Taking family for granted

[DannyB II]

One of the amazing things about treatment programs is the effect it can have on family relationships. When you are young since you are around your family a lot and live in the same house usually, you can start to take each other for granted very easily. You can begin to annoy each other, argue and fight with each other. Kids can chafe under the strict rules of parents from their view, and parents stress out about what their kids are really up to. Families are complicated and involve a lot of emotions and like any relationship it can get ordinary and rocky and times.

When you are away from your family at a treatment program, over time, the arguments you once had seem trivial. You begin to realize what you really had with them, when you longer have it. This allows the stressful atmosphere that was present at the onset of treatment dissipates and allows a new relationship to form built on a strong foundation of honesty and mutual cooperation.

Many kids who arrive in treatment are very angry at their parents. This fades over time when they realize that perhaps their family has their best interests at heart. This anger eventually disappears, and they realize how much they really love their family. This effect will not happen with local therapy. Sorry but this is just a fact. Parents shouldn't underestimate how much a change can occur in the relationship between family members when a kid is in a treatment program. I've seen it and its powerful stuff, kids who said they hated their parents on day 1, when they get to go home with their parents they are totally changed and telling their parents how much they love them. Its pretty amazing actually.

I can relate to some of what you are saying here. I was a real pain the ass of a kid. Moving out and moving away and making my own money definitely did make me understand what I was missing. But I also think you may be discounting 2 things. One is the potential positive influence of wider family, or independent mentors, and the other is the problem of kids who have some kind of issue that is not just about bratty behavior like a mental illness.
I know that as the youngest of 5 sometimes my older brother would talk me down when i was being a total dickhead. When his son was also playing up, he spent the summer working with me in my restaurant. I cant say he became perfect but he did well there and it kept him out of mischief. A lot of young apprentices straight from school start out pretty wild but mellow out a little if they are doing what they love. Particularly if they are working under someone whose work they truly admire.
 I assume you have done some kind of research looking at the failures of local therapy. I haven't so cant comment there but have you thought that if a kid is reluctant in a local therapist's office then he is going to be unwilling in a treatment program that he has not agreed to? Particularly if the focus is on all the ways that they are a screw up. It seems a lot of kids are and I can understand why. I don't know if all programs run this way or similarly but I read a book called what it takes to pull me through that my sister loaned me and found some of the practices pretty disturbing. Particularly the psychodramas that they made the kids participate in. I was also a little surprised that the anorexic girl was supervised by the other girls and not by some kind of nurse. It also struck me that relatively innocent kids were in with kids who had some pretty sophisticated issues. Most of the kids that the guy followed seemed to improve but i was disturbed by the suicide attempt of one of the girls and it seemed like the pressure of the program played a part in her mental health deteriorating. I also noted that one of the boys who seemed to do pretty well died not long after he got out. I am not saying that this was because of the place but i guess it did not help this guy either.
Do you know of any long term figures that show how many kids have been helped under this system?

Thanks for the very interesting post it has really got me thinking about a lot of things. I don't have any sure answers to these things all I have to go on is my own experience which overall resulted in a positive outcome (I wasnt dead or in jail). For me it was really that simple. I think a kids can improve with therapists at home. But the particular phenomenon of a kid who hated their parents at one time doing a compete 180 and becoming actually desperate for their acceptance and love is something I only saw when the kid and family were seperated. Some people might think this is manipulation of their feelings, etc, but the fact is it works. So I think the argument becomes well what is more important, the intricacies of the process or the results.

There are many different types of treatment centers, wilderness programs, programs, and everything in between and they all work in different ways, bu they are  basically after the same result. I think kids would be much more willing to be open in a therapist office than the type of program on this forum. I don't know a lot of kids who showed up ready "to work". It can take a while for someone to fully adapt to a new situation and once that happens they would usually start working. Local therapy and being sent to live in a program full time are very different experiences. I just doubt that with local therapy you are going to get that climactic moment when a kid who would of rolled their eyes at their parents to run up and hug them and tell them they love them and actually mean it. I think people who have seen this phenomenon know what I'm talking about because it can be intense. The parents will see a troubled teen when they arrive, and then a grateful teen when they leave.

I know I am going off on a tangent but give me a moment to explain what I mean. Imagine you are the parent of a 16 year old girl. She doesn't talk to you at all and your only communication is through emotional draining arguments. She has run away, ditches school regularly and got kicked off the softball team last year for failing a drug test. You know shes doing drugs and hanging out with bad friends and its only a matter of time until she gets arrested or worse. You know things are bad, but you don't know how bad because you are busy being a working single mother, her dad left a few years ago. You also have two younger daughters age 13 and 11 who are starting to follow in the ways of their older sister. You have sent her to local therapy for a year and nothing changes. When you found her notebook talking about suicide she went for a few days in the hospital, and things only got worse after that. What do you do now?

This is a typical position of a parent who is about to send their teen to a treatment program, and this is the teen that they last remember. Now, imagine a couple of months later you come for the first family therapy weekend, and when you see your daughter you don't even recognize her. She looks so much healthier and sober, clear headed and free of her demons that haunted her at home. She runs up to you and hugs you while crying and says, I love you mom, and for the first time in your life you really know, on an instinctual level that she really believes it. Thank you mom she says, thank you so much for getting me this help. You both are crying and embracing and excited about spending the weekend together.

That is powerful stuff, and it happens all the time in the type of treatment programs discussed here. It happens in different ways depending on the program but it does happen. This is what this thread was about, not so much to disparage local therapy as much as outline the differences in the eventual outcome. Its not like I think every kid who ditches school once should be sent away to a treatment program. It sounds like some people might have truly been "innocent" and never should have gone, that is wrong. But I desperately needed help and it worked for me, and so that is my own personal perspective, and that's what I have to offer. Its a good question whether people who get out do better, I have no idea and I don't know that anyone really does as far as statistics. But its also important to remember, these places are for troubled teens and so most are. By looking into this group I don't think its that surprising that more negative things happen in our lives than say by looking at a random group of teenagers from high school or something.

The success rate for myself is 100% because it got me out of the negative behaviors and influences and I was able to work on myself in a new environment which was absolutely necessary. I'm sure a lot of kids issues can be effectively dealt with, with a local therapist. My family tried therapist and it didn't work for me, and I refused to talk to them and just sat there. When I was in treatment program I also refused but after a while I decided it was in my best interest to maybe help myself and so I eventually did. I don't have any numbers because honestly I don't think they exist, but it worked for me and that's all I can say. But I am not one of the people here who attribute every death of a survivor to be the fault of the program they attended. Some take it to a very extreme here and count deaths years, decades after for reasons that cannot be connected to a treatment.  I wouldnt at all be surprised if  the "survivor community" has a higher suicide rate than the normal population because like I said most kids that are sent to a treatment program are troubled in some way, so its like you are already showing symptoms of problems before you ever go to a treatment program, I can't dismiss that completely. I think treatment centers are constantly trying to refine their techniques to become as successful as possible, I don't think they take it lightly when somebody they tried to help ends up harming themselves. I have a lot of respect for these people and know they are trying their best.

Good stuff "Suck-IT",   Thanks...

[reformed12stepper]

suck it i guess I was a variation on the kid that you describe. I never ran away but i took drugs too much and got expelled from my private school. I am glad that your experience helped you and your mother reconcile. Maybe you went somewhere that was less harsh than some of the places described here. My issue with this industry (and i am no expert) is that I don't think an institutional environment is really not good for anyone in the long term unless their mental health issues are so hardcore that they are a continual danger to themselves and society. This is a really big thing to label an adolescent with and should not be done lightly.
I also wonder how one place can deal with such a wide range of issues as so many programs seem to claim that they can handle. Did you go to a place that only handled drug issues? Did they have a 12 step philosophy or something else? was most of the therapy 1 on 1? Aside from the absence making the heart grow fonder issue, what was done to make you more able to relate to your family?
I think most kids crave their parents love and acceptance even when they are pretty difficult. One thing i really don't like much is the way that a lot of places advertise. They say they are about helping the whole family but then a lot of the focus of the marketing is on all the moral issues of the kids. My problem with this is 2 fold. Firstly in the case of genuine mental health issues i just don't think this is where the focus should be at all. I also don't know if it should be the case with young drug abusers as it is pretty common for there to be dual diagnosis issues with a lot of drug abusers. In the case of kids who are mainly sent for being bratty and delinquent, i still am pretty sceptical about the effectiveness of going away to an institutional kind of environment. Sooner or later a person has to join the outside world. It is hard to do that when you have been away from it for an extended period of time.