Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones

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ottawa5:
Here is the thing--and I hope that this helps you understand that what I am doing here is not meant to minimize anyone's pain, which is clearly real in many cases.  That much is obvious, especially when it is expressed as eloquently and genuinely as you do in this post--really with all the elements that a professional writer would use in communicating the true "being" of a situation to his or her reader.

Let me give you an analogy that may help you understand what I am trying to do and why it is not meant to, in any way, minimize any other person's real feelings.

When I was a little girl, quite some time ago, I was sent to a private Catholic school. In those days, I think it is different now, nuns were sometimes rather frustrated women who either could not or would not marry and yet were afraid to be alone in a world that frown on single, independent women.  

Some, though of course not all, of these nuns were not in an ideal psychological state to deal with a classroom full of young children. I won't bore you with all the details but the scenario included locking children in dark closets, children who had talked in class being tied together for long periods, physical punishment via "The Strap", lots and lots of public ridicule and humiliation.

This was not good, I knew it at the time, and I know it now, but in spite of all the bad things that went on, there was a tone of order and dedication and discipline and certainty created in those old-fashioned schools that lead to higher level of achievement and emotional stability when compared to public schools, even taking into account such things as socioeconomic status, purposeful exclusion of problem kids, etc. And, as I have learned at various class reunions over the years, some people have good memories, some no good memories at all, although all supposedly had the same school history.

Now, if I were looking at these programs, I would do it much the same way in which I am trying to look at CEDU and similar programs. If I could, I would try to look at positive and negative outcomes, in terms of academics, in terms of overall functioning. I would try to figure out what was good and bad about these programs and how the good could be preserved and the bad modified or eliminated.  I understand that this is pretty much what has been done at least in some Catholic school systems that I know of, based on reports of old classmates of mine who have had kids in these schools at a later date.

I do not take the fact that someone has looked at that  situation scientifically to be a slap in the face to me, and if a researcher wanted to hear my experience I would not be offended if they saw both the good and the bad in a program, in spite of what my personal experience was.

It's just too simple to say "CEDU is all evil". I believe that sometimes, for a variety of reasons, as in your case, this kind of program is no help at all.  I also believe that in many cases, CEDU has led to good results where other schools have not.

And the reality is that some kids are so out of control at home that they need to be somewhere else until the issues that are making them that way are worked out. I would always say, "If there is any feasible way to keep your child at home and work out his or her problems, do it". Sometimes there isn't. In those cases, I would like to have programs in place that work, and while, by definition they are going to be coercive, to be as respectful and caring of the child as is possible.

It is very bad, the experience that you had at your school.  It seems inauthentic for me to say that I know how you feel about it, but I know something similar, in a way, because of my own early school experiences.  I know that this reognition is a small thing and I imagine and hope that you have people in your life now, with whom you can discuss and work out, in a personal way, these feelings that you have about what happened.

Try to understand that sometimes it is necessary to be dispassionate when observing a situation---it is not meant to indicate that what has gone wrong in the past is unimportant, it is meant to improve what happens in the future.

P. S.  Re your comments on the way parents were treated in the parent education part of the program: the parent workshops that I attended were not always as mild as you might think--I had one with Mel Wasserman in which he brought a number of people to tears, and in which he was very, very direct with just about everyone he spoke to, not going out of his way to spare feelings at all. As far as I can tell he was usually right in his observations: he was certainly right in his observations of me. The parent sessions were of course very much shorter than the school experience, so in that way the parent and child experiences were markedly different.

Anonymous:
I would avoid any programs listed on this watchdog site: http://www.isaccorp.com/

There are plenty remaining choices.

CEDU IS A CULT:
Ottawa5- you are too wrapped up in trying to defend your own personal guilt for what you did to your own son.

Of course, you could never simplify things by seeing CEDU as simply  malicious evil committed by willful participates which include the parents.

Maybe you didn't know what you were doing to your poor son.

But now you do.  Wake up!

You have no idea what he's been through.  I could NEVER discuss those things openly with my own mother.

The very headmaster at the school Tim Brace told us all in detail about getting buttfucked for fun in his younger days!!

What would you do if your son's public highschool principal discussed that with him?

Would you defend it by saying,"Well, the principal's not 'all' bad?"

Do you have any idea how stupid you sound to me?

Or maybe you don't believe me.  Well, there are a few people on this site brave enough to confirm things of this nature that happened at CEDU.

ottawa5:
In the best of all worlds, I'd rather not sound stupid to anyone, actually, but if the price for my own integrity and standing by what I believe is that I sound stupid to you, I guess I will have to pay it--who knows, somebody out there may even be find that you sound stupid to them--it's not impossible. That's the price everyone pays for saying what they believe, at one time or another. I am not going to get too upset about it and neither should you.

Actually, before posting, I had a little look round at some of your previous posts. You have a lot of fire, I don't imagine that you care one way or the other, but I admire that.  And, as you say, you aren't afraid to say what you think.

Also I think that you are very perceptive--I do feel a lot of guilt over what my son had to go through to become, as he is now, a fully-functioning person.  So in a way, you are right,  you are right in sensing my guilt, but it is a little more complicated than it sounds when you say it in your direct way.

I feel very bad that my son got to the point that we decided to use a boarding school before realizing what was going on.  I've told him so, many times, and though he forgives us totally, I still need to do a little work on forgiving myself. I truly don't attach that feeling of guilt to the school we used, probably because we had a good experience with the whole thing...I perceive the school as a necessary evil that helped remedy what I had allowed to happen up to that point.

I don't know who Tim Brace is, perhaps he wasn't there when we were involved with the school (we were at RMA, if that explains my lack of awareness of that individual). And of course my son wouldn't tell me every detail of his life at school or beyond, especially sexually associated details and incidents--it would be very unusual, I think,and often not very healthy, in terms of typical developmental boundaries, if it were otherwise.

But what I do know is that my son is an honest, straight-forward, aware person, and if he had had an overall negative experience at the school, he would let me know that--not only because we understand each other, but because he would not want me trying to re-create any part of that experience in a school of my own.

However, the strength of your convictions, your confrontory style--it has a place, I hope you keep it up, strong people won't be shook by it, and it may help less strong people stand up for themselves.

And I will think about what you've said, as I say, you seem very perceptive to me, I appreciate your input.

I don't think you're going to like this last part, but here goes. There was a time when I would have been absolutely terrified to disagree with someone like you who comes on so strong. I would have been terrified, even of writing, in this pretty private way.  My "Parent Workshops" work was when that changed that, I can't remember the last time I was bullied by someone, although I retain a natural fear of being harmed physically by violent people, that kind of thing.

No, I will not agree that the whole experience was bad, either for my son or for me--I can accept that you had a lousy experience, why cannot you not even consider that I had a good one?

Anonymous:
This would all be well and good except it has become public that Synanon AND it's offspring (CEDU, RMA, etc.) are extremely questionable. Their days are numbered. It only takes one 60 minutes expose or NY Times article to close the lid of the coffin. Go ahead and be a powerful megalomaniac like Earle, Brace, Wasserman and Dederich. Noone's buying it anymore.

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