Here is just such a piece of
parental referral, posted on Struggling Teens in the "Extended Insights " section only three days ago. (How many times can one say "Hidden Lake Academy" or "HLA" per piece, without being too excessive?)
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Posted: Dec 26, 2008
A PARENT SHARES EXPERIENCE IN A SUCCESSFUL PLACEMENTEvery mother's nightmare is getting that call in the middle of the night that something has gone terribly wrong! I was literally brought to my knees at that moment.
Just a little over a year ago, I got that call. Fortunately for me and all those involved, no one was killed; however this had been the third of several other events that had put my ability to cope with my son **** at risk. I was faced with the reality that I was not making it as the "good single parent." As a matter of fact, I was failing miserably. At that time I was in the middle of divorcing ****'s father to whom I had been married to for 23 years.
In an effort to be the good parent and not put more stress on him that I already had been doing, my way to parent was to befriend him, not to parent him. In doing so, he began a year-long spiral of being out of control with alcohol and drugs. I am sure, knowing and understanding **** the way I do, that he used the alcohol and drugs as a means of coping with a situation where all he wanted was to be numb, not feel or not express the pain he was feeling inside. I was desperate to help him but could not find any way into his psyche; he would just shut down when I tried over and over to get him to talk to me.
After many long hours of discussion with ****'s father we came to the decision to pull him out of High School and put him in a boarding school close to his dad so he could visit on weekends. We told him "look, make this work, as you will NOT like what will come next." Of course, being the diplomat that he is, **** said "of course I will."
Eight days later the next call came, saying "Your son has been expelled from school for bringing alcohol onto campus." Only two weeks had gone by since the accident, my head was spinning out of control as once again I, the parent. had failed my son. Wasn't it my responsibility to make sure he grows up to be a functioning adult, productive in his life, full of life?? Wasn't it? I knew however that I must pull myself out of my own inability to function and start to communicate with my inner world and find a way out of this emotional spiral. It was then, and only then, that I realized what ****'s life was missing. The ability to go inside oneself and communicate with the self--soothe it in need--look at all the options, understand the matrix of the internal world. But without this ability to do so I too saw my world begin to spin out of control, drinking too much, and hiding from my own pain.
I researched and sought after many of the wilderness programs for **** to begin to help him see the world from a different perspective. Being raised in a privileged family does not help a child's perspective. They always get what they want when they want it. Instant gratification, if you will. We landed on one of the most serious of wilderness boot camps in the country and two days later put him in and left him. My god, I thought to myself. I was not going to fail him this time. Whatever I had to do, whatever perspective I had to bridge across I would, as I now knew I was fighting a battle that I saw outside my family as well, the battle of a world gone array with so many kids like **** from good families spiraling out of control.
****'s time at SUWS was roughly two months; I had that much time to research the country for the best treatment for him. I knew enough that this two-month process would not handle the problem. He needed the kind of therapy that would help him learn to communicate with himself, depend on himself and discover just who was ****? Who were his parents, how did he want to be with them? And how did he want to be with the world around him? It was clear to me that at this juncture **** had no vision for his future other than the next party.
In my search for therapy boarding schools, I wept for many hours and days-I knew my son was out in the cold and the rain with only a tarp as his home. Backpacking 60 to 70 lbs packs everyday and eating only the minimalist of foods. Again I thought, my god, how will I ever manage to navigate through this to help him succeed? No parent ever wants to see their child living his life this way, knowing the point to these wilderness boot camps is to break them. As I had suspected, ****'s wilderness experience was just the start of his 2-year journey of his own self-realization. I guess you could say it put a crack in the armour but only a crack.
After many long hours of piling through tons of research of which school would be best for him we came up with only two that we thought truly would be a fit for our son's needs.
I have been in the psychological field since the early nineties and knew enough about the human psyche to know that **** needed the kind of therapy that would help him communicate with that part of him he so avoided, his inner world. I knew for him that inner world was a place to run from, hide and not share. The best he could ever say to his parents when asked how things were or share with us how he was feeling was: nothin' or I'm ok, or whatever. Never would he really tell us what was going on inside, never. I personally think for **** he did not want to know how he was feeling, way too scary of a place to be for him.
The moment I got Hidden Lake Academy's information and start to read what the school's mission was and how they went about helping these kids, I got a sense that this school was very different from all the rest. Very different! As I read further and become familiar with the 5 elements of the process of their program, I grew more and more intrigued. I thought how amazing and brilliant to use the aspects of the 5 elements to get the kids to understand how they got to this point, their relationship with their parents and friends, and most importantly, the realizations about themselves and their behaviors. I knew in my heart of hearts after reading and rereading all of the literature from all of the schools we had narrowed down to, that HLA was the right fit for ****. Not only was I so sure, I knew it was the ONLY therapy based school which had figured out how to utilize an 18-month process to walk these kids through their internal worlds maybe begrudgingly at first with their heels dug in. But as the process unfolded and these kids saw that they could in fact communicate with their internal world, maybe for the first time, and express their inner most feelings for the first time, they would in fact begin to heal--begin to see the road map to becoming a whole person.
**** has completed one year of his time at HLA and I am once again brought to my knees. This time however it is with great reverence and gratitude for all of those who make HLA, HLA. Yes the school has had its ups and downs and we rode the wave just as so many of you did as to whether this school would be around for the fall/winter semester. And I am not afraid to tell you I prayed daily for it to survive. Why? Because I so believed in the "process" that the school stands for. I knew if allowed him the opportunity to finish the entire 18-month journey that **** would come out the other side a much more whole person.
Let me paint a picture for you and my hunch is this picture is not so far off your picture of your son or daughter at HLA. When we put **** there a week before Thanksgiving, his world was crashing down on him. He knew that he was not going to graduate with his fellow friends that he had come to know over the years, those friends who were equally out of control. He was distraught and quite frankly probably hated us for doing this to him. Of course he at that time could not see the why's of what got him there or take any responsibility for himself. Everything existed outside of him. He held no thoughts or feelings as to how he ended up in such a place at this point in his life. As we walked the campus with him and looked at all he could get involved with he just would shrug his shoulders with ambivalence and say "yeah, whatever."
One year later this shrugged over shoulder young man who saw absolutely no future for himself at the time is thriving. Not only is he thriving but the light that existed in all of us is now back on for ****. The black cloud that used to hang over our son was replaced with the kind of self-assurance that will take this young man as far as his heart's desire!
His grades are A's and B's, he is a dorm prefect, on student council, got accepted into Phoenix Society, played for the golf team and is a forward for the soccer team. One year ago from now this young man saw no future for himself. Today he is applying to five different colleges and actually see's his future.
I am here to tell you, your son or daughter, whether you know it or not, is learning how to dialogue with himself, how to be his own counsel, not that of his friends. They are learning the world is what they choose to make it; they have control and mastery over what is going on for them.
To say I am humbled and grateful to the staff of HLA is just purely an understatement. No, they are not perfect Nothing in this world is. But they have our children's interest and hearts in their hands and all I can do is applaud them for helping my son and your kids learn to navigate in a world that is not easy.
My only request of the school is I wish there was some way to package up this brilliant process and send it out to every school, every teen center across our planet. Because every young adult could use the power in understanding their internal world because if the children of tomorrow had this understood at an early age the world would be a much better place for it.
I now understand we did the right thing this time for our son; we chose not to befriend him but parent him. Guide him.
When Chris asked me if I would consider writing an article for the schools newspaper I had no idea the amount of emotion that would come forth in writing it. But I am here to tell you as I finish this last piece of writing the tears are streaming down my face. I now have my son back!
Thank you to all of those who have dedicated their lives to furthering the future of our children.
I am humbled and in awe of all of you.
****'s Mom, *********
A mother's update:***** entered HLA in November of 2006. The above letter was written in November of 2007. He graduated from HLA in May of 2008 with the highest GPA in his graduating class and had received every award and honor that HLA offers, including being voted by the staff as "STARS," which stands for a student who is showing excellent progress Socially, Therapeutically, Academically, Recreationally, and Spiritually. This award only comes by being nominated by a staff member and must come with a unanimous vote of all staff.
I know **** is an amazing success story; he also could have easily been another fatality in a long list of kids on drugs and alcohol. In the end, it was his choice to make a change in his life and with the guidance of Hidden Lake Academy, he grew to understand it was his choice.
**** is now in his first year at a University. His GPA to date is a 3.4. His major is International Business and his father and I have no doubts he will become all that he believes he can. My gratitude to Hidden Lake Academy is endless.
Editor's Note: The name of the child and parent in the foregoing is on file at Woodbury Reports, Inc. To protect their privacy, their names do not appear in the letter as reprinted above.Copyright © 2007, Woodbury Reports, Inc.