I did. Sounds to me as if he swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker. It's not worth its money, maybe the library can get it?
BTW, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author but didn't get it for this.
Quotes:
pg1: "...Other parents sought solace in online chat rooms that seemed to start every month: DifficultChild.com, Defiant-Teen.com, HelpYourTeens.com. One of the most popular, StrugglingTeens.com, attracted mothers and fathers from across the country."
pg2: "Jamaica and the Czech Republic have behavioral modification programs for American kids."
pg22: "In 1969, Wasserman bought a ranch in the hills east of Los Angeles...Wasserman called his program CEDU...Asa boss he alternately praised and ridiculed the staff; when enrollment slipped and money was tight, he bellowed, "We need asses in beds!" Rudy Bentz, who started working at CEDU in the late 1970's, found Wasserman brilliant, exasperating, inspiring and arrogant.
CEDU staff members scattered around the country to found other programs."
pg28: "Rudy Bentz, forty-seven, had started his career twenty-two years before as a drama teacher at CEDU in California, known as the original emotional growth school. There he met his wife Jill, who taught art. ...then joined Swift River in 1998..".
pg 35: "Base camp...The staff had a zero-tolerance approach....If they didn't wash their bowls spotlessly after a meal, they lost priviledges; they might be put on spice-bans so they had to eat bland food with no salt, peppere, or garlic powder fpr a couple of days. If a boy and a girl flirted, they were put on bans - no talking to each other, no notes, no clandestine hand signals. Repeat offenders got extra PT."
pg37: "Between them, Rudy and jill Bentz had nearly forty years of experience, starting with the original one in California."
pg. 104: "The counselors read faxes and letters to make sure parents and kids were being honest with each other."
pg130: "...It was time for Group 23's fist all-day workshop....The kids' childhood nicknames - provided by the parents - had been written on labels on the back of the chairs set in a semicircle facing the fire....Many of the kids at Swift River had grown up in chaotic families. They were scared of separation and surprises. They loved rituals,...In a group, rituals build a sense of trust and team spirit. the workshops were filled with rituals. Pop songs ...chosen for their lyrics about love, friendship, or sorrow, played on the stereo. During a break, everybody silently ate a simple dinner of cold cuts. Then, with darkness settling in and the kids' guard down, the counselors ramped up the emotional intensity with a new activity...As they walked into a schollwide meeting, they were greeted with hugs....Certain workshops touched differentkids to different degrees, but months or years after a workshop, quite a few graduates of therapeutic schools would hear one of the Enigma or Mike and the Mechanics songs on the radio and start sobbing."
pg. 334: "..Elliot Sainer, CEO of the Aspen Education Group, which owns Swift River."
...interviews with John Powers, Candice porter, Marsha Stevens, Gennarose Pope, Julie Haagenson, and John Klem."
pg306: "Now that I've had a chance to reflect, I see that despite the glowing testimonials, despite the late-night workshops and family therapy and hundreds of pages of emotional-growth curriculum, Swift River can only do so much. Sometines it's simply a safe place for boys and girls to grow up for fourteen or fifteen months."
