Niles, much of what you said seems to be anger driven, weak on facts and heavy on the emotion. So let me try to boil off a little of that and speak directly to one of your points, if I may.
Assertive, empty, un-proven, ad hominem attacks, again? Now? After all this time?
'Who' are you kidding? :rofl: I called you on your lack of evidence to back up your assertions, and on your logical fallacies, and you say Im short on facts and heavy on emotion? This isn't Struggling Teens.
If there were presently more updated research and studies available then we would not have to have this particular discussion, but since there isn’t we need to get comfortable with what we have.
No, until there is evidence to demonstrate they work, there is no evidence to demonstrate they work, thus they are "unproven". That's a really bullshit excuse to go by anecdotes, and to ignore the glaring lack of any evidence that should be abundant in the time the last 30 years has passed.
Most businesses which don’t have studies completed (i.e. day care agencies, adoption agencies, preschools, wilderness etc.) typically use word of mouth and encourage the potential client to seek out other resources to further educate themselves.
Marketing is not proof of efficacy! You can not justify marketing as proof of effectiveness!
What has been extremely successful and a good way to know about a particular program is to talk to some parents who have had kids attend.
Anecdotes
still do not count as proof. It is not emprical data!
This gives a parent a chance to address issues that are shared by concerned parents. i.e. safety, communication, success, how the school operates, talk about the downside etc.
There you go with your ad-hoc reasoning again :roll:
A parent of a child with real or imagined (but undiagnosed) problems who has put their child through an unproven wilderness program with no proof of efficacy or any evidence they even diagnose issues before putting the kid through it, is nothing more than a consumer of a service.
Not an expert on anything.
Furthermore, it is hardly a secret that programs will twist and manipulate and spin (Like you are right now...) in approval of isolation, their definition of sucess, or try to minimize downsides with talk of "tough but fair" or wahtnot.
The programs also have the parents get the child evaluated prior to accepting an application for admission (if they don’t, you should get this done on your own).
Do they? What about programs that take children with no Dx? What about wilderness programs that takes kids with a Dx requiring a stay in a hospital, not dirt?
Another avenue for information is to speak with your childs therapist, if they are seeing one, or school counselor and pediatrician.
Wow, good advice! You forgot to say
not an edcon.
If you combine all the above a parent should have enough information to make a decision of whether placing a child outside the home is the right one for their family.
Hope this clears it up a little bit.
Talking to real professionals about real treatment for real problems with proof they work is one thing, talking to manipulated parents who have a vested interest in believing the program worked for them (and just maybe their kid too) is another.
Parents of kids with problems are not experts on kids, or problems, or kids with problems because they are the parent of them. More often than not their abuse or negligence is the cause of it to begin with.
Sticking to experts who are not out to make a buck off of a program's referral fee, who stick to proven treatment that works - and only when there is a problem that actually needs treatment - is the way to go, not talking to emotionally wound up non-expert parents who go by word of mouth marketing for a business out to make money.
