Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
My son is currently at Aspen Ranch
Anonymous:
[troll7]
Nihilanthic:
--- Quote from: ""Milk Gargling Death Penal"" ---[troll7]
--- End quote ---
Isn't "survive and thrive" so obvious it should be dropped a few points? :(
Covergaard:
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---Curling? Donuts?
You people are fools.
It's not a matter of "locking up" kids. It's a matter of them getting well.
Our daughter knew she was in a bad situation, and left home because she didn't want to burden us. She also sees this whole thing as a chance to survive and thrive - without it she would have been dead. Like many others, she's there because of problems related to non-familial abuse. In her case, an abdction and things I'd rather not think about. It's wiped her out mentally. She's in a solid therapeutic environment, has new goals....and I don't know where any of you get the "locked up" idea from, because they soon rise in levels and are alllowed extended time off-campus, much of it relatively unsupervised - because they have grown and earned it.
But to return to the important point...without the Ranch she'd be dead. She knows this and is thankful for it. She's not there as punishment.
You idiots have NO idea what you are even talking about - your criticizing a place and a program you are unfamiliar with, simply because you make incorrect assumptions. I thought initially this was a semi-support forum. Now I see what it is - a haven for people who know nothing and rabble rousers, plus people from foreign countries who know even LESS. Curling? Oh, please - spare me.
And BTW - I'm a guy, not "ma'am".
This is a simple case of you all taking the stance "my mind is made up - don't confuse me with the facts".
My daughter was horribly abused and traumatized, and is now recovering and growing. I guess you all would just prefer she had died. None of your logic works, you use BS meters in place of discussion, you've never been there - I can't believe how uncaring you all are - because you have NO idea of any of the REAL situations involved.
Goodbye.
--- End quote ---
Back when I started to post in here, it surprised me who different a country that we stands shoulder to shoulder with in the fight against terrorism, are.
Do you think, that we don't have drugs, drug-rape, crimes, DUI, even murder in my country too?
Of course we do.
But we don't lock people up that needs help. We help them at their homes instead. It is costly for our society, I agree to that. Every puplic school has backup system and our society also buys parents off their normal work for a period so they can be at school watching over their child so troubled children can avoid medication. It is called family classes.
A lot of efforts are done in order to prevent children from being removed from their homes. Some families are even ordered to move into observation homes, so their level of communication and emotional life can observed, analyzed and improved.
Yet, in the end some children ends up being removed from their homes. It is sad, but i some cases a child is better off at another place than the home. However, it is not done by a decision by the parents alone. It is done by members of the local town council based on reports from their employees and if the parents wants to appeal, we have a court system for that.
Removing a child from its home is a serious decision and it will in most cases only result in the second best outcome.
I am glad I am living in a place where a placement outside the home is done with a goal of achieveing the maximum result at shortest time possible because the employees at our facilities has a responsibility against our taxpayers too. They are not in business for the money and they are watched very carefully.
Also any problem is only then solved when the child or as it is the case with my lastest encounter with our psychiatric system - an adult familymember (depression) - when the person in question are able to leave the facility and exist at home without the shield of the lockup facility.
The lockup functions two ways. It also prevent the patient from the dangers of the outside world and can in fact be a sleep pillow so the condition of the patient does not improve. A cure can be called a cure or life-saver in the second the patient is back home and can function as before the time of lockup. Not a second before!
And it is scary to return home. I have spent the last two weeks talking to my familymember and repeatly asked her to slow her pace down and look out for her self. There have been crisis, but we are on the track for better.
No we don't wish your daughter dead. We just want to point out, that she is not cured or saved yet. The treatment starts for real, when she return home. The treatment is just delayed at the ranch.
Nihilanthic:
Programs dont treat or fix anything, they make people act a certain way through breakdowns and torement of various types.
Even if it WAS therapy, 'thriving' (UGH) in an institution has nothing to do with real life!
I'm glad you brought that up, covergaard, but the bottom line is programs don't even give therapy at all, anyway.
Anonymous:
"our society also buys parents off their normal work for a period so they can be at school watching over their child"
That's a wonderful system. However, it's completely irrelevant here as we do not have that option, unfortunately.
I can speak pretty well for my child - I just spent another 5 days with her, mostly off-campus on a "Utah visit". She could say whatever she wanted, go shopping, go to movies...and her main topic was how she wants to get back home, but would never have been able to without the Ranch. We spent a couple hours on the computer looking at horse boarding, since she's planning on buying a horse when she leaves (one of the ranch equine therapists came in for several hours on an off-day just so we could ride with our daughter).
She's in an accelerated high school program that's (check it out yourself) highly rated by public and private colleges, ranking with high-dollar prep schools...and is again pulling almost straight-A's. One residential staff person - one of the supposedly "abusive" people if you look at other sites - asked us to come by her new job to say hi - and she wants to come to our daughter's graduation. Another staff person brought some puppies to the team for them to play with for a couple days; another bought a Christmas tree and decorations, and took the whole team out for dinner and to a non-denominational church Christmas eve.
Sure, there are a couple staff people she doesn't like, but that's life. All her teachers she adores, and she's getting great reports. Her home district did some testing and found her to be far above her "normal" level - about a grade ahead when she SHOULD be a grade behind because of her trauma and troubles.
So play with your BS meters and other ignorant crap all you want - it's not a prison, it's not abusive, and it's saved at least ONE life for sure. We have parents with problems coming to us, and we recommend they check it out along with other programs, as the "ranch" might not be a good fit for some kids. But we do not hesitate to recommend it, or even to talk to the other kids about it and answer question straight-up.
We are lucky to have her there under a state/school district sponsored program...we could never afford it out-of-pocket, but if I HAD to, I'd find a way...and when she graduates, I willl find some way to support it afterwards - you have NO idea what it means to a parent when you watch your daughter go from a broken shell to a growing teenager. She has a long way to go yet, but knows it and is handling it fine. The telling comment to me was "I like it here - I don't want to LIVE here forever - but I like it." That and the fact she's alive.
It certainly would be nice if we had programs as they apparently do in some countries where parents can take time off and work with their kids in need, but I'm not sure that's enough in the therapeutic sense - parents are NOT therapists...we sure aren't.
Anyway, we're thankful and so is she. And in all the "meters" and sarcastic "donut" lines, I haven't read a single fact...or educated, knowledgable opinion...that is counter to anything I've related.
So if you have hard facts...or even an intelligent opinion...I'd be willing to listen and discuss it. But the bullshit meters and other 8th-grade crap just makes the naysayers look exceedingly incapable of expressing anything intelligent. You think anyone with an ounce of brains forms an opinion about a program on the basis of a graphic swiped from another site?
I'm not saying to take everything I say as gospel...but I AM giving some examples and opinions with actual content.
And I wonder how many of the goofballs are even parents? Or kids who have been through a program?
My guess? Zero.
I respect the European poster who lives with a different system.. That at least has some basis in reality. But the hit-and-run trolls have said nothing at all so far.
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