The escort service I hired charged $2500. This price payed for two escorts and my son to fly to SLC, Utah. I am sure a rental car was required. I am not sure if the escorts came from out of town, so their flights might have been roundtrip. The escorts bought my son breakfast and lunch and some magazines to read on the plane. I was there when they picked my son up, and I thought they did a very good job (they explained everything to my son before they left and they treated him with respect). I have since asked my son about the whole journey and he said that the escorts were nice to him (I'm sure they are nice because they don't want any trouble). I have also talked to my son about his emotions during this ordeal, and he said he was "beyond angry" with me at first. He vowed never to talk to me or see me again. Since then (over the last 2.5 months), he now claims that he desperately wants our relationship to get better and he wants to come home. I am working on being a better Dad and I am letting him know the things I am doing to acheive this. He has also been very open about telling me that he knows he screwed up and that he wants help (just not at the aspen ranch).
I am one who believes that teens can receive a "wake-up call". When a kid shoplifts and gets caught and spends a week in juvenile hall or something, it is often a quick method of letting them see the light regarding their behavior. You were a teen once too, so you know kids screw up, take risks, are heavily influenced by peer pressure to take actions you would not want them to. In my own life, my parents were upset that I didn't do all my homework. I still passed my classes, but the homework was their issue. And for not completing it all, I wound up at Rocky Mountain Academy for two years. It was not an appropriate place for me. I had no emotional issues. I had no drug issues. I never drank. I basically did not get in to trouble. Yet Rocky Mountain Academy claimed to be able to cure me. These places do not offer treatment, they have no professional experience and the in my situation, the education system there was so lacking in normal structure and content that even though there would be no homework given, the classes taken would never have prepared me for college had I not already been prepared before arriving.
Reading your original post, your sons situation sounds like those of many kids sent to these places. Drugs, lack of performance in school and in life, taking risks. It is not true that most students discuss wanting to come right away after the parents first visit. I am surprised actually that he felt comfortable doing this. My experience is that the staff play the students and parents off on each other. Telling parents one thing, the student another. The staff often try and create confusion, and in fact are typically the first ones to state that the child may offer up stories of abuse that are simply a form of manipulation and are wholly untrue, often before the student has ever expressed such things. I know in my days in the CEDU system, all of the parents were warned. But I don't know if the staff warned you of manipulation, or if your child came to you on their own and told you his stories. The problem for many of us here on Fornits is that we would believe such stories to likely be truthful. A lot of very strange things happen at these places. Perhaps you might share a little more on what your son told you, so we can match it against stories we might have heard many times before?
I know you are desperately trying to help your son and many of us sincerely want to help in any way we can. Finding the root cause to your sons issues is important. Depression is very common, but what is causing the depression has to be determined before any forward progress can really be made. The drug use and suicide concerns are probably byproducts of that depression, thus the depression is the focus. What sort of professional counseling did you get your son before sending him to Aspen Ranch? I would imagine at least one trained psychologist or psychiatrist.
The reason these Wilderness Programs work as a form of drug rehab is that they strip search students, search footlockers and are so remotely located that access to such substances is limited. But if the cause for the drug use is not removed, your son could go the next five years without using a single drug, come home and go right back to using, and feeling suicidal soon after, because the depression is still present.
I see that you have two problems. First is the fact your son is suffering from depression and his coming home should be dependent upon his agreeing to undergo treatment. Second, your son is currently in a program that falsely advertises that it treats people, when it does not, and is likely to damage your son further because none of these programs is lacking in mental abuse, which your son clearly does not need. Humiliation is a deep part of these programs, and a person suffering from depression needs none of that. You need to spend a lot of time with your son. You need to find out from his mouth what is troubling him, and understand he may have trouble expressing what it is. There is a child Health Council at Stanford University that can test and offer a clinical evaluation, offering recommending specific avenues for treatment including whether a counselor chosen should be male or female. They can identify strengths and weaknesses and state of mind. Finding out what is causing this depression and treating it is probably what will "save" your son. But keep in mind, we were all teens once. There is a phase many of us go through where we doubt ourselves, don't think we will amount to everything we dreamed we would be when we were eight years old, are unsure of our sexuality and so on. But turning eighteen and standing on a college campus with adults is a wake up call in and of itself. Surrounded by mature people, many of our life decisions change when we see other role models around us. So as your son ages, he is likely to survive just fine as his environment and experiences change. Your son really sounds like a typical teenager. If you can get to the root of his depression, really get to know him personally and what his fears and his dreams are, you can give him the help he needs. There is nobody on this earth who is more important in this process than his parents. You have known your son longer than anyone, you have a much deeper interest in his success than anyone besides himself. This is why sending him away is less valuable than being there for him every day.
Your son wants to come home. Because he wants this, you are in a position to explain to him what you want. And that is for him to commit to working with you to get his depression treated. And tell him it is 100% normal for him to experience depression. Don't ostracize him. He needs to know his problems can be solved and that you are there to make that happen and that it will take his commitment as well to ensure success. Involve him in the process and get directly involved yourself. When the depression is under control, the drugs and the suicidal thoughts will be under control as well. And there is nothing more powerful than being in control of ones self.
I wish you and your son the best of luck.
