Breaking the chains isn't easy
Keeping teens in line can rattle any familyClive McFarlane
Worcester Telegram & GazetteMarch 29, 2006
So what do you do when you think your teenager is slipping away -- skipping school, hanging with the wrong crowd, experimenting with illegal substances, falling further and further behind academically, and paying less and less attention to you?
For one Blackstone mother, the answer, when she caught her 15-year-old cutting class, was to buy a chain and two padlocks and shackle the daughter's ankles to keep track of her.
When the two went outside the house, the girl was shackled to the mother's wrist. At least that is how the police found them after making a routine traffic stop recently.
The Department of Social Services is looking into it, and who knows, if the parent's tactic passes muster, padlocks and chains will become the next can't-miss investment for those looking to corral troubled teenagers.
At the moment, of course, many parents and guardians are turning to the booming for-profit boot camps and behavior modification programs that have sprung up in this country and around the globe.
These programs, euphemistically called therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness programs and residential treatment centers, can cost from $2,000 to $8,000 a month. But what is cost when you are trying to save a kid's life?
A year ago, Paula Bryant, a Shrewsbury resident, returned home to find that her 16-year-old son had been sent away by his uncle, who had custody of the young man, to the Red Cliffs ASCENT School, a boot camp in Utah, and later to the Discovery Academy, a clinical boarding school and wilderness program, also in Utah.
Among other things, the Discovery Academy sells parents and guardians on its higher-than-the-national-average SAT scores, and an equine-assisted therapy program that uses "the principles of natural horsemanship as a pattern for productive personal relationships."
Ms. Bryant, a single parent, had given up custody of her son to his uncle after the young man began having difficulties in school.
She had raised her son and his older sister mostly as a single parent. Her husband died when her son was 5 years old and her daughter was 7.
She guided her children through the early years, and her photo album shows mostly happy times: the son doing wheelies on his bike, the daughter excelling in tennis, both children in baseball and skiing poses.
Her son began struggling academically, and after being diagnosed with what she termed a "mild" learning disability, he was transferred into a program for special needs students during his middle school years. She pulled him out of the program because "he did not belong there."
As the years went on, her son began skipping school, getting suspended, sleeping late, not showing up for tutoring sessions and hanging with the wrong crowd.
Her brother had been asking for custody of the boy for a couple of years, and in April 2005, she relented, believing, she said, that her son would be placed in a school closer to home and that she would have full visitation rights.
It took her 30 days to learn the whereabouts of her son. She has seen him only twice since, and has not heard from him in the past four months.
The boy's therapist at the Discovery Academy has recommended that he be separated from the influences that created the behavior and academic problems, and he is allowed visits from family members only by arrangement as a reward.
The uncle did not want to talk in depth about the issue, but he assured me that he had done the necessary research on the school, and believes his nephew is benefiting from the program.
He noted that while his nephew entered the program with an eighth-grade education and was flunking every course, he has since completed ninth grade, is scheduled to complete the 10th grade and carries a B+ average.
It is hard to think that a man who, to date, has spent some $77,000 on his nephew's programs in Utah would not have the young man's best interest at heart.
But that is exactly what the mother thinks, and she is trying to reclaim custody of her son.
She has been asked to appoint a guardian ad litem, someone to assist the court in determining the circumstances of the case. Ms. Bryant would like to, but she is finding the cost somewhat steep, $2,500 for the first 12-1/2 hours, $200 per hour after that.
So she is doing the next best thing, talking anyone who will listen, showing her photo album of the kids, and displaying a mountain of clippings, some of which allege abuses at the Discovery Academy, some decrying boot camps and lock-down facilities as not being in the best interest of troubled teenagers.
"It is extreme to put him in Utah, to cut him off from his mother," she said. "He did not have a father, and was going through the typical adolescent stage. These behavior modification programs are dangerous. He has done nothing to warrant this drastic move."
If nothing else, Ms. Bryant's story put the Blackstone mother's padlocks and chains in a whole different light.
Contact Clive McFarlane by e-mail at
[email protected].
