Author Topic: Info on Moonridge Academy or Kolob Canyon RTC?  (Read 25438 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Info on Moonridge Academy or Kolob Canyon RTC?
« on: April 18, 2004, 11:04:00 PM »
I know a parent who sent her daughter to a program in Utah for  troubled junior high girls (Moonridge Academy,  also affiliated with a program for older girls called Kolob Canyon).  The daughter seems to be making progress with her issues from what the mom tells me, but the mom said  that she has not been allowed to have any direct contact with her daughter for well over a month (no mail, no calls).    I think she said it had been six weeks.  Is this normal?  Anyone know anything about this program or its affiliate?   Both schools are located in Utah.    :???:
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2004, 11:15:00 PM »
No.  Mail contact is not normal.  Most schools encourage mail contact from day one.  The phone calls are normal, though hard to keep to the agreement.  The reason for this is that the kids don't want to be there.  To have phone calls in the beginning normally will be the teen either saying they want to come home, or crying abuse and everything in between.  Once they've taken the opportunity to work on themselves they will have the phone calls, then visits.  I can't speak for this particular school, but my experience knows this works.  I would ask the mom if she understands about the no letter writing at this school
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Offline notworking

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« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2004, 01:20:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-18 20:15:00, Anonymous wrote:

"The phone calls are normal, though hard to keep to the agreement.  The reason for this is that the kids don't want to be there.  To have phone calls in the beginning normally will be the teen either saying they want to come home, or crying abuse and everything in between.  Once they've taken the opportunity to work on themselves they will have the phone calls, then visits.  I can't speak for this particular school, but my experience knows this works."


Works as what?  Getting the kid to shut up about their issues?  

You need to get a clue.  It is NORMAL for a 11-13 year old to be unhappy about being taken away from her mother.  If a mom doesn't want to hear it, maybe she should make different choices, like taking responsibility for her child.

And how, exactly, do 11-13 year olds "work on themselves?"  They are CHILDREN.  If they actually HAVE their own issues vs. inadequate parents (fairly doubtful at this age, unless there's a medical problem), the parents need to be involved in finding a solution.  It is absoultely unreasonable to expect young adolescents to be emotionally self-sufficient.  I DEFY you to find one actual peer reviewed study (by actual psychologists/psychiatrists, as opposed to your phony behavior modification experts) that says otherwise.  

People like you have pathologized childhood and adolescence.  You expect children to behave better than their parents, to meet their parents' needs instead of vice versa.  What's next?  Telling a parent to keep their infant in a locked, soundproof room because otherwise "all they'll hear is crying?"  After all, parents of newborns have rights, too!
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Offline Cayo Hueso

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« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2004, 01:26:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-19 10:20:00, notworking wrote:

People like you have pathologized childhood and adolescence.  You expect children to behave better than their parents, to meet their parents' needs instead of vice versa.


 :nworthy:  :nworthy:

It really seems like this is what has happened to society.  Kids are supposed[/b] to be rebellious, make mistakes (even LARGE ones) etc.  When kids start to go through the normal breaking away from the parents process, everyone panics.  This is a NORMAL part of child/adolescent development.  It's called finding their own autonomy!!!!  As has been said here many times, by many people...it's the parents job to guide them through those times.  If parents don't start an honest, open relationship from the start with their kids and stay involved in their lives.....then they can't reach the kids when it comes to adolescence.

"One commentator pointed out that when the mafia commits violence, no
one suggests we bomb Sicily.  Today it seems we are, in a symbolic way, not only bombing "Sicily," but are thinking about bombing "Athens" (Iraq)."

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr112901.htm' target='_new'>Ron Paul, 11/29/01 Speech before Congress

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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2004, 01:54:00 PM »
Just saw the first reply - I posted the question.  I did ask the mom what the rationale was for no letters or phone calls. She said that the program told her that her daughter needed to earn the priviledge of communication with her parents, so none of her letters would be sent nor could she get any letters or calls until she reached a certain level.   I guess her daughter is slower than most kids, as the mom said she was told that the daughter was being taught a lesson about consequences for not doing her work.  This worries me too, so that is why I wanted to see if I could find out anything more about these programs. :???:
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Offline notworking

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« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2004, 02:45:00 PM »
You have to EARN the privilege of communicating with your parents?  And this is OK with your friend?  

I'm sorry, but as a parent, this makes me SICK.  Do you think that any of us LIKE to listen to our two year olds throw temper tantrums?  Or our five year olds ask 870,000 questions?  Or our nine year olds giggle incessantly?  Or our twelve year olds insinuate that it is a miracle we got this far in life because we are the stupidest people ever?  OF COURSE NOT.  But it is how human children learn and develop as human beings.  It is what we signed on for when we decided to have babies instead of abortions.  

CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE TO EARN THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING CHILDREN. My suggestion for your friend is that she put the child in state custody and get a pet.  Something like a goldfish that's not too demanding.  She's clearly uninterested in being a parent.
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Offline Timoclea

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« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2004, 03:30:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-19 10:20:00, notworking wrote:





People like you have pathologized childhood and adolescence.  You expect children to behave better than their parents, to meet their parents' needs instead of vice versa.  What's next?  Telling a parent to keep their infant in a locked, soundproof room because otherwise "all they'll hear is crying?"  After all, parents of newborns have rights, too!"


The statement about expecting kids to behave better than their parents rings true for me.

I don't want to go into details, but the case I'm personally familiar with (and what I've seen of parents and survivors on this board) has painted a picture for me, in cases where the kid is not genuinely mentally ill, criminal, or actually alcohol or drug addicted (as opposed to a casual user), of excessively emotionally needy parents.

One of the problems with these dysfunctional families is that screwed up adults have kids so they'll have someone to love them regardless of how crappy or immature their own behavior is---and little kids will do that---you can be a total immature, selfish, screw-up--even abusive--and your small child will love you anyway.

It's when children reach their teenage years that they start discovering their parents have feet of clay.

Only some parents are more fundamentally flawed as people than others.

And not all of those fundamentally flawed, selfish, immature parents are poor.

So along come these "schools" that tell dysfunctional parents what they want to hear---that their teen no longer unconditionally loving them is a "problem" with the teen that can be "fixed" for a price---and that meanwhile the teen can be gotten out of their house so the parents don't have to personally deal with the consequences of the mistakes they made and the bad feelings their *years* of selfish and immature behavior and general screwed-upness has generated---bad feelings that build up and up in children and only boil to the surface in teens.

TBS's for non-criminal, non-mentally-ill, non-addicted kids seem to be a last-ditch attempt on the part of the parents to mind-control the teen and *force* him/her to love the parents unconditionally again, like a small child.

Parents who come in here singing the praises of these programs usually tout how demonstrably affectionate their post-program teen is.

That's the big payoff.

"You don't love me anymore!  Bad!  Bad kid!  I'll show you!  I'll *make* you love me!"

We in society need to protect the teenage children of dysfunctional parents from this kind of abusive desperation measure.

Love for adults is not unconditional, and it can't be compelled---it has to be elicited by kindness and maintained by good behavior.

If you want the closest thing to unconditional love an adult can have in this life, get a dog.

"The Libertarian Party is a coalition of those who hold dear the economic freedoms championed by conservatives, yet abandoned by Republicans, and the civil freedoms championed by liberals, yet abandoned by Democrats."


--Rick Root

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Offline notworking

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« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2004, 03:45:00 PM »
Actually, TBS for mentally ill children are an absolutely horrific idea as well.  There is a great deal of research indicating that mental illness (esp. bipolar d/o, schizophrenia, depression, and ADHD) are physiologically based.  Although it's tough to agree on what medications work best to treat these illnesses, forcing kids to "work on themselves" and "start taking responsibility" is no more effective for mental illness than it would be for diabetes or seizure disorders.  Drug use in teens with mental illness is often an attempt to control symptoms -- even out mood or stop intrustive thoughts/hallucinations.  In fact, therapeutic communities exacerbate mental illness due to the lack of adequate sleep, food, and predictability.  Ask any psychiatrist whether it's a good idea to keep an adult with bipolar disorder from sleeping or eating a balanced diet.  Ask them whether adults with schizophrenia need to be screamed at and told how worthless and evil they are.  

Unfortunately, mental illness still carries a terrible stigma in our society.  It is easier for a lot of parents to say "We decided that if Johnny couldn't follow the rules at home, he could try boot camp for a while" than to say "Johnny is schizophrenic."  Which brings me back to my original point.  If you are not willing to accept your children as needy, imperfect little people, then you shouldn't have them.
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Offline Deborah

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« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2004, 04:22:00 PM »
No mail, no calls, yet the mom says her daughter is doing well.
HOW does she know this?
Like most program parents, I assume she is depending on the staff to be intellegent and report accurately. Fat Chance!!!  :lol:
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gt;>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2004, 08:18:00 PM »
I don't agree with the no mail rule.  I also don't agree with the no phone call rule.  But, sometimes it takes some strong incentive for the kids to become open to looking at what got them there in the first place.  If it's important to the girl to talk with her mom, she will do what needs to be done to have the calls and the mail.  The first part of the stay at the school I'm familar with is the compliance phase.  After that it's when the teen shows they are making changes for themselves, not the parents or the staff.  It takes a while sometimes.  If the mom is worried about her daughter not doing well, she can go see for herself.  She should have some contact with other families and/or teens that were also at the same school.  It's hard doing it alone and sometimes support from other families is crucial.
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Offline Antigen

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« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2004, 09:14:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-19 17:18:00, Anonymous wrote:

After that it's when the teen shows they are making changes for themselves, not the parents or the staff. It takes a while sometimes.


Yeah, no kidding! Seeing as how the kid didn't have incentive to "change themselves" before the parents hired the program to impose a bunch of contrived "consequences".  :roll:

Don't you get it yet? There's only one way to change someone against their will. You have to break their will. W/ a young, healthy kid, that can take some time.

Time's fun when you're having flies.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2004, 10:27:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-19 12:45:00, notworking wrote:

"Actually, TBS for mentally ill children are an absolutely horrific idea as well.  There is a great deal of research indicating that mental illness (esp. bipolar d/o, schizophrenia, depression, and ADHD) are physiologically based.  Although it's tough to agree on what medications work best to treat these illnesses, forcing kids to "work on themselves" and "start taking responsibility" is no more effective for mental illness than it would be for diabetes or seizure disorders.  Drug use in teens with mental illness is often an attempt to control symptoms -- even out mood or stop intrustive thoughts/hallucinations.  In fact, therapeutic communities exacerbate mental illness due to the lack of adequate sleep, food, and predictability.  Ask any psychiatrist whether it's a good idea to keep an adult with bipolar disorder from sleeping or eating a balanced diet.  Ask them whether adults with schizophrenia need to be screamed at and told how worthless and evil they are.  



Unfortunately, mental illness still carries a terrible stigma in our society.  It is easier for a lot of parents to say "We decided that if Johnny couldn't follow the rules at home, he could try boot camp for a while" than to say "Johnny is schizophrenic."  Which brings me back to my original point.  If you are not willing to accept your children as needy, imperfect little people, then you shouldn't have them.  "


 :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:

I couldn't agree more.

But mental illnesses *may* require residetial treatment, legitimately, at times---but when they need that they need *good* residential treatment from *qualified* and licensed psychiatrists and psychologists, not quack psychotherapy nostrums from underqualified psuedo-shrinks.
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Offline Timoclea

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« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2004, 10:28:00 PM »
That was me.

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make  some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
-- Dave Barry

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Offline Timoclea

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« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2004, 10:42:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-04-19 17:18:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I don't agree with the no mail rule.  I also don't agree with the no phone call rule.  But, sometimes it takes some strong incentive for the kids to become open to looking at what got them there in the first place.  If it's important to the girl to talk with her mom, she will do what needs to be done to have the calls and the mail.  The first part of the stay at the school I'm familar with is the compliance phase.  After that it's when the teen shows they are making changes for themselves, not the parents or the staff.  It takes a while sometimes.  If the mom is worried about her daughter not doing well, she can go see for herself.  She should have some contact with other families and/or teens that were also at the same school.  It's hard doing it alone and sometimes support from other families is crucial.  "


"What got them there in the first place"

Well, what got them there is their parents made a decision, quite possibly a bad one, certainly one unreviewed by any competent, disinterested authority, to send them there.

Nothing a teenage kid can do can result in them going into one of these private, for-pay TBS's if the parents *don't* agree for the kid to go and agree to pay for it.

The teenage kid can also behave as perfectly as humanly possible and still go into one of these private, for-pay TBS's if the parents choose to send the kid.

Q.E.D.---*NO* action or lack of action by the kid "got them there."

Embracing the *myth* that something the kid did got them there is psychologically unhealthy, because it inherently confuses the kid's personal boundaries with those of the parents and the institution's owners and staff.

The two ways to stay sanest in such a situation are either total noncompliance---passive resistance to the point that they throw you out or you die (most kids don't have the self-discipline for this--it's hard even for trained soldiers in POW camps) OR becoming a very good actor and a very convincing liar and a very convincing manipulator.

Most of the kids who come out relatively sane tend to have gone the second route.

Oddly enough, the traits the programs claim are the cause of the kid being in the program are actually the natural *result* of the program---kids are forced to develop those skills merely to survive and hang on to some semblance of sanity.

"got them there"---do you even believe half of the crap you spout?

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with all other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.
-- John Muir

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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2004, 11:17:00 PM »
Posted: 2004-04-19 19:17:00  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to America, Iraqi girls have been liberated and are now going to school for the first time.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., boys and girls are being kidnapped, forced into private, money-making institutions ruled by fear and intimidation and getting a sub-standard education no questions asked.

How ironic, how indefensible is that?
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