Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Perrigaud on March 12, 2005, 06:04:00 PM
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I understand that there are those cases in which correctional facilities have abused people. I understand that there are genuine bad experiences. I agree that they need to be addressed.
But to those of you who call the success stories, good experiences, advocates, and graduates of the program brainwashed are being quite judgemental. Who are you to question someones success? If they are honestly happy and doing well what harm does it cause you?
It bothers me that people are so close minded to say that it's all fake. If a drug addict found that religion helped them not do drugs and live a life they always wanted what is the point in saying that it's b/s? If it works for them great.
Attack and question the fact that abuse happens (I'm for that as well). Attack the physical abuse.
The program wasn't the fix it all for me. What it did was offer me insight and a different point of view. It helped a certain percentage, the rest of it was me and other resources. TB, and Casa, I aggree, weren't helpful. I didn't learn a thing at Casa except for compliancy. The emotional clensing is what I needed. I got that at CCM.
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Well the way you tell it, none of the really harmful aspects of the WWASP program are going on at CCM. You just went there and got a good education and some private therapy, right?
So then, why all the expense? Why the restrictions on communication w/ parents? Why force the parents to do the seminars? (it is not voluntary, contact w/ the kid in the program is contingent on completing two greuling out of town seminars)
Is CCM then just stone soup? In that case, the worst aspect of it would be the fraud; they'd be delivering exactly nothing for the base fees. Or is there more going on there than just your typical boarding school w/ therapists?With soap, baptism is a good thing.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer
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Yes and No. Parents are told that the contact will be limited. If I were a parent considering putting my kid in a program I would be sure to do research. Anyhow, it wasn't just a boarding school with therapists. Notice how I refer to it as a program? I would have said boarding school. No, it's about soul cleansing. Fraud? No. My parents were well aware of where I was going. They had done there research. To this day they hold the program as being honest about what was going to happen, what was happening, and also being helpful.
The seminars helped us as a family communicate better. Before the program we used to get into predictable fights. It always ended up in screaming matches, battery, and nothing resolved except for more anger. My parents weren't bad parents we just all needed to work things out. The seminars were like family therapy for us. The restricted contact helped me focus on myself. I wasn't ready to communicate with my parents when I first was in the program. As I progressed through the levels I had more and more interaction. It was better for me this way. It's easier to communicate with a clear mind.
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Terrific response Perrigaud! Your parents let go of YOUR program to give you the opportunity to do it for yourself, not for them!
I've seen what happens when parents want to control their child and the staff. Not a good thing.
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Perrigaud - your case is a rare one, you must realize that. And our issues with PREVENTING Communication and Contact with the outside world still stand.
And ,the seminars are very much about how the person takes it, its why they are the way they are. I'm glad it worked for you but I'm sure everyone's read those appadavits and whatnot from people who have been in the seminars, and that link I made about how the seminars seem to be a pathlogical thing made by those doctors who themselves admitted they were influenced by the experience.
I myself cant recommend this to anyone. The forceful nature and the extreme secrecy of them make it so that judgementalism isnt really the issue. Its consent. Another prob is a lot of parents do go in uninformed. Yeah, its their fault, but why have the kid potentially end up in a shitty situation?
P.S. - Ginger, sorry, but Perrigaud taught herself out of a book. Thats not a good education.The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.
--Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese and Spanish explorer
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//Who are you to question someones success? If they are honestly happy and doing well what harm does it cause you? //
Perri - I personally don't question your success and its not my intent to seem as if I want to devalue it.
I Do think you give the program to much credit. I do think you are one of the lucky ones.
Your success is certainly not harming anyone.
Their success is, IMO, harming many people.
You having gotten some good from your program, does not excuse the great deal of harm many other have received instead, from the same program.
Why do you feel such a need to invalidate their experance?
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Buzzkill did you not read the opening paragraph? I said I am aware it happens. I also said that the prevention of the negative needs to be addressed. Don't try and put me in the 100% gung ho program grad that discredits people. Nice try. I really got to get my other successful friends on this forum. I'm not all that rare.
Niles: People will think what they want. However, just as you will stand by the fact that your issues remain I will stand by my iron will to stand by the program.
Again like I've said before reformation is something I'd like to see happen. I never said it was perfect. The schooling? Well yes that's a big one. I'm just quick in my mind. I can read and learn with little or no effort. I've always been book smart.
What now?
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Sometimes people do not realize the negative effects (that a program) has had on them until years after they leave the program.
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//Buzzkill did you not read the opening paragraph? I said I am aware it happens. I also said that the prevention of the negative needs to be addressed. Don't try and put me in the 100% gung ho program grad that discredits people.//
Your right and I owe you an apology.
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Anonymous: And other people never had any negative effects at all and are doing great. I know many.
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Perri,
It is the opinion of some, based on research and their personal experiences, that coercion ultimately has a negative effect, even if it appears to be 'successful' initially. Coercive and therapy shouldn't be used in the same sentence.
There will always be those who feel you are doing well inspite of your experience, not as a result of it. Judgmental? Perhaps. But, it is their opinion, and you are entitled to disagree.
Time will tell.
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Time has told and continues to do so. I've been out for a while. I've known many people that have been out for over 12 years and still thank the program. Just as there are those who (based on research and personal experience) have no regrets from the program. There will always be different stances on the program. Of course I'm entitled to an opinion as are you. However, my main goal is to gain insight as well as give it. Could it be that it's not manipulation, abuse or negative? Of course (I'll state this again in case anyone thinks I'm all one sided) there are cases of abuse. And I feel for those victims. But it's not all bad.
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On 2005-03-13 00:38:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"Buzzkill did you not read the opening paragraph? I said I am aware it happens. I also said that the prevention of the negative needs to be addressed. Don't try and put me in the 100% gung ho program grad that discredits people. Nice try. I really got to get my other successful friends on this forum. I'm not all that rare.
Niles: People will think what they want. However, just as you will stand by the fact that your issues remain I will stand by my iron will to stand by the program.
Again like I've said before reformation is something I'd like to see happen. I never said it was perfect. The schooling? Well yes that's a big one. I'm just quick in my mind. I can read and learn with little or no effort. I've always been book smart.
What now? "
Perri--Whether the program methodology helps or not, I will readily admit that some people have parents that are so screwed up that the program is an improvement.
This is not a judgement of their parents as bad people or as not loving their kids---this is just a judgement of *some* parents as screwed up to the point that their kid may (rightly) feel like another pretty screwy environment is, in their case, an improvement.
I will also admit that some teens benefit from being quarantined away from being able to get themselves permanently injured or in irreparable legal trouble before their frontal lobes mature enough to give them adult-level impulse control.
However, even a program that is not abusive to juvenile delinquents like you admit you were, can be harmful to the point of abuse and neglect for people with problems different from the ones you had---just by letting them in the door.
I know you're not necessarily disagreeing with me on this, but I think it's important to keep saying it, over and over again.
So many parents will look at your situation and say, "See, this program helped this Perigaud girl when she seemed hopelessly unmanageable. I don't know what else to do, or where else will take my kid, maybe they can help my kid, too."
And when their kid has a completely different problem from the one you had, putting that kid in the program could be much worse than just kicking him/her out of the house or turning him/her over to juvie/child welfare as an incorrigible.
And it's possible to know *in advance* if that program is likely to be exceptionally disastrous by paying very close attention to the data and research (what little there is) and the expert opinions of people who say kids with certain problems *should not* be put in the same programs with kids whose problems are primarily juvenile delinquency.
See, your problem was most likely impulse control. It's a *very* common problem in kids with delinquency issues. And while you may subjectively feel like you learned a lot in the program, and you may well *have* learned a lot in the program you were in, you *also* had the frontal lobes in your brain---the area that handles impulse control---continue to develop and mature simply by you getting older.
I suspect the *primary* way the program helped you was by protecting you from yourself long enough for you to grow up a little. Or a lot. And by giving you rules that as screwed up and unpredictable as they were from arbitrary enforcement and kids making up stuff to snitch, were still probably (I'm guessing) more consistent than what you grew up with.
And I don't discount the value in that.
There are parents out there who screw their kids up completely by providing few to no limits and "discipline" that might as well be random. I don't know if that happened to you, but it happens. And fixing the environment the kid is in can do a lot to help the kid grow up. And some homes are worse than the program---just in the lax direction instead of the strict direction.
But part of the reason people like me have to keep beating the drum is to get the attention of desperate parents and get the message to them that even if their kid does need to be committed or incarcerated, if their kid is mentally ill, they need a different facility that operates by a totally different strategy than the kind of facility that handles delinquency problems.
And even if we get the reforms in place and enforced to curb the direct abuses, that's always going to be true---kids with problems that have very different root causes are going to need treatments and accomodations that structured to properly get at those root causes.
One size does not fit all.
Timoclea
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Timoclea,
I completely agree on the one size fits all falsity. I also feel that those who have mental disabilities do not belong in these programs at all. I am upset that that is the case. Now, when it comes to resorting to severe misbehavior what most people fail to see is that it goes deeper than that. It wasn't impulse control that was my problem (u proved my statement by saying that). It was about me needing to deal with things in my past present and future. Because I held things inside they snowballed until one day I exploded in the worst kind of way. Fears, guilt, shame, unresolved issues are cancerous. Meaning the more they are undealt with the more they spread. There are people out there who don't deal with issues and it ends up consuming them. It doesn't matter if it's a little bit or a lot. What I learned in the program was how to deal with such things. There was a time in my life where I felt so helpless and sad. That eventually turned into anger and hate. Did it save my life? Maybe. I needed someone to help me clear my head. I got more than I ever dreamed. And now, I'm so thankful.
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On 2005-03-13 11:25:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"Timoclea,
I completely agree on the one size fits all falsity. I also feel that those who have mental disabilities do not belong in these programs at all. I am upset that that is the case. Now, when it comes to resorting to severe misbehavior what most people fail to see is that it goes deeper than that. It wasn't impulse control that was my problem (u proved my statement by saying that). It was about me needing to deal with things in my past present and future. Because I held things inside they snowballed until one day I exploded in the worst kind of way. Fears, guilt, shame, unresolved issues are cancerous. Meaning the more they are undealt with the more they spread. There are people out there who don't deal with issues and it ends up consuming them. It doesn't matter if it's a little bit or a lot. What I learned in the program was how to deal with such things. There was a time in my life where I felt so helpless and sad. That eventually turned into anger and hate. Did it save my life? Maybe. I needed someone to help me clear my head. I got more than I ever dreamed. And now, I'm so thankful. "
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works for a lot of people. If you were sad, angry, and afraid and the therapy helped you not be, then whether you noticed it or not (the techniques are designed so to some degree you're not supposed to notice it happening or what they're doing to your head, so if you don't remember it this way, it doesn't mean that isn't at least a significant component of what you had) you probably had CBT.
The thing is that teenage rash *acting* from anger and hate and fear *is* about impulse control. Adults handle it better because their brains are more mature.
But yeah, I don't doubt that you had several problems you needed dealt with. Most people do.
When we first studied abnormal psych. they warned us about trying to diagnose all our friends with this or that serious mental health problem. Medical students' malady. Basically *everybody* has various symptoms of mental illness---the diagnosis is a matter of degree.
What that means is that pretty much everybody can have their functioning in life stabilized some by a competent course of therapy, because pretty much everybody is "the walking wounded" psychologically.
Anyway, all that to say that I can certainly believe you when you say that therapy helped you in multiple ways and that many of your problems were more serious than the impulse control problems that *all* teens have.
I guess what I'm saying is, no matter who you are or what your damage, the mental and emotional turmoil of just being a teenager--which has a lot to do with human biology at that stage of life---makes everything worse for awhile and that when you grow out of your teenage years, a bunch of stuff just automatically improves *to a certain extent*.
We like to think of teenagers as if they are, or ought to be, adults with zits.
Instead, teens are developmentally analagous to two year olds. At certain ages, they go through certain stages. Virtually *all* two year olds have problems with tantrums. Virtually *all* teens have problems with impulse control. It's a stage we all go through.
This isn't disagreement with what you say about your life. I don't even know you and I wouldn't be that presumptuous. I'm just clarifying my mental frame of reference for looking at the teen years and what goes on in them for *any* teenager.
Whatever problems a person has, being a teenager magnifies them or makes them that much harder to deal with. Growing out of being a teenager improves those problems, at least back down to the baseline level. Unless the problem is some progressively degenerative serious illness or something.
There are fun things about the teen years, but in a lot of ways, being a teenager just sucks.
Timoclea
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Yeah it did suck. I had to be 'mature' when desired and be 'immature' (or have to accept ridiculous orders or situations) when desired, held to the standard of an adult but given none of the freedoms.
Plus, public school is a damn joke, you're hormonal as hell, and honestly I would have rather have just slept from 10-18 years of age. Republican n. A liberty despising, money worshiping, control freak. Democrat n. A liberty despising, social engineering, control freak.
-- Anonymous
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PERRIGARD wrote: "I also feel that those who have mental disabilities do not belong in these programs at all. I am upset that that is the case."
Because people with mental disabilities ARE in these programs they must be better regulated and they must abide by the laws that have been established to protect the mentally ill. THEY ARE NOT DOING SO. There have been numberous reports by staff and patients that facilities like Majestic Ranch, Casa By the Sea, Tranquility Bay, Provo Canyon School and many others are using isolation, hog-tying, forced drugging and exposure to the cold as punishment. This type of treatment is not only inhumane - it is illegal. What's particularly outrageous is the fact that it is being done to children under the guise of therapy.
Remember - one man's medicine is another man's poison. Just because this may have helped you, doesn't mean it is helpful or therapeutic to the general population of youth.
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RN on the Board,
First off it's PERRIGAUD. Now, I never claimed it to be a fix it all for everyone. I never said that everyone needs this or they'll be deadorinjail. I even stated something along those lines in the beginning paragraph. People really need to start paying attention to what is being typed.
I'm aware abuse happens and that certain people don't belong there. Please pay attention.
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So where to now? You're an extremely intelligent and thoughtful young lady. You must know that that sets you apart from most of your peers, even those who are doing pretty well for themselves.
How would you recomend WWASP fix their problems? What should they do differently so that only kids like you were, those who you believe can benefit, land up in their programs? And what else could they fix?I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
--Robert Frost, American poet
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
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Antigen,
Ok this is what I think should happen to help get rid of the crap that goes on with the program. First off I believe that a mandatory analysis run by a licensed pychologist should be run. This would eliminate the admittance of mentaly diabled teens being abused for things that are beyond their control. Second an evaluation of the family both individually and as a family. This in turn will eliminate the admittance of teens that have parents who are taking the easy way out or even step parents that are trying to get rid of the kid (sad but it does happen). Third; since there seems to be an ongoing discrepancy on the program daily functions and what the parents understand I believe that a better contract (parent's sign their kids off) should be made stating clearly what will go on.
These are just ideas but they still would help. The sad part is that the CEOS wouldn't want to do this because that would mean that their wouldn't be as many lucrative assets. Sad.
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Perhaps if the ICPC was enforced uniformly throughout the country, your suggestions would become a reality. Unfortunately, each state seems to interpret the compact differently, some ignoring it completely.
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On 2005-03-15 00:27:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"Antigen,
Ok this is what I think should happen to help get rid of the crap that goes on with the program. First off I believe that a mandatory analysis run by a licensed pychologist should be run. This would eliminate the admittance of mentaly diabled teens being abused for things that are beyond their control. Second an evaluation of the family both individually and as a family. This in turn will eliminate the admittance of teens that have parents who are taking the easy way out or even step parents that are trying to get rid of the kid (sad but it does happen). Third; since there seems to be an ongoing discrepancy on the program daily functions and what the parents understand I believe that a better contract (parent's sign their kids off) should be made stating clearly what will go on.
These are just ideas but they still would help. The sad part is that the CEOS wouldn't want to do this because that would mean that their wouldn't be as many lucrative assets. Sad. "
Sounds like we mostly agree on solutions.
As long as you agree that talk (on the part of the programs) is cheap and that they would need to be *required* by law to do it and there would need to be adequate penalties, enforcement, and funding for same to put the solutions into practice.
Regulations clarifying the Interstate Compact would help, as would a clear tasking for who was expected to enforce it (at the federal level), adequate funding for enforcement, and clear setting of enforcement as a priority.
Since NIMH obviously understands the issues involved, I personally think they would be great candidates for an increased budget and mission to hire enforcement personnel and enforce those rules.
Hell, every other alphabet soup agency has its own personal cops and power to levy fines and set regulations. Why not NIMH? At least they "get" that there's a problem.
Timoclea
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See there, now? In one fairly brief, concise paragraph, you managed to reach the bottom line.
On 2005-03-15 00:27:00, Perrigaud wrote:
The sad part is that the CEOS wouldn't want to do this because that would mean that their wouldn't be as many lucrative assets.
That's my take on it too. There's just one other thing I would add, and you may or may not agree w/ this. I think these programs should be voluntary on the part of the kids. Maybe on that day when you went into CCM you would not have been willing to go. But, the way you describe your state of mind at the time, I'm guessing that there were days when you would have taken an offer for a truely voluntary placement.
I've heard from several friends that programs like Outward Bound are worthwhile. But they don't take involuntary placements.
But, as you note, if they implimented your recomendations and or mine, the kind of parents to whom they've been marketing wouldn't bite.
I honestly don't think there's a market for intensive residential treatment for 50k kids per year in this country. Kids ta' day are just not anywhere near that messed up. And there's not a whole lot of money to be had from simple, legitimate retreats. All the money comes from people who are scared out of their wits and not thinking clearly.
When I say we should shut down the industry, that's what I'm talkin' about. Not that we should do away w/ legitimate residential treatment or boarding schools, but that this fear mongering and gouging has GOT to go!
I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
--Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist
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Antigen,
Maybe I didn't get what you said for some reason. Did you say that kids aren't that messed up these days? If you did I will deny that. I believe kids are that bad today. Not all of them but a lot of them.
Voluntarily go? Even though I knew I neeed to go I wouldn't have gone. I was in a cycle that was not good. I was comfortable yet not at the same time. I knew how to deal with what I had (unhealthily) but wouldn't have changed on my own. I needed help. Maybe eventually I would've gotten a therapist but not at that point. It's like an unhealthy relationship. The abused partner (any type of abuse) knows it's bad and that they shouldn't stick around yet they continue to do so. Some get out of it on their own and others don't.
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Well, don't believe everything we like to remember about the old days. Kids today are nowhere near as bad as we make them out to be. The fact is that juvenile crime and teen pregnancy have dropped and drug use is just about exactly what it's been since we started keeping track in the `70's.
We just don't like to remember what assholes we were when we were kids. Every generation is like that. But every generation doesn't feel the need to ship their kids off to have them reformed by force. The industry is new. And I think the perception of rebellious kids as a dire emergency is relatively new. But kids today aren't really much different from kids yesterday.
Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time, and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.
--Thomas Carlyle
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Yeah? What about teen suicide, suicide attempts, kids being tried as adults, anorexia, bulimia, and such. There are a lot more on diversion than there were in the 90's. Also a lot of them don't explode/inmplode with all their issues unitl later on. DUI's are high amongst the 20's.
Anyhow, not to say that every teen with issues is going to end up like this. Most of them grow up and out of it.
Kids these days are seeing a lot more than the kids in the 80's. Aids, rape (that has been never reported), incest, harder drugs, std's, and the fear of violence in school.
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No, really! Romeo and Juliette were fictional characters. But the story is a classic because it's so true to life.
I don't know if you're familiar w/ Old Testament stories or not. But the Prodigal Son is an interesting one. In the context of the culture, then and even to this day, when a son asks for his inheritance while the father is alive, it's the same as making a public statement wishing the father dead. Then what does he do? He goes off to the city and blows it all on drugs and loose women. (yes, drugs. wine was not the only intoxicating substance available)
DUI among kids is actually down in recent years. When I was a kid, it was legal and socially acceptable for an adult to have a few drinks and then drive home. They only started defining specific limits when breath testing became widely available. Before that, the roadside sobriety test (aka stupid human tricks) was the state of the art. The cops encouraged people to pull off the road and take a nap or have some coffee if they started driving and found themselves to be too drunk. If they found someone drunk in their car, they'd check on them and maybe offer to drive them home so long as they were adult and non-combative. These days, we take a much dimmer view of drunk driving. That, education and a shift in public attitude, has been fairly effective at reducing drunk driving.
STDs are not new. The arcane term "whore's blooms" refers to a symptom of syphilis. Modern science has found that you can dose syphilis w/ antibiotics and found the cause of the mysterious AIDS syndrome, but not the cure. But there's not really any more sex going on than any other time. And there's not really any more or less risk to it than any other time. There's just more hysteria.
Yes, more kids are landing up under corrective control than before. Where I live now, if the parents are on good terms w/ the cops, they'd rather bring the kid home than process them through the system. The kids around here aren't much different to begin with. Maybe they're a little less desperate than back in Broward because the adults around here are just a little less hysterical.
Here's an extreme example of the kind of hysteria I'm talking about:
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp? ... v=8H3wW8Je (http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=2919630&nav=8H3wW8Je)
There really is nothing new under the Sun.
Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts, unutterably vain, worthless as wither'd weeds.
--Emily Bronte
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
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On 2005-03-16 00:48:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"Yeah? What about teen suicide, suicide attempts, kids being tried as adults, anorexia, bulimia, and such. There are a lot more on diversion than there were in the 90's. Also a lot of them don't explode/inmplode with all their issues unitl later on. DUI's are high amongst the 20's.
Anyhow, not to say that every teen with issues is going to end up like this. Most of them grow up and out of it.
Kids these days are seeing a lot more than the kids in the 80's. Aids, rape (that has been never reported), incest, harder drugs, std's, and the fear of violence in school. "
Here is a good debunking article:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1224 (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1224)
It's over 10 years old now but, as Ginger says, there is nothing new under the sun.
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Who cares, really, if kids are worse today than they were in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's??
There are kids, like Perrigaud, like my kid, that (and me) that need(ed)effective help, regardless of who else is doing it, or what the "statistics" say.
Antigen - what I hear you saying is that since it's not that bad, in your opinion, then parents shouldn't be parents and make a decision for their child.
Odds are the kid WILL grow out of it, but what damage will they have done to their bodies and to their futures?
I also agree that any BM or RTC is not for everyone. It is based on a level of need.
Perrigaud - The mental health screening is already in place with the WWASPS schools. It's thorough and requires a physicians signature from home. At least mine did.
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On 2005-03-16 12:56:00, Dolphin wrote:
Antigen - what I hear you saying is that since it's not that bad, in your opinion, then parents shouldn't be parents and make a decision for their child.
No, what I'm saying is that parents should be parents instead of shipping their kids off to someone else to raise. I know you're getting a lot of strokes lately. Trust the process, that's what "good" parents do. Oh, you were SO right to come to us BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE!!!! That's what you're paying for, after all, and it looks like you're getting your money's worth. But it doesn't really make you a good parent. It's just false assurance.
Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind...it doesn't matter!
-- Chuck Gauran
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On 2005-03-16 12:46:00, Anonymous wrote:
Here is a good debunking article:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1224 (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1224)
It's over 10 years old now but, as Ginger says, there is nothing new under the sun."
Thanks. I was looking for that and couldn't remember the title or the author. Sure does demostrate that good old saw, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Totalitarianism is like a specter which drinks the blood of the living and so achieves reality, while the victims go on existing as a mass of living corpses.
Karl Jaspers, The Fight Against Totalitarianism (1963)
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On 2005-03-16 12:56:00, Dolphin wrote:
Odds are the kid WILL grow out of it, but what damage will they have done to their bodies and to their futures?
There's no tellin, is there? But then the Program can do a whole lot of damage to these kids bodies and their futures too. It's not asif this is a safe alternative. It's not safe at all. The only real difference is that, this way, YOU are in control and the other way HE would be in control. It feels safer when you're calling the shots. But you're not the one actually getting the treatment.
And you know very well that the kid is in no position to tell you, or even to understand himself, what's going on with him. For all you know, they might be grilling him right now to confess his homo-errotic fantasies about Marshall Mathers to his peer group. That sort of thing can drive a young boy to suicide. Did you know that?
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
--Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
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You are SO right about the hysterics! I am a granny who attended highschool and college, way back in the late 50's/early 60's. My generation was every bit as bad (if not worse) than my own kids were as teens. There were similar drug, alcohol and sex problems then as now. My mother (now in her 90's) says she was a wild teen back in the 30's! Some things never change, teens are supposed to horrify their parents to one degree or another, to do otherwise is simply not natural. If my teenage grandchildren are any example of their peer group, kids today are more sensible and less wild than their great grandparents were!
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On 2005-03-16 00:48:00, Perrigaud wrote:
"Yeah? What about teen suicide, suicide attempts, kids being tried as adults, anorexia, bulimia, and such. There are a lot more on diversion than there were in the 90's. Also a lot of them don't explode/inmplode with all their issues unitl later on. DUI's are high amongst the 20's.
Anyhow, not to say that every teen with issues is going to end up like this. Most of them grow up and out of it.
Kids these days are seeing a lot more than the kids in the 80's. Aids, rape (that has been never reported), incest, harder drugs, std's, and the fear of violence in school. "
Perri--I went to high school in the early '80's, and we were definitely wilder than the kids are now.
The *only* thing I think the kids today are wilder about are blowjobs.
The rest? Nah, as a whole high school class, compared with a high school class of today, we were wilder.
We were pretty good at hiding it. And our parents didn't or wouldn't take us down to get us drug tested. And our parents didn't have a cow about a couple of joints. I didn't smoke pot, but I was probably one of very few people in my whole senior class who hadn't tried it even once.
Not that I was a goody-goody--my vices were just different.
By and large, our parents knew (okay, *mine* turned out to have been mostly clueless--go figure) when we came home trashed and as long as the kid who was trashed hadn't been the one driving they'd let the kid stagger in to sleep and pretend they didn't notice.
Our parents never got prosecuted for "corrupting the morals of a minor" for looking the other way while their kids held beer bashes.
Most of the kids were parking and screwing around, and our parents looked the other way. AIDs wasn't really around yet, except in a very few Haitians and gays. Mostly our parents just hoped the girl didn't get pregnant and nobody got VD. Mostly we kids either didn't get pregnant, or if we did, somebody's McJob wages went to pay for the abortion. Or for VD, the clinic visit(s).
Mostly pregnancy was the hazard, but it there was still a fair bit of social stigma to a high school baby, so if you got pregnant you either left school and went back to alternative school at night, or had an abortion.
And we had kids die of this and that--mostly drunken or speeding car crashes. Had kids in the hospital from alcohol poisoning. Had kids bust each other up in fights. Had plenty of suicide attempts that you just never heard about unless you knew the kid really well. Had kids stuck in the mental hospital 'cause they lost it, and kids sent off to military school.
I guess our rates of just about everything were higher than today's kids'
One of the troubles with evaluating each generation's problems is that every generation of kids thinks they invented sex, and pretty much thinks they invented drugs too.
And that Mommy and Daddy only did it once for each child and *certainly* don't do it anymore.
And then they grow up and think they were the worst generation, and as they learn about all the problems in the big bad world that they have to face as adults, and they think those problems just got there. Maybe intellectually they don't, but that's how it *feels*. And so it feels like things are getting worse all the time---including the next generation of kids---even when they're not.
And of course you've got the evening news always making sure it seems like the sky is falling. You know what the editors say: If it bleeds, it leads.
I'm not trying to sound all superior or anything---it's just I went through it in my 20's, and it took awhile to wear off.
For some people it never wears off. A lot of people never go back and look at the statistics to see what the data says.
Today's kids aren't little angels. But my generation was worse.
Timoclea
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You think that's bad? My dad, born in the early `20's, used to run bootleg and numbers for his uncles. His uncles, including the town mayor, were the biggest bootleggers in the Delewar Valley and said to have produced some of the finest "Jamaican" rum ever to flow out of those hills. His dad was the chief of police. He was also a drunk, and a paranoid, jealous, violent one at that! But that didn't stop him busting his brother's load and splitting the family over it (among, I'm sure, other things).
Talk to some old people or just read old newspapers. Oh, the stories they tell!
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
--Thomas Brackett Reed
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Ha!
Yeah we can shock the younguns! Coupla years ago I was chatting with the neighbor boy, middle school age, about fractured/satiracal lyrics of pop songs. I sang him one I remembered from the time I was his age.
To the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the Burning of the School.
We have tortured every teacher,
We have broken every rule.
We are marching to the flagpole now
To hang the Principal.
Our truth goes marching on!
Glory, Glory Hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
Met her at the door,
With a loaded .44
And now she isn't teaching anymore.
Child was horrified!
Said if any of his teachers heard that he'd be expelled and suspended and in forever detention, the police would be called, his parents would be called, the bomb squad would be called... etc.
He liked it though, and we agreed it would remain an inside joke.
That which does not kill you can make you stronger, but I really never needed to be this strong.
Scott Wagner
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I know! Remeber playing cops and robbers? I do. I was almost always one of the robbers. We had toy cap guns that looked relatively real and all. I bet that's not allowed in school anymore, either.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
--John Quincy Adams, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives [July 4, 1821]
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Took a cap gun to school and it would be locked down and youd be arrested and charged with a litany of charges.
Oh boy, lets over-react summore! The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.
--Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley, 1958
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Man, the difference between here and the east coast is just amazing. Here, they still have toy guns in the toy aisle and shotgun shells for sale at WalMart.
By 1940 the literacy figure for all states stood at 96 percent for whites. Eighty percent for blacks. Notice for all the disadvantages blacks labored under, four of five were still literate. Six decades later, at the end of the 20th century, the National Adult Literacy Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress say 40 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites can't read at all. Put another way, black illiteracy doubled, white illiteracy quadrupled, despite the fact that we spend three or four times as much real money on schooling as we did 60 years ago.
--Vin Suprynowicz
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Ok. I've come to the conclusion that everyone thinks their own generation was more extreme. Ok, I think that the truth is that every generation had its own vices and problems. The difference is that the problems are different. The 70's had the draft, war, hippies, and psychedelic drugs. The 80's had abortion, neon colors, zinc, and sex. The 90's had gangs, war, sex, rap, snowboarding, and skateboarding. The 00's have war, kids having kids, corrupted leaders, rape. In all actuality all generations had these problems. Some issues were more abundunt in some than others.
When it comes to the ways they treated the problems that's different. They once used electric shock therapy. Then it was mental hospitals. Pregnancy, some were sent away to live with nuns or even pregnant teen facilities. Nowadays we are known as a Prozac nation. We have an illness/syndrome for everything as well as an accompanying drug. Is that any better? Lock down facilites (corrective boarding schools) are not for everyone. However I agree with Dolphin that it is for others. Now, does that mean that parents are being lazy? Not necessarily. My parents did everything they could. My will is strong. Don't want to glorify it. But that is what kept me alive in the days before my teens. That's what seperates me from a lot of people. In a world of followers I am a leader. What is my gift is also my poison. If I have my mind set on something I will attain it. If that thing is something helpful or good for me than I'm golden. If it is destroying then it can be really detrimental. I always take offense when people tell me my parents are bad parents, lazy, or such. That is not the case. My parents are good people. I now realize that they are truly some of the strongest people I know. And I thank them for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow in the environment of CCM. [ This Message was edited by: Perrigaud on 2005-03-17 01:24 ]
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"They once used electric shock therapy. Then it was mental hospitals."
Shock therapy is making a comeback. Everyday there is an ad in the local paper where U of M is practically begging people to join their "non invasive therapy". It's 100% free, plus a sizable stiped for willingly getting your brain zapped! No thanks, I'll pass.
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I had some shock therpy done a whyle bak & it did me a world of good..I wuz in BAD SHAPE before I got that....I rekummend it!
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Isn't "Scientology" based on shock therapy?
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Making a come back here and abroad.
With limited availability of medicines and counselling therapies, some doctors are increasingly relying on electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, to treat Iraq's mentally ill. This involves passing an electric current through the brain to induce a fit and in the UK is used, under general anaesthetic, only to treat severe depression and psychiatric illness, and then only after other treatments have failed. The irony is that in Iraqi cities, with their intermittent electricity supplies, even this therapy is not always available.
Story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 07,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1428207,00.html)
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Perri, sorry, didn't mean to disrespect your parents. That's not exactly what I meant by all that.
My parents bought into essentially the same sales pitch in 1970. In those days, it was clear (even to the cop accross the street, who was my best friend's dad) that my parents were a little off. Most people didn't buy into this stuff. Most people just dealt w/ their kids the old fashioned way. Now that's changing.
Now they run a TC style bootcamp within the Broward juvenile system. If a kid gets caught skipping school or mouths off to a teacher, instead of getting a detention or something, they get sent down to the JIF (Juvenile Intervention Facility) for a psyche eval and recomendation. I know of one girl who was given Welbutrin for telling a teacher "Oh yeah? Go ahead and punch me. I'll flatten you." They got her down to JIF and determined that she had an anger problem because she responded this way when a teacher raised a fist and threatened to knock her through a wall. And this happened in front of an entire classroom full of other kids.
These days, most of the adults are over-reacting and only a few are calling bullshit. And it seems that it's those of us who have been down that road who get it. Even those who held for years that the Program saved their lives don't put their own kids in programs. And I'm guessing you won't either.
If you say you really needed a tough, boot-camp style intervention, ok, I take your word for it. But w/ a grain of salt. Your saying that you went through the Program, but only let it effect you in certain, positive ways comes off about the same as Jose Conseco extolling the virtues of steroids.
All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.
--H.L. Mencken
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"They got her down to JIF and determined that she had an anger problem because she responded this way when a teacher raised a fist and threatened to knock her through a wall."
Who has the 'anger' problem? What no wellbutrin or punishment for teach?
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On 2005-03-17 10:40:00, Anonymous wrote:
Who has the 'anger' problem? What no wellbutrin or punishment for teach? "
No. Not at Deerfield High, anyway. It's a very sad and frustrating situation. It used to be a pretty decent public school district. But, in recent years, it seems asthough the war mentality has completely overtaken all three schools. This one teacher (well, actually, she was some sort of administrator) was notorious for abusive language and threats toward students as well as bizarre mind games. She'd escelate the most petty situation into full blown drama. I hear the same stories about her over several years from just about every kid who ever mentioned her name, including the honor role type good kids (yeah, I have met a few of those too, even in the Highlands) But the 'us against them' mentality is so entrenched at this point that staff can do no wrong.
Just glad to be out of there. Do you support drug prohibition because it finances criminals at home or because it finances terrorists abroad?
--Anonymous
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Yeh, the old bait and punish, so common in programs. Very pleasurable for the sadist.