Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Ridge Creek School / Hidden Lake Academy
To All Parents: This Concerns You
along comes mary:
From a former student:
--- Quote from: "FunkyChild" ---i too never had a nervous breakdown until hla, there was a period where i barely ate, spoke, and participated socially with other students. basically i just stared into space, sulked my way into class. it took the encouraging words of a teacher to "snap me out of it". i couldn't talk to my mom about the root of this depression, because the staff would tell me to quit manipulating, which made it even worse. i then told my family in a letter that if the realaionship between us was going to be dictated with no allowance of real conversation, then i had nothing to say."how's school?" -fine. "how are your friends?" -fine. i wouldn't refuse the calls, cause kids got on restrictions for that. glad that's over now!
--- End quote ---
along comes mary:
A former staff member:
--- Quote from: "Exstaff" ---I worked there in 2003 and the administration of the school was fishy then. I was hired to do a job and I did it--when I started noticing things amiss--I was sent packing. I got out in time, though...before these law suits started popping up. They offered me severance pay to never speak to anyone about HLA but I declined to sign the agreement. Nice, eh? Teachers and counselors and rec staff were great and always will be. Admin/mgmt who live on campus(nice benefit!) seemed more interested in money.I read through the most recent lawsuit and all of their claims seem like truth to me--at least from how things worked when I was there.(Toiletries, for instance!Talk about markup!!!) The aim of the school is great but it's been polluted by greed it seems.
--- End quote ---
along comes mary:
If you are a parent looking at HLA, chances are you've heard the term Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) thrown around. This is an old post of mine on the topic. I hope it is clarifying.
--- Quote from: "along comes mary" ---First of all, isn't it true that HLA claims that all the children they accept must meet certain criteria, including being diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)?
Secondly, if so, why was I admitted? The Ed Con who referred me to HLA never met me, but decided I was ODD based on my mother's description of my behavior. Is an Ed Con (or the Admission Staff at HLA for that matter) licensed to diagnose a disorder in a child, much less one they've never met?
If you read the definition of ODD I posted below, a few things might stand out to you, as they did to me.
1. the definition is ridiculously vague. all of those behaviors are typical of teenagers to some degree, and the criteria that the child present the behaviors "more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level" is ENTIRELY subjective.
2. the criterion that these "behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder."
Mood disorders include depression and bipolar disorder. So someone would have to rule out that the child was bipolar or depressed before diagnosing them with ODD...OR if they WERE depressed or bipolar, they would have to be monitored over a period of at least several months to determine if the ODD type behaviors exhibited themselves while the child was not in a depressive or bipolar episode.
3. the definition doesn't take drug use into consideration. An otherwise well-adjusted kid might start experimenting with drugs with his/her friends ( NOT "more frequently" than them) and their behavior while under the influence might fit the ODD definition, even though while sober it would not. Drug use is pretty high among teenagers, and acting "ODD" while high just makes you belligerent on that drug, not necessarily truly ODD. Drug use is NOT a symptom of ODD. And for those that would argue that using drugs IS defiant because it is illegal, let me remind you that the child would have to use/abuse drugs MORE frequently than other kids their age (or other kids at their development level).
Here are some stats from http://www.teendrugabuse.us/:
"- Illicit teen drug use as of 2003.
* 8th grade -- 30.3%
* 10th grade -- 44.9%
* 12th grade -- 52.8%
- In the last thirty days 50% of teenagers report drinking with 32% being drunk at least on one occasion."
So, you can see that as of four years ago it was actually more likely, and more normal, for a high school senior to use drugs. Doesn't fit the definition, does it?
4. the definition doesn't take PRESCRIPTION drugs into consideration. The side effects of many Rx drugs (especially those to treat ADD/ADHD) are well known to cause changes in a child's mood or behavior. For example, Anti-depressants are now known to cause suicidal tendencies in some children and medications such as Ritalin (and it's ilk) are amphetamines for god's sake!
My parents jumped on the ADD bandwagon and made me take meds to treat my alleged ADD. They decided I had ADD because of my low math grades... (turns out I have a learning disability in mathematics called dyscalculia and was never ADD after all (':-?')... hahaha...ha..) So these meds just got me super-jacked for a while at school and by the time I got home I was coming down from my amphetamine high, leaving me irritable, short-tempered, mean, and pretty much all the ODD symptoms when I was around my parents! Did they, my Ed Con, or HLA ever take the fact that I was being unwillingly dosed with uppers into consideration when deciding I was ODD??!
Lastly, I want to know how many of you or your children were told by HLA or an Ed Con that you (or your child) was ODD? Did a psychiatrist diagnose any of you, or at least confirm what you were told?
Does anyone know of a child who was rejected from HLA?
Did HLA EVER tell ANY family that their child WASN'T ODD?
And to all Staff... can you shed any light on this?
Do you have the candor, integrity, or veracity to?
I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions about ODD and HLA's credentials/ lack thereof for declaring a child ODD, and therefore fit for admission...
The DSM-IV (the psychiatry/psychology "bible" for diagnosis and treatment of mental heath issues) definition is below.
(From http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/odd.htm)
Diagnostic criteria for 313.81 Oppositional Defiant Disorder:
A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive
Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.
B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
C. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder.
D. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
--- End quote ---
Parents might be interested to hear from former staff about the use of "ODD" as a criterion for acceptance to HLA. Any takers?
along comes mary:
This is a former parent commenting on HLA and the use of Educational Consultants.
--- Quote from: "happyday7" ---To have trusted an Ed Consultant making promises about all the help your kid will get at HLA was the first mistake. None of the many promises made to us by our Ed Consultant were met. All we experienced at HLA was constant negativity. All that negativity makes the kids there feel horrible about themselves. Also, they learn not to trust adults when they can be searched at any time and have other kids watching and telling on everything they do and say. I think the only families who come out happy with HLA are the ones whose kids learn to be silent and just work through the program and are meek and mild. Also, the academic piece of our experience was not good. For the price of the tuition at that school, one would have expected a great education. I think some parents stick their heads in the sand because they do not know what else to do with their children. The reality can set in after you have forked out all that money and you get your kid back home with more problems than they had starting out. That is what happened with my child and with many others that I have discussed this with. If I had only known then what I know now, I would have not made the same choice.
--- End quote ---
Many HLA parents used Ed-Cons (like Martha Kolbe) to find a suitable place for their child.
Parents need to know who they can and cannot trust.
Your experiences with Educational Consultants are welcomed here.
along comes mary:
Here is one former student's response to a poster claiming to be a parent thinking about sending her daughter to HLA:
--- Quote from: "Guest" ---Parent in Crisis: I hope you are joking. Because the sad fact of many of these facilities are that the "professionals" who have "many years" of experience dealing with teens in crisis have "many years of experience" as staff members with no credentials or real licenses. Some supposed schools are really classified as a "group home" with no teachers (if you ever get around to reading the fine print--which won't be in the brochure.) Staff who show you a license should not be taken at face value because often these degrees come from degree mills, or bogus colleges with no real accreditation. You should also hope that these "compassionate, caring" staff don't have a history of perverse, illegal behavior because one of the things I and others quickly learned, was that they loved telling war stories of their early days in the gutter of drugs, rape, and other inappropriate things for a "THERAPIST" to be discussing with a client who should, if nothing else, feel safe.
Finally, it's not "tough love" meaning discipline and structure. It's isolation and insularity, coersion, hours on end verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse which your kid will never make the mistake of telling you about after any initial complaint, because their lives will be made miserable, and the staff will do a fine job of telling you that you were manipulated and conned. Eventually, your kid will also believe the script they wrote her, including exaggerrations of real events, along with false events.And he or she will confess to you in shame, and you will all be so glad the facility "saved" him or her.
For awhile after she gets out, she will knock you dead with her straight edged life only to have it all slowly seep out in subconscious ways. Ways that are more convoluted and difficult to untangle than before, because they still have the baseline issues that made you want to cmmmit her to a program compounded by the royal mind fuck she received at the school. (She drank the KoolAid to survive the place, and even though it didn't turn out to be fatal, it was still malignant.)
She may still look good on paper, but she will wonder why am I so fucked up inside? Why don't I trust anyone? Why do I have nightmares? Why am I depressed and anxious? She may or may not fall like a house of cards... but she won't be the solid deck you hoped for. Just wait 5 or ten years.
I've been out of the program that I was in (which coincidentally had one of our "star" staff at Hill) for 18 years. I have nothing to gain by bashing the place. I am a teacher, a mother, and a graduate student, and live a boringly clean life, so its not like I'm some drugged out prostitute complaining about my former TBS (no offense to drugged out prostitutes--they make a much more honest living than the scam artists operating these schools). I am telling you now to be very careful with your choices. Because these schools tend to weave into your psyche in a way that is almost impossible to detangle. (That won't be your job--because liek most parents, you'll still be clinging to the belief that the school "saved" her, even when she's on 20 different anti depressants.
The funny thing about these "schools"--is that I felt like a dirty, drugged out whore for years and years inside afterward, and I wasn't even on drugs when I went to the program, and I was never remotely promiscous. That is what the school does. That is their "emotional growth" program.
Shanlea
PS If I seem pissed, it's because I am. I am a teacher and I've seen parents ship off their kids to be emotionally lobotomized. My favorite reason? The hard working, honest, good student who was sent away for not being pure enough in his Christian expression. Interestingly, this same place boasted an ability to turn a gay youth straight. (Not the reason this kid was placed.)
--- End quote ---
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version