How About This Theory

[Anonymous]

I gotta agree with Antibody.

My problem with CEDU-RS, at least, was not that my feelings got hurt in a few raps.  My problem was the unethical treatment, substandard academics, abusive and dishonest raps, the group mentality, the insulated environemnt, teh unqualified staff, the atmosphere of bullying, and the fact that most of the "tools" were not really portable to the real world.

[Anonymous]

Pre-cedu for me was sleeping on the streets, snorting or smoking an 8 ball a day of cocaine, 4 arrests (grand theft, cocaine, marijuana, firearms),
4 expulsions.  I was made a ward of the court then legally a ward of CEDU school.  The only reason I didn't split was  I thought at the time I had much more freedom then in Juvenile Hall which was my option if I didn't follow the rules.  I wish I had went to Juvenile hall instead.  There were far less repercusions and I'd rather explain THAT to people then CEDU.

[Anonymous]

That's a pretty crazy pre-CEDU life. My posts have all spoken about the problems with CEDU. However, I couldn't imagine sleeping on the streets and multiple arrests.  Or Juvie (I've never been, so in my mind, its like prison.).  Could you explain how CEDU was worse than juvie or the streets? I'm being sincere; I really want to know. Some people might say that at least CEDU provides 3 hots and a cot and physical shelter and safety.

[Anonymous]

I was not escorted to CEDU.   By the time, I arrived at CEDU, I did not care where I lived.    Prior to CEDU,   I was award of the court, and staying at some weird group homes.    There was also the crappy lock-up.    They told me that my option if I was not at Cedu was CYA.   But yet,  the only law that I had broken was running away from abusive places.

Kids deserve more rights.  I deserved more rights.

[Anonymous]

At least in Juvy, I could have read what I wanted, practiced the religion I wanted, believed what I wanted, gotten a better education.  I would have learned there is a price to pay for my actions.  It was not until reliving my pre-CEDU life after CEDU and paying the consequences that I changed my life around.  (homelessness, drug addiction, county jail multiple times, multiple arrests, multiple halfway houses, psych wards kicking methadone, etc..)

[Anonymous]

On that note, what is Juvy like? Is imagination worse than the actual place, or is it really bad. Can they keep you safe from violent kids?

[Anonymous]

Never been to Juvy.  For me, County Jail was no problem.  I would assume Juvy wouldn't be as bad as County.

[oh shizzle son]

haha yeah id rather explain Juve to people other than CEDU...it takes about 3 hrs just to get people to understand the first little bit of the program and wtf they claim to be a simple program

Is CEDU really shutting down?
i loved the post (an older one) antibody and when i read it i immediately called Gabe and told him you wrote about him....that was meainingful and im glad you still keep those thoughts on mind..or in the heart.  if you dont know who this is (id like to stay anon to some people) i sat in on some sessions with you and gabe mostly but with alix and evan as well....it was just fun to listen to your theories and i can tell now how commited you are to actually helping people

also saw your website http://www.abchange.com love the idea of encompassing the environment, im going up to bellingham soon to visit some friends BW and gabe i cant wait

if you want or have time e-mail me [email protected], itd be nice to talk to you since my old therapist im sure you know who he was doesnt respond to me......typical, although hes a great guy

[Son Of Serbia]

You know I just had one hell of a sunday, and i'm in a bit of a better mood today, and I just found out that my anonymous nemesis has a name "oh shizzle son."  you know i really wish that you explained yourself to me off the bat as the guy who started this post and what you were looking for, rather than just hurling insults at me, we might of got off to a better start. look pal, i calmed down a bit, and after reading some more of your posts, you seem a bit more interesting than I gave you credit for. Looks like you had a tough run of it yourself.  For the last time I'm going to tell you that I was not threatening anybody when I gave my reasons for why I'm not a "frisbee" like someone suggested. If you really felt threatened by that, then I apologize, that really wasn't my intention.  Look shiz, we traded insults, your a bitch, i'm a coward idiot, whatever.  i'm willing to be big enough to admit that I might have been wrong to not accept your initial peace offering.  so here it is, if your still willing to squash this anymosity bullshit, and deal with me on a normal level, then I can too. I'm extending my hand to you for real here, you can shake it or slap it away, the balls in your court pal, whats it gonna be?

.[ This Message was edited by: SON OF SERBIA on 2004-08-09 13:35 ]

[bradensmith]

Im glad you calmed down a bit.  The truth is, if what your trying to accomplish is to get CEDU shut down this board could be a powerful place, although that is not what I am about.  I had some of the worst times and best times of my life at that school, and the truth is, it all evens out for me at least.  Anyways man, my offer from page 5 is still up if you want to talk or whatever.  E-mail me, lemme get your number, ill call you we will chat, if you want.  Take care man

-Braden




BE

[ottawa5]

As a parent, I couldn't agree with you more.  Lots of times, I think, parents, often with the best intentions, are actually part of the problem.

And not only were we, in my child's case, part of the problems that my son was having, but, sadly, there was no way, absolutely no way, pre-emotional growth, that anyone could have convinced me of that.

I remember sitting with some socialite from New York, at the beginning of our first (required) parent workshop; we both sort of quietly made fun of the whole thing, one more "silly" little ritual that our children's misbehavior was making us go through.

After all (this was our reasoning at the time) we were successful, high achieving, rule-following people-- could there really be anything significant wrong with us?

Surely my son was the problem, this was my thinking when we sent him to RMA.

I just did not, and could not, understand that all of my own future direction, my resilience against anything that stood in my way, had the effect of minimizing and even trivializing the emotional struggles in which he was engaged.

I have to give CEDU parent programs credit for waking me up.  I can remember the exact moment, in a parent workshop, when I realized that we, he and I, were in this together.

At that point, it could no longer be denied, that I had not done the things I should have to help him face the challenges that (divorce of his father, several relocations, a remarriage) that my choices had dictated that he should have to face.

It is so amazing that our experiences with CEDU, my son's and my own, continue to allow us to have a sort of a common language in how we face what life throws at us.

To the poster "mad", maybe your parents didn't get as much out of the program as I did, from your comments at least, but they obviously cared a lot about you, I mean, they could have just left you on the streets.

Someone here, I forget who, sort of mocked me for saying that the fact that parents would intervene and pay a whole lot of money to send a child to a program like CEDU could reflect their love of their child.  But I think that it's true: it is certainly limited, but it is love, nonetheless to do whatever you are capable of doing for your child.

[mad]

Ottawa5, thanks for your post.  As someone only contemplating having children I can only vaguely fathom how hard it must be for many parents to send their kids away.  Even if you don?t see how you might have contributed to their pain, on some level it is an admission that things are bad enough that people outside the family had to be called in to ?fix? the problem.  It is in the last part ? the bit about fixing ? that I think parents (and others including the kid) can easily get caught up in the reaction formation that it is the child (rather than all of the family members) who is broken and in need of some kind of repair.

My moms -- as an aside, my father and stepfather had both died shortly before I went to RMA -- got something out of the parent workshops I?m sure.  They were totally RMAed parents and spoke at parent conferences etc.  They did what they could to be supportive of me (which relative to my peers was a lot), but my experience was that they were supportive of me ?doing my work? and getting fixed (or in the least to stop making decisions that scared the shit out of them).  Their support was about making me into someone whom they could feel good about again. Oddly, their support of me was about them.  It was a fine tact to take I suppose, but it ultimately did not bring us closer because it was exactly the role that I had had since my earliest memories.

My mom acknowledged very early on at RMA that she believed that she contributed to my presenting problems. It was all very cerebral though and lacked any real insight or change on her part.  She just wasn't ready to see I suppose.  In any case, when I left RMA it became very clear that there were strong strings attached to ?good? (e.g., who she thought I should be) behavior and to playing the role that she needed in her life.  We ended up parting company for five years.  Having lost a parent I decided that I could live with that as a worst-case scenario and having her in my life was worse than losing her altogether.

We reconciled three years ago and to her credit, she did a lot of growing up while we were apart and since we have come back together.  While I know that I have matured a tremendous amount too, the difference in her is most recognizable.  She is not a core support in my life, but I do enjoy spending time in her company now (and that is huge).  I am also very careful where she is concerned and spend a lot of time being mindful about my boundaries with her ? not one of her competencies.

Long story short, RMA helped to brake up some truly caustic stuff in my family and also helped me to feel competent in the world.  I was able to walk away from my family because at some level I knew that I didn?t need them to survive anymore.  I knew that I would be OK, and for me, that was a big step toward taking my place in the adult world.  What it didn?t help me with was teasing out how to come back together. I have found RMA lessons to be great for binary thinking and very limited for more complex decisions and relationships.

Best, M

[ottawa5]

You know, your comments on the misdirected focus on "fixing" the child were very meaningful to me. When my son was pretty far into the program, his somewhat younger step-sister sent him a letter saying she was looking forward to seeing him after he was "fixed". I remember how angry that made him.  It didn't really register why, until I read  your post.

One of the themes of some workshop or other was "loving the child you have, not the one you would have chosen", something like that.  

That was really true for me, my son is a great person but he is a wild risk-taker, not like my other children who are more measured, more goal oriented, more, in short, like me.

But if you accept the child you have, doesn't that mean that you have to accept that child's (the one you actually have) hopes and dreams, even if they might not have been the ones that you would have chosen if you were in charge.

A pitfall I found with the RMA stuff that I learned as a parent was that it is so easy to sort of idealize the concepts presented, to believe that you have found this meaning, and to leave it at that.  The hard part is to find out how these ideas fit into your own life, where do you go with them in the real world.

It doesn't help that in my situation at least, there are few people who even understand what I am talking about when I refer to things like "emotional growth", except my son, and he has his own experiences to go through, I really don't feel like I should overwhelm him with my personal growth.

[oh shizzle son]

SERB :tup: shake shake

good times

[Son Of Serbia]

Brandon, I don't take kindly to people calling me names like "Bully", BUT It intrigued me that you would invite a male total stranger to sleep in your home which led me to suspect that either you are (A.) ONE VERY DESPERATE homosexual :nworthy:)

. [ This Message was edited by: SON OF SERBIA on 2004-08-10 09:45 ][ This Message was edited by: SON OF SERBIA on 2004-08-10 09:46 ]