without program parents there is no program

[sick of child torture girl]

what a wonderful quote!!!
Really, this is the checklist to incarcerate your youth at Sagewalk

Low self-esteem

Low self-confidence

Running away

School truancy

Family conflicts


Limited sense of accountability

ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)

ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)

Mood Disorders (Depression, Bipolar Disorder)

Anxiety Disorders

Adjustment Disorders

Adoption issues and/or attachment issues

Entitlement issues

Relationships with undesirable peers

Lack of problem solving skills

Difficulty managing anger

Failing academically

Out of control behavior in the home, at school, or in the community

Defiance towards authority figures

"Minor" delinquent behaviors

Heres something from the Eckart academy

Making poor peer and relationship choices
Performing below ability in school, skipping school or
even failing school
Causing conflicts at home
Acting defiant
Acting angry or having anger management problems
Experiencing depression, anxiety, ADHD or
oppositional defiant disorder
Isolating themselves from family and/or friends


Its basically does your perfectly normal teen( outside of the fact that she lives with you, whom are a nut) display humanity?

I mean this is all so subjective..what is acting defiant? I mean its all obviously tailored to the abusive and neglectful parent who project their inner darkness onto their poor kid. And now get to think of being annoyed or irked by them as a response to a pathology.

Teens, nay human beings, are suposed to be defiant. A young person is not a tomato. If you want to sice a tomato up, smother it with maiyonaise, the tomato wont think twice, but a human will always have their own opinion. Thats the difference between having a human child and a vegetable.

And these parents want a vegetable. They want something that exists solely for them and their appetites

(*proud poster of the first tomato-teen metaphor on fornits)

[Anonymous]

..." And surely there is in all children...a stubborness, and stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first place, be broken and beaten down; that so the foundation of their education being laid in humility and tractableness, other virtues may, in their time be built therein"

A quote from Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States" in which he quotes John Robinson, a quaker pastor in the early 1700's.

I think there is a strong resemblence between "honor killings" and the "remedies" western parents seek for unruly, rebellious or non-conforming children.  After all they embarass and shame the family, causing "dishonor".  Only here we pay someone to do it for us.

Great quote. I don't think the mistreatment of children changes, only the excuses for doing so. America's history is full of crazy people and down and down the family tree that insanity has been passed down mother to daughter, fahter to son repeatedly until we are where we are today.

[sick of child torture girl]

exactly! the abusiveness in my family goes back at least 3 generations. like, i could tell you some crazy stories about what happened to my GREAT UNCLE
But in those days, kids were just allowed to leave home early-15 ,16- and that was considered self dertermination & pluck in response to abusive people , not insanity.

Now you are damned if you do, damned if you dont. Leave home- get sent to program for running away as your parents want you "safe"(read: suffering or stagnating till you know who's boss). Stay at home- get sent away cause your parents are too nuts to handle life with a human being.

[exhausted]

This is eaxactly where the UK differs

Social Services' stance on this is, if they are over the age of 10, they are able to get up and walk out, away from the abusive atmosphere, therefore there is no need for intervention, never mind that the kids end up living on the street - no one would go after them for being runaways, no one cares they are turning to crime and prostitution in order to survive

The under 10's are usually left within the abusive family situation with someone checking them every 2 weeks, then when the kid is murdered the story hits the headlines, but nothing ever changes

[sick of child torture girl]

thats sad..there needs to be something where you are allowed to say "I cant live here put me in foster care or with a freind's family I trust" and you are automatically beleived and reacted to

[exhausted]

They can say that

The answer would be "We have no resources" *shrugs*

[Ursus]

I don't say this to excuse shameful behavior, but to attempt to explain it. Come along with me a little in thinking of it this way and help me to better hone my argument to effect some understanding--armor against the scam--among this and, especially, the next generation of parents.

Here's the theory: We are being domesticated.

This is like the Watership Down, which was required reading in many regular old public and private high schools in my day. You never hear about it anymore, but it's a classic political, cultural, psyche drama well worth reading.

In my day, when my older brothers went into the Seed in around 70 or 71, the program was yet another bizarre, disturbing development even against the backdrop of the Kennedy Assasination, Vietnam War and anti-war movement, Watergate, the Summer of Manson, the Summer of love, Beatlemania and Woodstock.  

The whole world was fucking nuts, but even so, my family was way, way, WAY on the outside of fucked up in the eyes of our neighbors, teachers and communities by virtue of our involvement in the program. In those days where I grew up in So. Florida, there was no higher authority than mom and dad. On the down side, there were a good many kids who just had to put up with parents who routinely beat them, locked them out of the house or were abusive or neglectful in various ways. The liberal elite had lots of ideas about how parents ought to raise their kids, but very little real coercive authority to back it up.

Acting on  all the good intentions in the world, they have acquired much influence in all realms of public and private life over the last 30 years or so. Not that that was really an epic, I don't know if there is an identifiable epoch. But the world definitely changed rather suddenly around that time.

In my day, when they called me ADD and wanted to put me on speed, my dad just cussed them out and stomped off. These days, that might just land the kid in state custody. And people are used to that. The daytime talk shows run constant, more than daily courses of instruction on just how to identify a disorder or dysfunction in almost anybody and then tell you just who to call for repairs. People are used to it. The schooling industry has almost nothing to do with education anymore, but will offer aspiring Master Teachers a handy guide on how to slap a psyche dx on damned near anyone with precise instruction on how to manipulate, humiliate and control them accordingly.

You can find even more fun psyche parlor tricks to amaze your friends and fuck w/ the little bastards right here http://www.masterteacher.com/freeresource/

Parents ta' day have been raised in a world where their role is to produce and consume and to force their kids to comply with the new order of things. They no longer seem to poses near as much of that good old parental instinct we all take for granted. If some dumb bimbo who flunked out of her masters program and took a job teaching instead can't get along with your kid says the kid is disordered, the parents just believe it without question and follow the instructions of the presumed professionals, however cruel or bizarre.

They have the same problem in trying to establish free range cattle herds. Domesticated cattle have lost the instinct and habit of looking after their young. Free range cattlemen generally send the overly domesticated ones to slaughter as soon as they pick up on that particular disorder because they don't want them breeding into the herd. While I well understand the impulse to take a similar tack, I think it would be more productive to try and wake people up to what's going on so that they won't fall for it.

Bump for relevance...

[Goddess of Justice]

Yet http://http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/articles/3 a sight solely dedicated to traditional boarding schools, really recommends these therapeutic schools/programs for troubled teens instead of college preparatory schools. Haven't they realized that they CAN change, and this is NOT the way to do it. We need to get the message about the truth about what these programs really do. They are instead owned by companies and not educators. And these companies own chains of these schools and programs who all they care about is the money.