Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Brat Camp

Typical Day at Sagewalk

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Anonymous:

--- Quote ---On 2005-07-26 14:03:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Yeah since when did brainwashing people become synonymous with Love. Yeah...I love my boyfriend so much that whenever he does things that aren't good, I simply lock him in the house, only feed him a slice of bread a day, tell him over and over how "bad" he is and how much I love him, and make him talk about how he feels. When he starts talking about how sorry he is for everything, then I start to give him some more bread. After all, he's really earned it. He's worked hard and is starting to realize what true Love is. After a time, I let him out in the backyard, but only under close supervision. You see, he is still fairly "bad" and must be monitored. It's for his own good. He is slowly starting to realize just how much I love him, and becomes more thankful for my close and loving attention. He starts to agree with me more. I let him in the front yard. One day, I let him write in his diary, although I go later while he is asleep and read the entry. I read all about how grateful he is for my loving care. How much he has grown and how he hopes one day to be able to earn my trust. The next day I reward him with a tuna sandwich. He is delighted!! We both have a great day.



ETC...."

--- End quote ---


Yep, and to think some parents think they can actually buy their kid's love and respect for $40k.

Just re-engineer their hearts and minds.  

Yep, that'll do the trick.

I'll get a brand new teen.  One that thinks and acts like Mommy and Daddy's little boy.

How many times have we heard this lunatic parents say ... "I GOT MY LITTLE BOY/GIRL BACK" ???

This behavior mod training is regressive.

Strips kids of their critical thinking skills and leaves them hungry for any kind of attention at all.

Sick heads!

Deborah:
Sorry, not legal for any child caring facility to be 'spartan' when it comes to food, hygiene, and such.

The 'one who was in the program' doesn't realize that what he experienced is considered abuse by most resonable people and licensing agencies.
His parents would no longer have custody if they'd subjected him to the very same 'treatment' and go caught.

Kids who are beat with belts think they're just being disciplined too, cause that's how they'be been taught to perceive it. And that they deserve it. And that's it's the only way to discipline.

Why don't you stick with the specific points anon? Why limited calories, and unpleasant choices, and no variety? There are so many other ways in which they could torture. Or would they be as effective if the kids weren't starved or puking from being forced to eat crap?

Anonymous:

--- Quote ---On 2005-07-26 12:50:00, Deborah wrote:

"

Doug,

You can find the Oregon Regulations for Wilderness here:

http://www.wilderness-programs.org/Regu ... Oregon.htm



Compared to other states I?ve read (Utah, Ga, Tx) they are particularly lame. Leaves a lot of decisions and policies to the program owner. On many issues, which the state would normally dictate, it has been left to the program to ?create and implement? its own policies.



FOOD:

The narrator on BC said the teens ?must? consume 1800 calories- used as an excuse to justify forcing the kid to eat oat mush until he puked.  USDA and Oregon Regs state 3,000 given their level of physical exertion and cold weather. That means you provide a minimum of 3,000 calories and have extra on hand. It would not allow for ?rationing? to denying food as punishment.



Based on the ?menu? you provided: 2c dry oats, 1c dry milk, raisins, 2c granola, 1c rice, 1c lentils-  we?re talking 1300 calories, at best.  A long way from 3,000. Not even half of what?s recommended.



And WHO eats plain, dry oats? Followed by a quart of water? That?s going to expand in the gut. It certainly will give one a sense of fullness, and could cause anyone to puke.



You mentioned that lunch was optional. If so, then why force feed them 2c dry oats and a quart of water at breakfast?  And why force them to eat all they prepare? Especially early on. I?m sure they have no idea that the rice, oats and lentils are going to double or triple in volume after cooked. What kind of spice made you vomit?  FYI, it would never be considered appropriate to force children to eat in any child caring institution or situation, and certainly inappropriate to take away any meal as punishment, as you say was the case with lunch. How could they begin to consider taking away any meal when they as so far below the caloric recommendations to begin with?



I don?t think you understand how unconscionable this ?treatment? is.  And unnecessary. This would not fly anywhere but a program.  It flies because the owners of the programs in Oregon had a hand in the creation of the regulations.  

Imagine this:  a group of daycare owners dictating to the state the rules they will be subject to. Ha! Would never happen. And a daycare owner would be out of business if s/he did any of these things.

You can teach teens how to ?take care of themselves?, even in the wilderness, without going to such austere and extreme measures. There is another MO operating here- deprivation/ submission.



And what if you didn?t find firewood? How would you prepare rice/lentils and/or stay warm at night?



Hygiene:  You wash in the same cup you eat from? Same rag everyday?

And clean your cup after eating, with mud? Nowhere else would this be allowed.

What provisions were there for wash your hands after visiting the latrine?



Packs: You weighted 115# and carried an 80# pack? They aren?t supposed to exceed 30% of the participant?s weight (38# in your case). Plus water jugs- 10-20#? Plus rocks for cussing?



I hope someone in Oregon who can act on the information you provided, and the BC series, is paying attention.

"

--- End quote ---


The amounts I described were bare minimums. You could eat anywhere from 2 cups to a full cup (5 cups). Yes, most kids during the first couple of days out will puke at least once, but not because they're forced to eat too much but rather because it just doesn't taste very well. No "force feeding" happens, you just sit there until the food is consumed. As for rationing, if you run out of a luxury (brown sugar, raisins, granola, cheese, sausage, powdered milk etc), you're out of luck, but for R/L and Oats, they will supply you with more.

I don't know where your calorie assumptions are coming from, but I know for a fact that there is much more than 1,300 calories consumed a day. Did you notice a theme with all the base foods, Oats, Granola and R/L? All are high-carbohydrate foods.

Oats were not eaten plain and dry, oats were supplemented with water, powdered milk, brown sugar and raisins (assuming you had rationed well, which really wasn't difficult). The oats were my favorite meal by the end of the program. I liked the granola a lot at the beginning of the program but by the end, it tasted *too sweet*, go figure :grin:. Oats did not expand in the stomach, never had that problem, nor did anyone else. Uncooked R/L hurt like a ($*#(* though.

The requirement of oats in the morning was to ensure some calories/energy. Why force them to eat everything they prepare? Well technically, we don't have anywhere to throw the food away. If the food was discarded, it would easily attract many scavengers. That and its just principle, why waste?

The counselors explicitly told new kids to the program to start with 2 cups of R/L and this was also reiterated by other campers heavily. There was no attempt to deceive me into eating more. I can't remember all the spices that I put into the R/L I had that night, but I know I had put some salt and garlic powder in there. I know there was more in there, and I put too much in.

I believe there was only one night we did not have firewood, we had hiked a long ways to a new camp, it was after dark by the time we reached the campsite, so before we did camp setup, we ate oats instead of the R/L and then setup and slept.

As for the whole temperature factor. I experienced everywhere from 80 degrees at thebeginning of my program in October at the High desert site to -16 one night in the mountains in Decemeber. I know what these kids on BC are experiencing. If they're complaining about being cold, it's because they're too damn whiny.  We were issued sleeping bags that are rated -20 degrees F. These puppies kept me frickin' blazing despite the below zero temperatures. That and we were given more damned winter clothing than I have ever owned in my entire life, and I live in Minnesota! Nothing pisses me off more than hearing people complain about the weather! At my program, it was *only* the girls that complained. One guy's sleeping bag was torn and became ineffective during a cold streak. The counselors were unable to get him a sleeping bag that night (too late). So what did he do? Him and 2 other guys created a burrito and kept his ass warm throughout the night, no complaints. Now that's %*#$(*ing camaraderie!

Yes, we ate from the same cup we washed with, cups  and rags were both cleaned and checked prior to food consumption.

Mud was used to clean cups. Extremely effective cleaner, as it can get char off the side of the cups from the fire. Sounds unsanitary but it really isn't. Mud was rinsed from cup after cleaning and required a check-off.

We were given Purell anti-bacterial stuff after we used the latrine.

About the packs, in retrospect, the packs were definitely not 80 pounds, I can't remember where I got that number, but thinking about it, it was not that much. It was definitely at least 50 though. Water jugs were carried by hand, not on the pack itself, and rocks were usually carried in pockets, not the pack.

Still not seeing how this amounts to mistreatment. Seems fairly tough, but it is doable for anybody. And if anything, it builds character. The reason I stumbled upon this forum was an attempt to get ahold of another kid that I attended the program with. We both actually *wanted* by the end of our programs to go camping very similar to what we had done at SW (sans time-limits and R/L, LOL).

AtomicAnt:
This is a great thread despite tempers flaring. I like hearing both sides and now for my own two cents.

I went through a 'wilderness challenge' when I was fifteen. This was in 1976 and I guess the rules and perceptions were different.

Doug, we were not required to eat food we did not like. We were not forced to run 'fire drill' routines against the clock. We were allowed to cuss (which was cool since school and home forbade it). Drugs, cigarettes, sex, and weapons were forbidden. Some kids actually complained about not being allowed to smoke. No one took my three inch pocket knife away.

Instead of wasting time with this negative, spirit breaking stuff, we engaged in cool activities like trust falls, trust walks, making and crossing rope bridges, navigating obstacle courses where many obstacles required us to work as a team to get the whole team across. We went rock climbing and rapelling (sp?). It was fun. No body tried to escape; not even those who were court ordered to be there.

We did the same kind of therapy you descibe, but we had no 'impact letters.' Instead we made our own (list things you wish to change about yourself and what you can do to make that change). We laughed, cried, hugged, and had a great time and grew close.

And it worked just as well if not better than these, 'whip the kids into shape' nonsense activities.

One funny story is that at the beginning of the trip, I snuck two, one-pound cans of Dinty Moore beef stew into my pack. Later, when I got caught, a counselor said, 'If you can carry it, you can keep it.' I shared it with everyone (counselors, too) around a snowy campsite one night and was a hero.

I look back at the experience with fondness. That is how it should be.

I object to the treatment of the kids not because of specific abuses, but because of the lack of respect for the individual it shows. You don't teach people to be independent and responsible by riding them every minute, making them eat food, making them perform minor routines against the clock (and their will) and forcing them to agree to an ideology they just don't agree with. This only results in anger and resentment or situational adaptation. It doesn't work and the NIH did a years long study that concluded it doesn't work.

Anonymous:
Deborah is either a soft pampered type who thinks that anything out of her pampered world is "torture"--- or she is a disingenuous fake person who is trying to make any kind of rigorous demanding program sound the same as beating a kid with a belt to use her example just because she hates any program and wants to tear them all down


Mighty glad I'm not her kid, bet her kid is messed up plenty, not cuz of any program, but cuz she's his parent

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