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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

First of all. I don't buy it.

There is a big difference between a kid asking their parents to go on a wildnerness trek that ends up being some kind of cockeyed wildnerness therapy bullshit. My friend Aaron ended up like that. He thought he was going on a 3 week camping trip, and so did his parents. Around the time he was being strip searched and told that if he did not improve his behavior they would let him stay another 3 weeks at no cost to his parents he realized how fucked up the place (Catherine Freer) was. It did not take long for the staff to realize he was more or less normal (that and his father is a big gun lawyer)and they pretty much left him alone. The other kids there were sent for all kinds of crazy shit but there were plenty of minor cases too.

Either way big difference between a hike in the woods and a lockdown concentration camp complete with rape, beatings, starvation and torture.

If his cousin is doing well, chances are he is not out of there yet since that seems the only time when even the most hardcore parents are convinced that the kid is fine. Even the parents who believe the program saved their kids don't delude themselves to thinking everything is fine when they self-destruct a few months after getting home.

Basically my view on the matter is that the industry should simply be banned, if they want to treat children for psycological problems, let them go get their PHD in psychology or go to medical school.

What do these program owners really want, they want to make money, a lot of it. What do the program staff want, they want a job and if they try real hard they can convince themselves that they are making the best of a bad situation. Sounds more like the foundation of a concentration camp than a hospital.

If they were doing this for free instead of profiting from it at least their motives would be commendable.

All these programs are frauds, the industry is a fraud and while a good short-term goal would be to seperate the frauds from the abusers, over the long term this industry must be recognized as a sham that has no place in American society.

_________________
The war we fight is not against powers or principalities. It is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-10-22 13:00 ]

Basically desperate parents. They just want the daily problems of dealing with their kid to stop and they are not willing to accept any responsibility for the problems.

The contract is void anyways since you cannot give permission to violate the law. It is illegal to abuse your children and you can't sign a contract to allow another to do it.

It is illegal to administer psycotropic drugs without a license to prescribe them. You can't sign something to counter that.

In addition you cannot sign away the rights of the child to sue for the abuse so when wwasp or parents try to tell the kids they signed away their rights, they are either ignorant or lying.

In addition since it is illegal to transport a child across state lines for this supposed treatment without the permsission of both states, the contracts permiting the kidnapping of one's teen by "Escorts" are probably void as well and that would mean the escorts are guilty of kidnapping.

Actually I rather like the idea of letter her just do everything for herself. Don't do her laundry for her, don't clean her room, don't give her money or buy her things. Don't nag her about school. It will be like college.

Perhaps you should try to find a therapist she likes. They are not one-size fits all like these programs are.

A key rule in mental health is to provide treatment in the least invasive way possible that means you don't force someone into residential treatment unless they represent an imminent danger to themselves or others.

It sounds like your daughter is just really unhappy and sending her away would probably just make her feel abandoned. Sending her to one of these programs which are barely more than prisons is only going to make things worse. A short term bootcamp or wildnerness program may show an improvement innitially but the results wear off pretty fast. If the program is run well she will probably come home talking about how amazing it was but after a few months the glamour wears off.

Long term programs just isolate the kid so the program can lie to the parents about her progress. There are parents who come and post here that have not seen their kid in 2 years and insist they are doing great. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.


Best course is to find a therapist she likes and if she is not interested in medicating the problem then she should go to one who will respect her wishes. This can't be your therapist, it has to be hers.

Most of those drugs are rather unpleasant to take and its not surprising she wanted off of them.
A 14 year old has enough weirdness going on and those drugs can have all kinds of negative side effects.

Before you spend 20 thousand dollars sending her away (3 months of wildnerness or the first 4 months of gulag school ) you should consider the things that money can do in more positive reeinforcement.

20 thousand dollars can pay for most private schools. It can pay for a monthlong trip anywhere in the world for the whole familiy. Sometimes people just need a vacation, sometimes seperate ones :smile:

Whats far more interesting is that one of former program directors stated publicly that he sent 80% of the revenue to WWASP. That means those kids are being supervised, fed, clothed, and "treated" on $580 a month. Any professional in mental health can tell you that it costs at the minimum more than twice that amount to actually treat someone in a residential setting. Decent food, electricity, and running water alone would cost that much.  

WWASP just pockets the money and if your kid lives through it is only by luck because when they get sick at the program they are denied medical care and little problems like sanitation become big problems when you have 500 people swimming in the same shit.

Woodbury is all about the money. He really could not care less about the kids in the concentration camps that he advertises.

I use the prime example that he once personally reviewed a program by describing that "the feeling of safety here is almost tangible." About a year later the Owner and operator was charged with 40 counts of child sexual abuse and fraud. I guess his definition of safety is a bit different than ours.

_________________
The war we fight is not against powers or principalities. It is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-09-30 00:12 ]