins Max & Mike, age 14. Megan introduced us to the program in November of 2000. She spent 18 months at Spring Creek. Unfortunately, she has chosen to make non-working choices and is no longer living at home, but we are ever hopeful that she will return to what she has been taught.



[ This Message was edited by: Deborah on 2004-01-09 10:51 ]

[Anonymous]

At least they're doing something to make a difference besides what we're doing...posting judgment on this board.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps I can shed a little light on what all these vision family people are doing.  

The last of the seminars was called visions.  This seminar (at the time I participated) was done in 2 weekend sessions.  The first session was going over what was learned in focus and putting those tools to work.  Over the next 6 weeks at home you had to do work from the visions book.  At the end of this period you returned to your visions group (My group was based in Texas).  During the last of this session you were given instructions to come up with a "Group Vision".  This is when the "parent graduates of visions" are given instructions on coming up with a task to reach out to their community.  Basically it is another way to recruit more unsuspecting desperate parents.  Again this was my experience.

[Anonymous]

http://www.casafamilyday.org/about.htm -

This is a Legacy Project that came from a group of Visions grads.  Don't see mention of the program anywhere!

CASA is not Casa by the sea.  So much for your theory.

[Anonymous]

On 2004-01-09 11:10:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Perhaps I can shed a little light on what all these vision family people are doing.  



The last of the seminars was called visions.  This seminar (at the time I participated) was done in 2 weekend sessions.  The first session was going over what was learned in focus and putting those tools to work.  Over the next 6 weeks at home you had to do work from the visions book.  At the end of this period you returned to your visions group (My group was based in Texas).  During the last of this session you were given instructions to come up with a "Group Vision".  This is when the "parent graduates of visions" are given instructions on coming up with a task to reach out to their community.  Basically it is another way to recruit more unsuspecting desperate parents.  Again this was my experience."

Thanks Anon. There is way too much sugar-coating going on here and I appreciate knowing not all parents are so easily duped into supporting the VI$ION of a handful of middle-aged folks over-dosing on their delusions of controlling the universe.  

 :roll:

[Anonymous]

Not duped into supporting family healing?  I'd like to hear why you are so anti-family?

[Anonymous]

On 2004-01-09 11:49:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Not duped into supporting family healing?  I'd like to hear why you are so anti-family? "

I do not see where it says anything about being ani-family.  To clear up what you are saying.....Does not being a vision follower mean your anti-family and do not believe in family healing?

[Anonymous]

On 2004-01-09 11:08:00, Anonymous wrote:

"At least they're doing something to make a difference besides what we're doing...posting judgment on this board. "

Speak for yourself, Anon.  I am not anti-family.
I am not a prisoner of YOUR values and beliefs. I am a powerful, intelligent, passionate human being who thinks adults who buy into these seminars as a lifestyle are the same people who can be trained to do just about anything.  Like disregard the fact that parents do not own their children, their thoughts or feelings.  Stop shoving your values and beliefs down the throats of innocent kids under the guise of bringing families back together. Let them grow up without fear of someone profiting from changing their hearts and minds to fit the VISION of old farts
dressed up like new-age gurus.

 :smokin:

[Anonymous]

Speak for yourself, Anon. I am not anti-family.
I am not a prisoner of YOUR values and beliefs. I am a powerful, intelligent, passionate human being who thinks adults who buy into these seminars as a lifestyle are the same people who can be trained to do just about anything. Like disregard the fact that parents do not own their children, their thoughts or feelings. Stop shoving your values and beliefs down the throats of innocent kids under the guise of bringing families back together. Let them grow up without fear of someone profiting from changing their hearts and minds to fit the VISION of old farts dressed up like new-age gurus.

 :smokin: now!

[Anonymous]

Regarding my comment on "no one to advocate for the kids"--

Family Reps, Counselors, and all other employees of WWASPs who are "treating" the children are imbued with the idea that anything the child does wrong is his fault and any complaint is "manipulation."  You cannot advocate for someone you don't believe.  If you assume a kid who lost 35 pounds is making a choice to starve himself, how do you know whether or not he has an illness?  What if he was anorexic, would you allow that "choice" to lead to his death?  It's not like they are allowed to see doctors.

This exact attitude has caused numerous deaths in prisons, hospitals, all institutions basically where some people have absolute control over others.  

The deaths in the wilderness camps are all cases where complaints of kids (whether it was "I can't breathe" from a 65 pound kid being "restrained" by a 300 pount man sitting on him, who later said he thought the kid was "playing possum" or "I am in pain" from a kid who died of a stomach ulcer that could have been treated with one tagamet if he'd been believed in his first week and who looked like a concentration camp victim when his mom saw his body) were ignored.

People whose first assumptions that children's complaints are lies cannot tell when they are telling the truth-- which is why you need an advocate whose first assumption is that they are telling the truth.

And the "complaint process" at WWASP schools is a joke.  In fact, there's testimony about it in a Tranquility Bay case: a kid who testified told about how when she complained that there was no exercise in OP, she was laughed at and from then on, punitive and excessive amounts of exercise were required in alternation with lying on the floor.

And who is hurt if a "faking" kid gets seen by a doctor?  

So what if it costs extra-- the alternative is erring on the side of disbelief and winding up with kids who die or are severely injured, which has happened and will continue to happen without oversight.

But the WWASP contract explicitly says that cost will be taken into account as a primary consideration when medical care is considered-- and that they should be absolved from liability if this "erring on the side of financial stinginess" results in death or injury.

What kind of parent would sign such a document?

[Anonymous]

Family Healing For Free .... whatta concept! Put down those self-help books and program parent manuals.  Unplug yourself from the teen-helper-wannabes.  Invest in your family by curing what is really ailing you, standing in the way of releasing your "inner child". You can do it!  Trust me, thousands of families have overcome this highly contagious disease without spending their kid's college fund or taking a 2nd mortgage out on the FAMILY HOME.  

AFFLUENZA is a groundbreaking film that diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating. By using personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, and "uncommercial" breaks to illuminate the nature and extent of the disease, AFFLUENZA has appealed to widely diverse audiences: from freshmen orientation programs to consumer credit counseling, and from religious congregations to marketing classes.

With the help of historians and archival film, AFFLUENZA reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prized thriftiness - with strong beliefs in "plain living and high thinking" - into the ultimate consumer society.

The program ends with a prescription to cure the disease. A growing number of people are opting out of the consumer chase,andchoosing "voluntary simplicity" instead. They are working and shopping less, spending more time with friends and family, volunteering in the communities, and enjoying their lives more.

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/affl.html

Get out the popcorn and invite the neighbors, your child's friends and your business associates over for an event that is sure to change their lives. No need to bring their checkbook!!!

[Anonymous]

It's a start!  Good post.