You make an excellent point here, and you write with intelligence and passion. The vast majority of the time, all the parents need to do is communicate with respect for their kids' feelings. I have such great difficulty getting parents to see this! They think their kids' feelings are unreasonable or irrational, real communication doesn't occur, and everything goes to hell.
I saw a lot of wounds inflicted. I would never support a synanon-like program. Never. They only cause terrible harm to people. I do think there are some good short-term programs - but the parents have to be willing to look at themselves and learn how to communicate.
The only cases in which I recommend residential are drug addiction (you have to detox) dangerous gang activity (you have to remove the kid from his geographical area) and violent psychoses (you have to keep the family safe).
When a kid is involved in gang activity and there is an immediate danger, I encourage the parents to send the child to a loving relative. I also advise them to move - as a family - to another state. They sometimes point out that this is very difficult - jobs, home, etc. I ask them how much their child's life is worth.
Only as a VERY LAST RESORT do I advise to send to a school. And I choose carefuly - never a Synanon-based program. Although I was never an employee of CEDU, I learned a lot there. I don't have any interest in ever being involved in a place like that.
I have worked in facilities for gravely mentally ill persons - certainly a different kind of population... and we had love and kindness for our clientelle. We had huge waiting lists of persons who wanted to live there - an entirely different kind of place from these kid places.
I hate to see the pain here in these posts. I hate to know that so many were wounded as they were. I do know that there are places that operate out of compassion and are not driven by the dollar. And I sincerely hope that no child will ever need any kind of placement again.
On 2004-08-08 22:38:00, Antibody? wrote:
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I'm going to agree with Antigen on this one.
You can't get real with a kid without communication on a more personal level than force. What ever happened to compassion?
I continue to see kids come out of CEDU burning with anger, shivering with fear, and, with no idea who they are or how to care for themselves.
They can't apply for jobs, work, relate to real problems and live with people rationally. Their soul has been broken. Their life has been the institution. Their God a machine that throws a tray of food in front of them. No wonder they are lost in a matrix.
It is correct that parents pay to have the job of raising their kid done by someone else, someone without attachment to anything but a paycheck - and a feeling of ritiousnes.
Staff, - These people are rescures of inauthenticity and legends in their own minds. In reality, they are empty, nothing without that false praise used by the system to enable their hidden arrogance.
They are nothing trying to be something - at your, and your parents' expence.
As for escorts - damn the escorts. They are maggots, leaches, sell-outs."
