What Led to a Program Decision?

[tommyfromhyde1]

This is 28 year old info but Outward Bound once
ran or helped run the outdoors part of Hyde School's
"summer school" a couple of years before I was
there in 1976. Aparently, OB ended the deal when
they realized Hyde was crazy.

Guard with jealous attention the public Liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that Jewel. Unfortunately, Nothing will Preserve it but downright Force. Whenever you Give Up that Force, you are ruined.....The Great Object is that every man be armed.....Everyone who is able may have a gun.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888952229/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>- Patrick Henry

[Anonymous]

I think most people have figured out this kid could use a vacation from her overly controlling and judgmental grandmother and her own parents who Spots has alleged emotionally abused her. Whatever the case may be, it's clear MONEY does not buy everything and most likely, what this girl really needs is for the adults in her life to GROW UP!

[Dolphin]

This thread really took a U-turn!  

When you were truly afraid for your child's life due to the decisions being made, when it was truly out of your control, you asked for help.

When you asked for help from the schools, law enforcement, insurance, relatives, what finally led you to your program/school?  

If you pulled your child out before completion, what are you doing now that you didn't do then?

[Anonymous]

WHen the school, law enforcement and local rehabs/therapists weren't able to help, we turned to friends, relatives and neighbors asking if they knew of ANYTHING or anyone that could help. Bottom line was that if he didn't want help, there really was nothing I could do.  That's the M.O. of addiction - denial.  I found out about the program from my daughter who had a former grade school friend go.  I talked with her and she said it was tough at first following rules. She said even alcohol poisioning before she went in wasnt' enough to think she was doing anything wrong.  That on top of everything else, and she was still in denial.  It took going against her will to make her take a deep look at what she wanted from her life, and it wasn't anyone telling her that, she figured it out herself.  Her parents did everything they could, but it was too late by the time they saw the signs to get her to agree to any kind of treatment.  Such is life in mainstream America. Go with the flow and you could die, or you could live and grow out of it, or not.  Or you could be telling people how bad being in one of these schools is, only because you are in denial about why your parents chose to help you.  Can you spell DENIAL???

[Helena Handbasket]

What about the parents of kids who were NOT on drugs?  Will we ever hear from them about what formulated their decision?

The biggest problem most of us have with these programs is that a LOT of kids did not have bonafide addictions, and some had never used drugs at all - and the programs still accepted them and held them... I knew of a girl who was trapped in one of these programs for taking Dexatrim (over the counter diet pill)  It was the first package she bought... she said she took maybe four pills before her mother found them.  Yes, she was chubby.  The girl needed a dietician - not a drug rehab.  They even put her kid sister in - for no other reason than that she was a related minor.

This is just one of the ridiculous examples.

Yes, some kids get into some bad stuff.  It scares the hell out of parents.  But each case is individual, and needs to be dealt with by true professionals, not emotional peers, parents of peers, or militant parents of graduates who's only credential is "passionate parent".

[Anonymous]

Why would a parent of a teen not using drugs enroll their child in a therapeutic residential boarding school?

Life threatening behaviors like - cutting, anorexia, anger, bulemia, ADD/ADHD symptoms like self-control, low self-esteem, literally pulling their hair out strand by strand (forgot the term) failing school or quitting...these are some.

So the parents made mistakes in parenting, listening, communicating, but if they find the right school, they will all be better for it and are better in these areas.  

If you think that it should be the decision of the teen to go, you've not experienced life with a teen out of (self)control.

[Anonymous]

Kids can be helped without being locked up in some hellhole program.  You parents who keep insisting you "tried everything" are not fooling anybody, least of all your own children, who by the way, you can not even be certain are not crying themselves to sleep tonight, wishing like hell their parents loved them enough to bring them home and get them some REAL treatment.

 :evil:

[Anonymous]

On 2004-06-05 23:35:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Why would a parent of a teen not using drugs enroll their child in a therapeutic residential boarding school?



Life threatening behaviors like - cutting, anorexia, anger, bulemia, ADD/ADHD symptoms like self-control, low self-esteem, literally pulling their hair out strand by strand (forgot the term) failing school or quitting...these are some.



So the parents made mistakes in parenting, listening, communicating, but if they find the right school, they will all be better for it and are better in these areas.  



If you think that it should be the decision of the teen to go, you've not experienced life with a teen out of (self)control.   "

 So, are you saying you would send a kid away for having a low self esteem, pulling their hair out strand by strand (some people with obsessive compulsive disorder do this) or for failing in school??? What if your kid is failing out of school because they have an undiagnosed learning disability?? I'm sure that could also cause low self esteem. Obsessive compulsive disorder is completly treatable for most people by going to a good therapist and getting on medication if needed. You don't have to send your kid away or lock them up for these things. Oh, and the angry thing, are you joking? Who would send their kid away because they were angry? I guess I could maybe understand if their health is at risk because they have an eating disorder and throw up everything they eat or even if they are a cutter and hurting themselves badly but even then why not get them help somewhere in your community? They need their families to be close by and participate in their treatment. Can you imagine having just one of these problems and being sent away to some place where you are away from your family and know no one? I can.

[Helena Handbasket]

On 2004-06-05 23:35:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Why would a parent of a teen not using drugs enroll their child in a therapeutic residential boarding school?

How about sick parents projecting their sickness on their kids?  That was my case - my mother got sick of me throwing her drugs of choice into the city sewer system.

How about the "Munchausen's Syndrome" types of parents that were so hell bent on believing and/or convincing others that their kid had a drug problem because THEY were getting off on the sympathy they were getting from the support groups and the neighbors?  

 How about the Militant types of parents that locked up their sons for having long hair, and their daughters for having an extra hole in their ear, because it was a 'warning sign'?

Oh yeah, and did you read my post about the chubby girl who was locked up for taking Dextatrim?

There's a couple of reasons why. :smokin:

[Antigen]

On 2004-06-05 23:35:00, Anonymous wrote:

Life threatening behaviors like - cutting, anorexia, anger, bulemia, ADD/ADHD symptoms like self-control, low self-esteem, literally pulling their hair out strand by strand (forgot the term) failing school or quitting...these are some.

What Program proponants refuse to see is that all of these kinds of behaviors are common signs of a particular type of abuse. These are the kinds of thinks people do when they feel helpless and smothered by some external control. Like, for example, kids who have no one to talk to when they're feeling distressed because the adults in their lives routinely freak out and over-react to every little thing.

To these kinds of parents, I suppose it makes perfect sense to place the kid in an environment where they will be controled completely, punished severely for expressing any displeasure about it and, in the end, brainwashed into believing that this is normal.

Come the millennium,

month 12,

in the home of greatest power,

the village idiot will come forth to
be acclaimed the leader.
--Nostradamus

[Anonymous]

So that's a reason to get help that will not only help the kids, but the parents too!  That's when counseling, etc., has failed to - it's not a first choice due to the separation and the cost, but it's not too late to help the whole family...yet.  Quit blaming the parents if they now see they were part of the problem and want help.

[Anonymous]

On 2004-06-06 13:37:00, Anonymous wrote:

"So that's a reason to get help that will not only help the kids, but the parents too!  That's when counseling, etc., has failed to - it's not a first choice due to the separation and the cost, but it's not too late to help the whole family...yet.  Quit blaming the parents if they now see they were part of the problem and want help."

My kid, when she was two, just "wanted to help," too.

It didn't keep me from having to do twice as much work having to undo the mess she made *and* do what I was working on.

It's moderately cute and half exasperating in a two year old.

It's inexcusable in an adult.

Timoclea

[Anonymous]

literally pulling their hair out strand by strand (forgot the term)

Tricotillomania.

And as another poster commented, it is related to OCD, and the same medications and therapy that helps a hand washer and checker can help the hair puller.

IN sever cases, this needs to be in-patient.
It is the consistency, frequency and intensity of the therapy that requires in-patient care. It simply can't be provided in home or out patient in many cases.

The real tragedy is when the family is sold some "residential program' as if it is therapeutic when in fact it is instead just an abusive neglectful brain washing scam.

Ginger, what you say is true. Even so, it is far from the whole story when trying to understand the why and what fors of such disorders. Genetics play a large role. Far larger than was believed even ten years ago. I personally believe environmental factors *sometimes* play a role in how sever the disorders  becomes; but not why its there.

And as for the environmental factors that do exasperate these disorders: I personally believe this is the result of the common use of day care for infants; not the home itself.

I personally believe that we have many more disorders in epidemic proportions because of the common use of day care for babies.
Where a generation ago, the genetic tendency was present in much of the population; the environmental factors needed to make the problem bloom in the brain of the child were rare.
Now, we have a whole generation of children who have been in day care from 6 weeks of age; and we have an epidemic of mental illness in this generation.

If you look at the kind of neglect and treatment that was once blamed for OCD and Tric and BPD for example; If you will be honest; You will have to admit is present in the day care environment just as a matter of fact.

The neglect and cold detachment that helps these disorders to flourish is not needed to be extreme when we are talking about the developing brain of infants.

This is just my opinion; but I am convinced I am right.

And so, it may turn out that more damage is done in Day Care at the age of 2; than in 'a program' at the age of 12.
Not that some programs don't make matters much worse. PTSD complicates all these problems immesurably.
But -if we weren't so commonly using day care for our babies - there may well be no market for these programs for our teens.

[Anonymous]

I doubt daycare plays a role in the increase in serotonin/dopamine deficit-based disorders.

You pointed out the disorders are genetic.

Look at the time frame for when we started having lithium salts, antipsychotics (which are abusive given to normal people, but a *great* boon to schizophrenics and psychotic bipolars), and antidepressants.

ECT is also effective on major depressives, done in one *moderate* course of say, six sessions.

The thing is, effective treatments allow people like me (I have bipolar II disorder---it has the highest rate of completed suicide of any mental illness) to survive to have kids.

What that means is that people like me used to be weeded out of the gene pool, but now survive to have children.  Which means a next generation with more mentally ill people in it.

Look, I'm all in favor of medication for people with major mental illnesses---it saved my life.  And I'm *not* pushing some 21st century eugenics line.

I'm just admitting that the downside of saving the lives of people with major genetic illnesses like mine is more people with major genetic illnesses.

It's a downside I firmly believe we'll cope with as a society until gene therapy gives us a cure.  I think that breakthrough will happen within a generation.

I also think that they'll be able to recode the genes of people like me to reduce the number of bipolar genes below the threshhold that causes mental illness (in small doses, the genes help make you smart and creative)---making it so our kids end up with the benefits but not the drawbacks.

But *right now* there's an epidemic of mental illness because mentally ill people, like me, have survived to pass on our genes for it to our kids.

Successful treatment is a mixed blessing.  But all in all, it's the best choice we have.

It just makes continuing research in gene therapy and decoding the human genome vitally important---not only to those of us who have and carry genetic disorders, but also to society as a whole.

Timoclea

 ::alieneyesa::

[Antigen]

On 2004-06-07 09:17:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I doubt daycare plays a role in the increase in serotonin/dopamine deficit-based disorders.

Of course not. But I think daycare attendance plays a major role in "diagnosis" and subsiquent drugging.

...to disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them...
-- George Mason