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Open Free for All / Re: Taking family for granted
« on: July 26, 2010, 12:20:11 AM »Quote from: "reformed12stepper"
Quote from: "SUCK IT"One of the amazing things about treatment programs is the effect it can have on family relationships. When you are young since you are around your family a lot and live in the same house usually, you can start to take each other for granted very easily. You can begin to annoy each other, argue and fight with each other. Kids can chafe under the strict rules of parents from their view, and parents stress out about what their kids are really up to. Families are complicated and involve a lot of emotions and like any relationship it can get ordinary and rocky and times.
When you are away from your family at a treatment program, over time, the arguments you once had seem trivial. You begin to realize what you really had with them, when you longer have it. This allows the stressful atmosphere that was present at the onset of treatment dissipates and allows a new relationship to form built on a strong foundation of honesty and mutual cooperation.
Many kids who arrive in treatment are very angry at their parents. This fades over time when they realize that perhaps their family has their best interests at heart. This anger eventually disappears, and they realize how much they really love their family. This effect will not happen with local therapy. Sorry but this is just a fact. Parents shouldn't underestimate how much a change can occur in the relationship between family members when a kid is in a treatment program. I've seen it and its powerful stuff, kids who said they hated their parents on day 1, when they get to go home with their parents they are totally changed and telling their parents how much they love them. Its pretty amazing actually.
I can relate to some of what you are saying here. I was a real pain the ass of a kid. Moving out and moving away and making my own money definitely did make me understand what I was missing. But I also think you may be discounting 2 things. One is the potential positive influence of wider family, or independent mentors, and the other is the problem of kids who have some kind of issue that is not just about bratty behavior like a mental illness.
I know that as the youngest of 5 sometimes my older brother would talk me down when i was being a total dickhead. When his son was also playing up, he spent the summer working with me in my restaurant. I cant say he became perfect but he did well there and it kept him out of mischief. A lot of young apprentices straight from school start out pretty wild but mellow out a little if they are doing what they love. Particularly if they are working under someone whose work they truly admire.
I assume you have done some kind of research looking at the failures of local therapy. I haven't so cant comment there but have you thought that if a kid is reluctant in a local therapist's office then he is going to be unwilling in a treatment program that he has not agreed to? Particularly if the focus is on all the ways that they are a screw up. It seems a lot of kids are and I can understand why. I don't know if all programs run this way or similarly but I read a book called what it takes to pull me through that my sister loaned me and found some of the practices pretty disturbing. Particularly the psychodramas that they made the kids participate in. I was also a little surprised that the anorexic girl was supervised by the other girls and not by some kind of nurse. It also struck me that relatively innocent kids were in with kids who had some pretty sophisticated issues. Most of the kids that the guy followed seemed to improve but i was disturbed by the suicide attempt of one of the girls and it seemed like the pressure of the program played a part in her mental health deteriorating. I also noted that one of the boys who seemed to do pretty well died not long after he got out. I am not saying that this was because of the place but i guess it did not help this guy either.
Do you know of any long term figures that show how many kids have been helped under this system?
You just read "a book" lent to you by your sister about Academy at Swift River, notorious Synanon incarnation. You just happened to come to fornits without having anything to do with the "punative boarding schools" and just to discuss the failings of 12 steps. You just have a style of writing that's oh so familiar.... just like "Nigel's, and the troll that lives here with the dead son.... Meanwhile, Suck it claims to be a wwasp graduate. Wwasp, the only gulag archipegliago as infamous as Aspen or CEDU. Which of these bios is the most ridiculously improbable?
Nevermind, please continue. I find this entertaining. Wherever could this be going...? Perhaps an opprotunity for your other peronality to explain the benefits of, say, refusing ASR prisoners opprotunity to contact a lawyer or protective services, or any of thier friends or family for as long as a decade? Or the make believe survey conducted by that Aspen worker?
OK, return to the troll monologue. Forgive my interruption.
But, to breifly return to reality, ASR is functionally a prison, in return for money, it incarcerates private citizens upon the order of other private citizens. It rendites its victims.
http://www.nospank.net/labi.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 644740074#
My girlfriend could supply more details.
It lacks proper licsneing. It's sister school, Mount Bachelor Academy, was shut down when the state found its "emotional growth" curriculum and policies were abuse under Oregon law. The only thing its been proved its "therapy" causes is suicide and brain damage. But you know that. And get a kick out of inclucating.