Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry
Desisto School
Anonymous:
Hey "MC", who are you? I'm sure I know you, as I was there in late '95, '96 as well. I came in Sept. '95 and just missed the riots. I went thru alot myself and spent 4 months on the farm. I'm Tony by the way.
e-mail me : anthonarz2000@yahoo.com
Anonymous:
I worked there for 4 months during the summer of '95 and would advise that no parent should send their child there. It was an abusive place, cult like, and I still can't believe some of the 'punishments' or 'means of discipline' that were used. The parent groups led the parents to believe that they are the problems and the reasons the adolescents are at the school. This in turn brings a lot of guilt to the parents and the parents don't listen to there teens. When the parents did listen to their teens, the parents were so shocked by the stories that they thought the teens were making them up. Unfortunately, they were not made up.
I worked on the 'farm' and my own pets get better treatment than the students did on the farm.
I would continue to look into different programs and stop looking at this one.
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---On 2004-02-23 18:57:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Desisto School has gotten a lot of bad press here.
--- End quote ---
Desisto has gotten a lot of bad press PERIOD, not just here.
--- Quote ---I am a parent of a 20 year old presently enrolled at he school. He was a failure in high school, in his personal relations, a drug and alcohol abuser. He went to Elan school for 8 months and left after his 18th birthday.
He though he could return to his local high scool, but after a few stable months, things spiralled downward, and he was arrested for multiple crimes.
Where do you send these kids? Most get arrested and warehoused in prison.
--- End quote ---
why do you have to send them anywhere. I have a kid that was doing the same stuff as your son, somehow she seemed to make it through life without a program. We went through some of the most scary times in my life during those couple of years. Drugs, staying out all night, I hated all her friends, school went to hell etc. etc. She needed help, just like it sounds like your son needs help, but to send him away, isolate him from those that TRULY love him (you and your wife) will only serve to create more damage. I don't know if there is physical abuse in that school or not, I haven't looked that far into it....but as a kid that was put into a program and as a parent of a 'troubled' teen (they're ALL troubled) I can give you BOTH points of view. You can get your child through this period in his life. It's going to take a lot of hard work, sleepless nites etc., but no one ever said it was going to be easy...at least no one ever said it to me.
--- Quote ---Desisto rescued him and has made him a success story. I have my life back again too, and my family is healing.
--- End quote ---
Ask him in about 5 - 10 years how he feels about what happened to him in there.
Cayo Hueso:
DAMN......keep forgetting to login. That was me up there.
To make certain that crime does not pay, the government should take it
over and try to run it
--G. Norman Collie
--- End quote ---
Cleopatra2U:
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
_________________
Well-behaved women rarely make history.
(edited for grammar and punctuation)
[ This Message was edited by: Cleopatra2U on 2004-02-24 12:50 ]
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