Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
My son at Aspen Ranch
TheWho:
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--- Quote from: "NIGEL" ---Hi again,
My faults as a parent were that I would always get on him for all that he did wrong, and I didn't find the time to tell him that I was proud of him and that I loved him. I am doing my best to make sure he knows that I see him working on things and that I am very proud of him.
While it is good to see you taking responsibility for your "troubled parent" behavior, did you really need to abandon your son to an abusive program to learn this? You finally learned that people respond to love and encouragement and rebel against being criticized, nagged and being constantly told what they are doing wrong while anything they do right is ignored? He can't "work on things" at home? With the family and in the world he will return to and have to function in? Your son wants and needs your love; it should be unconditional, not meted out as a reward for submitting to a program that is going to do in spades to him what you recognized you yourself did wrong with him. You didn't find the time to tell him you were proud of him and love him while he was at home? But you have certainly found the time to send him away...time you will never, ever get back, precious time with your child squandered in the service of a profit-making business run by people who will never ever appreciate the value of that time.
You sound like you really love your son and want to do the best for him. You should figure out how much money you are willing to give these people then take that money, take a leave of absence from your job, take your son, sail around the world, backpack through Europe, visit Alaska or take a road trip, hang out and get to know each other, build some trust. No matter how much you love your son unless you can communicate that to him in a way he will understand it is really just words. That means you need to get to know who he really is and right now you don't. know him. A program will only widen that gulf.
While he may survive and even forgive you, you will lose something precious you will never get back:the chance to forge the kind of bond that will have a momumentally better affect on your son and his behavior that any program will ever be able to conjure up.
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If it would work that would be the best scenario. I thought of going to the northeast for a few months and rent a cabin. But I couldn’t get the leave of absence for my job and I have other kids at home to consider. It wouldn’t be fair to them to just run off. To tell you the truth my daughter wasn’t responding to any of it anyway at the time.
The best would have been to go back and do it over again but that isn’t possible. Although we were apart a lot of the time, the time spent there was good for her. It gave her time to focus on herself and figure out what was important to her. The program boasted her self esteem and got her back to the books and actually brought her closer to her mother and me because we could work on our issues separately and realized how much we missed and depended on each other as a family. The little time we did spend together was precious. She blossomed like a flower, matured and learned to communicate her feelings very well so that there wasn’t anything we couldn’t talk about.
There was never a time she spent there that she didn’t feel safe. Like Nigel stated about his son, if she ever wanted to come home because she was frightened or being abused she would have told me on our weekly phone calls or when we visited.
I am sorry you had such a bad experience and have read that some programs can treat kids that way here on fornits. Maybe we were fortunate we chose the right program, but I would hesitate to do it again faced with the same circumstances.
NIGEL:
--- Quote ---While it is good to see you taking responsibility for your "troubled parent" behavior, did you really need to abandon your son to an abusive program to learn this? You finally learned that people respond to love and encouragement and rebel against being criticized, nagged and being constantly told what they are doing wrong while anything they do right is ignored? He can't "work on things" at home? With the family and in the world he will return to and have to function in? Your son wants and needs your love; it should be unconditional, not meted out as a reward for submitting to a program that is going to do in spades to him what you recognized you yourself did wrong with him. You didn't find the time to tell him you were proud of him and love him while he was at home? But you have certainly found the time to send him away...time you will never, ever get back, precious time with your child squandered in the service of a profit-making business run by people who will never ever appreciate the value of that time.
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I didn't abandon my son for me to learn any lessons. I sent my son to Aspen Ranch because he was spiraling downwards and he was heading towards suicide. We tried everything we could think of, and he was at the breaking point. He claimed he hated my wife and me and he was running away and saying he was going to end his life. When I tried to talk to him about how I could help him, he told me all of my advice sucked and he wasn't going to listen to me anymore. When I told him that we could look for a relative that he could go to live with or a boarding school of his choice (not a therapeutic boarding school), he told us that he would kill us in our sleep if we ever tried to ship him out. He was hurting down deep inside and we had to do something.
Whether sending him to The Aspen Ranch was the right decision, I'm not sure. I am still evaluating it. But I will say that he is safe, he is in a much better frame of mind, he claims he holds no anger towards us for sending him there and that he loves us. I realize he might be saying all of these things trying to manipulate us into bringing him home, but he seems sincere.
I don't mind hearing from the people that tell me that I did the wrong thing, as I am listening to both sides and then also using my best Judgement on what direction I should take with my son. Your'e right, I do love my son very much---and that is why I took this drastic step. I realize their might be repurcusions, but I feel that if I hadn't taken this step, he would be either dead or living on the streets by now.
psy:
--- Quote from: "NIGEL" ---I have read those survivor reports. As I have said before, I am keeping my eyes and ears open. I asked my son about any physical abuse, and he told me that he hadn't seen any (in 2.5 months) but he had heard stories about kids that wouldn't do what they were told, so they were first warned and then physically held. As for the phone calls, I do know that the therapist is there with him, but I was also with him for 4 hours by ourselves and he didn't tell me that he was being forced to be cooperative and say only positive things. As for the letters, he is very honest and open. I have never got the feeling that he hasn't told me everything. My son will be the first to report anything he feels is abuse (I am positive about this). I am not writing here to advocate for The Aspen Ranch, only to ask for everyones advice and to let you know how my son is doing. If I feel things are not good there, I will let you know, and if I feel it has been good for my son, I will also report that.
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My fear is that he might not realize what is going on is not healthy until later. It depends. Some turn out fine. Some find what goes on to be deeply hurtful. Then again I don't know much about Aspen Ranch specifically, or their methods. The survivor reports are consistent with what I would suspect: little if any physical abuse, some thought reform.
"if you were suspected of doing something wrong you would be forced to go into the basement and sit at a desk until you admitted what you were accused of." is an indication of some things but other than the restraints described, I'd have to actually interview somebody to get a good idea of the psychological methods of change they're using. If there are no LifeStep seminars they might not use LGATs at all. That's a good sign.
If what you're describing with the sheet of paper example is the sole method of how they influence the kids to change, I don't see the problem there. What I wonder about is what you're not hearing and the methods they use in group "therapy" (i.e. is it confrontational attack therapy", are there licensed therapists, etc...). With such tactics it's easy to get a person to not only admit to having problems they don't have but also get them to accept those problems as part of their identities, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example: you say he was smoking pot and taking LSD. While I don't endorse or condemn those things, they are objectively non-addictive. If they convince him he is an addict, powerless over those substances, and that he has a lifelong progressive and fatal disease, he'll then act based on those beliefs... making a non-issue into a genuine problem. With such beliefs you could convince a person they were addicted to tap water and they would binge on it (and studies similar to this have been done). As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of the disease concept. Are you in a 12 step group or have any relatives in it by any chance? Often I find parents with these beliefs tend to see the worst in their kids.
The only sure way you're going to find that out about all this is to wait until he's not only home, but out of your house. Many kids never trust their parents after being sent to a program. Was he escorted there?
psy:
--- Quote from: "NIGEL" ---I didn't abandon my son for me to learn any lessons. I sent my son to Aspen Ranch because he was spiraling downwards and he was heading towards suicide. We tried everything we could think of, and he was at the breaking point. He claimed he hated my wife and me and he was running away and saying he was going to end his life. When I tried to talk to him about how I could help him, he told me all of my advice sucked and he wasn't going to listen to me anymore. When I told him that we could look for a relative that he could go to live with or a boarding school of his choice (not a therapeutic boarding school), he told us that he would kill us in our sleep if we ever tried to ship him out. He was hurting down deep inside and we had to do something.
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It sounds like he had some issues for sure. I wonder, though, whether the program will help him understand the root causes of why he was doing what he was doing. He might act better out of fear or thought reform, but if the change isn't from within it won't last.
--- Quote ---Whether sending him to The Aspen Ranch was the right decision, I'm not sure. I am still evaluating it. But I will say that he is safe, he is in a much better frame of mind, he claims he holds no anger towards us for sending him there and that he loves us. I realize he might be saying all of these things trying to manipulate us into bringing him home, but he seems sincere.
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LOL. Well I guess you'll find out if he gets home and you don't' end up killed in your sleep. Seriously, though. Especially if he was escorted there you'll have to consider the possibility that he'll actually be afraid of you... scared into good behavior. I'm not sure ruling through fear is a good parenting style.
Troll Control:
Hey Nigel,
I just want to fill in a few facts that the poster (known as TheWho) is leaving out of his 'story' he's telling you.
1. He never had a child at Aspen Ranch. Never. So he's trying to lead you to belive he did, but he didn't. He's known here as a liar.
2. He claims his daughter went 'back to the books' but she actually dropped out of school as soon as she couls when she got home.
3. He claims she 'blossomed like a flower' but she actually went directly back to hardcore drug and alcohol abuse within a few days of coming home.
4. He claims her program helped reunite his family, but his daughter actually estranged herself from him as soon as she came home.
5. He claims she's now successful, but she's a marginally employed highschool dropout living with a drug addict boyfriend out of wedlock.
Just thought you should know the truth about the guy advising you and what he claims is 'success.' You should also know he runs a feeder referral service for AEG.
Cheers,
Longtime Poster with Knowledge about TheWho
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