What I have to say on this topic, and to any parent who is considering sending their child to a long-term specialty school, boot camp, treatment program, or whatever... Is that life is too short, childhood in particular is too short, to spend months or even years living apart from the people who love you... Provided they really love you.
I too was a "problem" child, involved with alcohol, drugs, sex, and crime in my early teens. How much my behavior had to do with my parents (mostly my mother) being neglectful, physically and mentally abusive, and sheltering me from the outside world, I don't know... I wasn't capable of considering this until years after I left the worst of the places I wound up in because my parents chose to give me away to strangers rather than deal with the problem at home ourselves... A place called Straight, Inc.
I realize not all places are as bad as Straight was. I also spent time in a Psychiatric Institute, a couple of group homes, jails, and a foster home, all because my parents chose to give me away to strangers rather than deal with the problem at home ourselves. The point I want to make here is that it is not so much where my parents sent me as the fact that they sent me away in the first place. It was like they gave up being parents. It was like they gave birth to me just to throw me away a few years later. I don't think anything worse can happen to a child than for their parents not to want them anymore... Even parents who were less than stellar, like mine.
I did not realize all this until I became an adult, partly because of the way Straight drilled into me that it was all my fault. Because I was bad. All my fault. Over and over again. And that no parent would want a child like me. Okay, I have already been more or less abandoned, and now the people who are supposed to be "helping" me are putting me down and telling me that I'm not worth the parents who abandoned me in the first place! That I'm not worth my neglectful, abusive, abandoning parents! And to think I had self-esteem issues before I went to "treatment"!
Again, I realize not all places are as bad as Straight was, but from what I?ve heard and read here and elsewhere, it seems that many long-term specialty schools, boot camps, and treatment programs drill the same negative thoughts into children?s heads that Straight drilled into mine -- that the children are bad, that their problems are all their fault, that they are worthless, that their families don?t want them. All this negative reinforcement on top of being abandoned in the first place!
I know not all parents believe they are "abandoning" their children when they send them off to some place for "help", but since so many of these places do not allow contact between parents and children, at least at first, that?s sure as hell how it feels to the child. That?s sure as hell how it felt to me.
For a while I actually thought Straight helped me -- for a while after I turned 18 and was emancipated, I was clean and sober and going to AA meetings; my parents were happy; my parents even allowed me to come back home and live with them. But it was never the same at home. Never the same, even though I was doing what my parents wanted? Never the same because any trust I ever had for my parents had gone once they made the choice to give me away to strangers rather than deal with the problem at home. Despite their failures as parents and my failures as a child, we might have a had a chance -- a chance not only just to get along but to become a closer, stronger family -- if they hadn?t made the choice they did.
I moved out of my parents? house as soon as I could (before they kicked me out or sent me away again, I figured). I moved out before I was ready. I moved in with an abusive boyfriend. I wasn?t earning enough money to pay my bills and I got into credit card debt that I am still struggling through today. For years I have questioned whether my parents really loved me. I probably always will.
To the anonymous parent who stated that "Desisto rescued [his/her son] and has made him a success story", let me reiterate what Ginger said: "Ask him in about 5 - 10 years". For your family?s sake, provided you really care, I hope your son doesn?t come to the same conclusions I have.
To any parent who is considering sending their "problem" child away... If you really love your child, don?t risk losing months or even years of their lives... Don?t risk losing them permanently.
~ Mindi
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Well-behaved women rarely make history.
(edited for grammar and punctuation)
[ This Message was edited by: Cleopatra2U on 2004-02-24 12:50 ]
