On 2005-03-17 10:09:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"It differs from facility to facility.
Level one: basic needs are met food, shelter, bathrooms, clothes. Limited talking privelages.
Level 2: The privelage to talk more but still limited, electric razors.
Level 3: Shoes, more talking privelages (1 and above.). On grounds activity.
Level 4: The beginning of upper levels. Shoes, jewelery make-up, upper level facility, more of independance from the group. Different group therapy sessions. Off grounds activity. Visiting and shadowing lower groups for a week. Parent student visits. Regular razors.
Level 5: Home passes. Level 5 and above activities. PC2
Level 6: Home passes. PC 3. Home contract. On the way home. "
Okay, Perri, I've changed my mind. You *were* brainwashed.
These aren't priveleges. With the exception of jewelry and make-up, these are very, very basic human rights.
Not to provide the level 6 "privileges" is what the *rest* of the US calls "child neglect."
Any parent who did what you suggest to your kid on their own, *I* would report to child welfare in a heartbeat. And child welfare would tell them to shape up and provide all those things--with the exception of jewelry and makeup--to their child.
If the parents did not do that, in any state I am aware of, child welfare would take the children out of the home for child neglect. Particularly over the shoes issue.
If I didn't provide my child with shoes that she could wear whenever she wanted (except to bed or in the bathtub), I would *lose my kids* and quite possibly be *criminally prosecuted* for wilfull child neglect.
If I provided my child with food that was substantially different and worse from my own food, unless I had consulted a nutritionist and the different diet was medically necessary for her health, I would lose my child and be prosecuted for wilfull criminal child neglect.
If I required my child to go around all day without being able to talk to other people, I would be prosecuted for criminal child *abuse*, if I failed to fix the problem after being warned.
They would *remove* my child from the home as an immediate safety threat and require me to take parenting classes as a condition of getting her back, and they would *closely* supervise our family for quite a long time after that.
If I returned to treating my child like that, they would remove her from the home, prosecute me, and go to family court to have my parental right permanently terminated.
And they'd be right to do so.
That you think those deprivations are not criminal child abuse and neglect, and are not woefully out of compliance with minimum community standards for how children are entitled to be treated, is evidence that yes, you *have* been brainwashed.
That you can even for a moment describe them as "privileges"---even in retrospect you don't believe all of them were "right"----is evidence that you have undergone deep and pervasive brainwashing that successfully tampered with your mind.
The abuse and neglect you have suffered has put you at high risk of abusing neglecting your own children in the false belief that these behaviors are not harmful to the child and are, in fact, acceptable forms of discipline.
Please go into therapy with a therapist who has experience with healing people who have left cults.
Please also take formal parenting classes offered or recommended by your local child welfare department---the kind they recommend to parents with problems---*before* you have children.
I'm very frightened for your children that if you don't learn better you may carry the abuse and neglect you learned into future generations.
You obviously didn't get a good example of appropriate discipline from your parents, either, growing up.
Just because you're personally much more functional than you were is *not* the same thing as even minimally psychologically healthy.
You *need* to learn the range of the right and healthy ways to discipline a toddler, a growing child, and a teenager without doing harm to that kid. You need to learn what standards are appropriate to expect of children at what ages--because you didn't get that--and what discipline levels are proportional and appropriate when misbehavior inevitably occurs.
Either learn, or please don't have kids. But better if you learn, because not all children are planned and even the nicest people can have an unplanned pregnancy.
Oh my god. I can't believe you can even for a moment describe any of those things as privileges.
Color me shocked to the core. You present yourself well, and you *seem* whole, at first. But you're not. You're really not and you need to get some help for that.
That's not an insult, that's a plain fact.
I'm so sorry for what happened to you, but you *mustn't* go on thinking those things are okay for fear that you, as an adult with adult responsibilities, harm a child someday.
Julie/Timoclea
