Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools
PLEASE HELP!!! Should I send my son to Hyde???
none-ya:
--- Quote from: "molly" ---Hi Samara,
My husband and I have both read Driven by Distraction and we gained a lot of understanding from it. We have not read The Defiant Child but I am going to order it from Amazon now. Thank you so much for the suggestion.
Molly
--- End quote ---
First you did and now you didn't?
????
Samara:
Maia's book is a great place to start if you are still considering programs. Maia's background is journalism and she has stellar credentials. She takes an objective, investigative approach. It's just that it didn't lead to a promising place for programs. I read the book awhile ago and loaned it to someone else before I completed it,and hopefully, she included alternative solutions. I know she clearly addresses program cons and deficiencies. If you are still thinking of programs, this is the book to read. The author is not a crackpot, alarmist sensationalist. I believe she also has compassion for parents who feel their families are in crisis. Guys - I'm trying to remember if Maia has a list of other resources to pursue at the end of the book. For some reason, I think she does.
There are a million ways to do that without a program, but it is hard to keep your head together in the midst of chaos. That is why you have to let go of fear and control while also meeting issues head on. All I know is that power struggles do NOT work. It is hard to let your ego go as a parent, because frankly, when your kid is acting like a pain in the ass brat, you want to pull the authority card, but the one book illustrates very clearly that your kid will never be on board with this approach. I've just had some good results with it. It's gotten to the point will my kid can evaluate his own actions and choices and take responsibility and even make difficult choices because he knows it is better for him - but I also work hard not to invalidate his feelings even when I am making parental choices he doesn't love. But if you ask him, he'll tell you that my expectations are reasonable and fair.
The thing about parenting is there is no cure-all. It's just progress, not perfection, and progress is not a straight trajectory. It dips and climbs.
The dress code and dying your hair is NOTHING. That will be the least of his concerns if he is sent there. Please read Maia's book if you can. At least do this.the younger the kid is that goes to these places, the harder it is fro them to sort out the kool aid later. If you e-mail Maia, she might respond.
molly:
Thanks, Samara. I will read Maia's book. In terms of the Hallowell books, what I wrote is that I have read Driven to Distraction but not Delivered from Distraction.
dragonfly:
Awake:
molly
I would be very wary of any program that uses mandatory group therapy or uses group pressures for conformity, and I think there are several reasons that it carries with it a high risk of being harmful to your child as well as being utilized as a powerful tool of coercion by staff, something that can be very hard to identify by a novice outside observer. I think it is worth considering that if therapy does not help your child it is going to actually harm him. Depending on the nature and intensity of the therapy the effects may be negligible, or the damage done could last a lifetime and destroy your relationship, but do not assume that if it doesn’t work it will result in ‘no change’. Another point of concern is that it is not the child’s option to participate in therapy, it will be forced upon him, and lack of progress may come with punishment, shaming, which might exacerbate current issues, inhibit their resolution, and even create new issues. Troubled teen programs have an incredibly, incredibly disturbing history of employing coercive tactics and experimental therapies. If you see a possibility where the program could be motivating peer pressures, and those pressures can be used as motivation to achieve individual therapeutic goals, if you see that therapeutic progress is held in the context of peer group progress through level systems, then my advice is to not take a chance. It is not worth it.
To switch gears a bit here, I may have some advice that you may want to look into. I was also diagnosed add when I was young and went through the gamut of prescriptions. Take this for what it is, but as an adult looking back on it all, I think it is either pretty easy to misdiagnose, and/or the diagnosis itself and the search for treatment can be more problematic to overcome than the add itself and just letting the child learn to deal with it naturally, just personally.
That said I do recognize that you may need to keep exploring alternatives here. My advice is to look into Landmark College in VT, I don’t know if you can find something quite like this for minors but maybe they know of some that work in a similar way. It is academically focused but will incorporate learning disability issues like add into the process. Actually I think it would provide huge advantages in getting accepted at other colleges. It is not focused on solving behavior issues, just very structured, but also very flexible in considering individual needs in academic learning. It is less a group thing and the daily learning schedule is structured individually, as stated they have the highest faculty to student ratio in the country. I know your son may not be old enough to go yet, but I think you should look anyways and call them and see if they can point you in a good direction. Maybe it will lead you toward better options, hopefully some you can find at home. (Unless he wants a change of environment). I would prefer to see that any sort of therapy is individual and optional, and that the structuring of time is not dominated by group building excercises, but by academics, and a healthy amount of free time. Anyways, I feel this is a far better environment than Hyde by comparison, so just thought I’d offer.
http://www.landmark.edu/index.cfm
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