When you ground your kid or take their phone or TV for whatever reason, you're trying to get their attention so they know you're serious about something and maybe give them that extra couple of hours per day to do something you want them to do or to think about something they're doing that you find problematic.
Usually, anyway. Most parents don't do these things sadistically, I don't think.
That's not at all what Program restrictions are all about!
First there's the intake. That's disorienting enough. Most kids who land up there do not want or believe they need any kind of psyche treatment. But they're coerced and/or cajoled into signing a paper that says they do.
Next comes the strip search (which they don't even do in jail intakes, only prison for convicts and psyche wards in some extreme cases)
Next, you're introduced to Group, by some joker who tells these lies you've signed your name to to the Group (you may not argue) and then the Group shouts, in unison, "Love ya, Joe!". Better get used to it. Except for Open Meeting night and the host homes, these are the only faces you will be seeing, the only voices you will be hearing for an indeterminate amount of time.
Maybe a few of the following details have changed, but I'd bet good money that most have not. For the forseeable future, you will have not one moment alone. You will not step out for some air and some time to think. You will not lose yourself in reading or watching a tv show. You cannot call your friend, your brother or your mom or grandma when you really need to hear a friendly voice. You will not be permitted to speak freely to anyone but your oldcomer. And your oldcomer is required to keep you completely occupied w/ Program dogma and to correct you and report you if you choose to speak with them in any way contrary to that. You will not know if your cousin who shipped out to Kuwait last year has come home or if he's been killed. You wouldn't know if we went to war with yet another country nor if there was a catastrophic storm that wiped out your home or if your parents sold your home and moved.
None, nada, absolutely NO contact or information from outside those four walls! No reference points. No natural checks on what you're being told and what you're being required to talk about. Only Group, staff and (so long as they behave themselves) your host parents.
At the same time, you're not getting enough sleep. You never catch up, ever. Everybody's addled and tired and jumping through their own assholes to do more and be "positive" about it. That's the only way out, except by a well planned escape or violence.
It's a far cry from the kind of grounding any parent could or would do to their kid. When you give your kid a restriction, you want it to make sense and be fair and for the kid to stop and think sensibly about something. When you isolate and disorient a kid, you don't want them thinking critically. You want them addled and vulnerable so that they'll accept a new belief system w/o any critical thought.
Here's a good list of writing on the topic of brainwashing; how it works, why it works and why it's a really evil thing to do to anyone, especially under the pretense of love and therapy.
http://www.rickross.com/brainwashing.htmlHow often have you (GT dad) heard something along the lines of "Well, these kids
need a little brainwashing!" ?
No matter how sure you are that the new belief system is better than her old one, you should understand the process by which she's being made to adopt it and any future consequences.
For a peek into some of the potential consequences, just take a look around these forums a bit. You'll find that our new friend "D"'s perception of the Program is atypical.
I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.
--Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek
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Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity AnonymousSome days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.