Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Oscar

Pages: 1 ... 99 100 [101] 102 103 ... 110
1501
CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones / Re: CEDUWATCH updated list
« on: April 17, 2009, 05:04:38 AM »
I will see to that the CEDU spin-off category on the wiki is updated ASAP.

I did not see Innercept on the list

1502
Open Free for All / Re: New Take on Somalian Pirates
« on: April 16, 2009, 04:38:18 AM »
Quote from: "Guest"
So, wait, the Europeans are pouring toxic waste in the same place they're catching fish?

*cough*Bullshit*cough*
Think about all those batteries you save because you dont need them once you become fluorescent after eating a lot of fish.

1503
CAN ~ Collective Action Network / Re: Message from Dianne Carter
« on: April 16, 2009, 01:12:26 AM »
Somehow being a parent I recognize a lot of the challenges. Not doing chores, tantrums, violence, making it on their own etc.

Well, I am a Dane and therefore coldharded.

Tantrums is greeted with silence, we walk away and abandon them. If you approach a child during a meltdown you are in fact rewarding them with attention. There is a reason for them to slam their doors. They need peace to work out their frustrations and peace is what they get. So we close the door making it easy for them to get their self-inflicted  timeout.

We had maggots in one of the rooms. Our kids have so much homework that they often eat in their room. They have done it since they were about 9. The only thing we demand is that they put things in the dishwasher, so when the oldest ignored our plea she had to suffer the consequences. That goes for cleaning their room also. If there is no room for me to use the hoover, their rooms don't get cleaned. During the Easter two days were used to remove cobwebs and dump a lot of things. Sometime you have to let things get out of hand to they are prepared to live on their own.

A friend had a very difficult daughter and she wanted to live on her own. So he challenged her. He would give her three weeks to live in a continuation school which are for the tough and at-risk kids. If she could make it with being kicked out she would pay for a one-room apartment down in the city. They are a kind of CEDU-light where the kids goes home most weeks. Rules are strict compared with our normal youth culture at some schools 34 % of the students are kicked out during a school year.

A typical day consist of:
06:45 Cleaning done by the students of the cleaning team. A law forbids chores being used as punishment, so all students have to do it.
07:00 Breakfast
08:00 Singing our National anthem and information for the day
09:00 School
12:00 Lunch break
12:00 School
16:00 - 16:30 School ends depending their individual education plan. Free time until dinner unless you are on the kitchen team
17:30 Dinner
18:00 Free time
18:45 Quiet / study hour in own room
20:00 Various activities or some common activity for the school
21:00 In own dorms
22:30 Lights out

She loved it at the place, stayed there for a year together with kids convicted for making bomb threats etc. and he had to digg down in his pocket. Of course he would have preferred that she was kicked out, so she would have learned to apply to his rules, but some kids need to go before they graduate or becomes 18.

I would have found a small room for her to live in years ago. Given her the basis. A bed, a table and chair where she could eat/study and a computer for homework. Then I would drop leftovers off in her freezer, so she had something to eat and collect dirty clothes if they are packed and ready. If you have prepared them well they will succeed else they will be coming crawling back.

As I have learned from that part of the story that is not about you but her, her problem was in the school system. As many kids in both your and mine culture, she needed smaller classes and a school with an anti-bullying strategy. As of 2008 all schools in Denmark will be sanctioned if they have not written such a policy down for a start and several schools have educated students to solve conflicts between other students, so the teachers can use their time to teach. In some schools mobile phones are allowed on in class so cyberbullying can be battled and the students can learn something about phoneculture. I just wonder if there are not special classes, semi-boarding schools, youth apartments (Monitored area) or alternative education in your area.

We have to deal with a lot of youth, who choose to look different. Emo, Goth, punk - you name it. They could easily be picked out as a target of bullying, but we allow it they group themselves in a subculture where the laws of the general society dont apply, so we have to remain open so they stay within our normal norms.

I was just wondering if there are not boarding schools she could have gone to as a part of a live-on-her-own challenge instead of overdoing it as it is the case with WWASP.

1504
Hyde Schools / Re: R.I.P. - Carol Anne Brown
« on: April 15, 2009, 10:37:15 AM »
Sadly yet another time the victim list (European version) was updated. The US version will follow.

1505
News Items / Re: Katies Story
« on: April 10, 2009, 04:04:46 AM »
Quote from: "mcarter.fornits"
Hi.  This is Katie's dad.

I just wanted to put one quick note here, and that will be all.  This is her story, from her view, in her words.  It is not mine - and there are events that I remember quite differently myself.  Katie has a great talent for writing, and it is definitely coming out here.  I've told (and am telling) my side in my blog (http://parents-of-a-troubled-teen.blogspot.com/) - I'd actually recommend that Katie set up a blog there to post to instead of a thread in a bulletin board.

There are at least two sides to every story - this one is Katies.

It could be a good idea if her story ended up in a blog.

Of course there is two sides of the story. How is it Dr. Phil is saying "As thin as you can make a pancake, it still have two sides".

She is going through a heal-process right now. She is writing things as she saw them. She was the one who was removed from her family and placed in a restricted environment where she could not communicate freely as her letters were edited before they were sent. She has extended family. She could not reach out to them. She had friends - few but they existed, but she could not reach out to them for support.

She needs to come to closure with all the anger and frustration she has built up in her before the program, during the program and of course after the program where she has experienced difficulties adjusting to real life.

In the other thread, you mention her lack of motivation to get up from bed and to engage in exercise. Working in an environment where the issue of depression is handled on an everyday basis, I recognize the symptoms. While it should be treated she needs to come to a point where it can be treated, because the most important illness she needs to cope with right now is the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) she as many people got when she returned from the intense environment Cross Creek is. While it for some reason has become a state-license facility the nature of the environment for students are very intense. They have to be 100% aware not to break rules because there are so many of them and the consequences are so severe. There is no room to be relaxed. They are on alert 24/7. You can compare it with soldiers in a war. If they relax they can become victim of a road side bomb. If you doubt that the internal environment are more intense than you have experienced during the doctored parent visits, then ask yourself why people would rather be in jail than at one of the programs.

She is dealing / treating herself from the PTSD through her writing. Once she has written her story and this burden is away, in due time she would be ready to battle the depression she according to my analyze of both your blog and her story got when she became verbal weapon in the divorce war between you and your ex-wife. She will write things you don’t like in this process. You will properly feel that some of the things she writes could be written as an attack on you, but I don’t feel it that way. She is the one who are asking people to back off from you.

If she discontinues her story, how will she try to overcome her problems? If you google our datasheet on their former Samoa program, you will discover the trial based on the murder in Coral Gables. Let her choose a verbal way of removing her burden rather than a physical.

I don’t know how this story will end. Maybe maybe as new Comeback book, which I guess you have already on your bookshelf.

1506
News Items / Re: Katies Story
« on: April 09, 2009, 06:14:45 PM »
About part III:

Once again I remain amazed. How can the people at the hospital be surprised or disappointed of your return? You were only stabilized the first time. You were not treated. I know that we have a huge waiting list for youth here in Denmark but at least it is common knowledge what it takes to progress from a suicide attempt.

 I have been looking at NAMI’s latest statistic and there seems for sure that there is a long way to go.

It is tough reading. It certainly called for intense family therapy – not only therapy involving your father and step-mom but also your birth mom.

Still however, I must say that there still was no reason to get you into a therapeutic boarding school. We have continuation schools here and while they are very used by people who for some reason cannot function in the general school system. We call them hideouts from the real world. The students are general happy with them and they don’t offer therapy. Ok. They cross dress and use sleep deprivation but the students goes home most weekends if they want.

Another problem I hope that time has taken care of in your place is the issue of school bullying. I hope that precaution is taken to reduce this evilness. At the school my kids are attending there are special teachers educated to diffuse this. Some of the students have received special education in solving conflicts. If a class is to remain competitive it cannot be in conflict with itself.
 
It is quiet common for people who are being side kicked by life to be together. We had several cases where girls were bullied together and then they are ending up in the newspapers when they learn to turn their anger outwards. You didn’t reach that stage with Christy. I wonder where she is today.

Anyway I am surprised that they didn’t discuss living with relatives before the second suicide. Maybe they were too caught up in the situation.

I think that you are unspeakable brave to write this story and I understand why you are tired. Take the time before you write the next installment.

1507
News Items / Alcohol strategy in another culture
« on: April 09, 2009, 02:10:58 PM »
Che Cookin wrote in "Katies" thread:

Quote
As for Oscar:

Damn when I was young the fuzz made us pour our beer out and they laughed at us after threatening to call our parents if they caught us again. No one grilled wieners for us!

In order to avoid polluting her thread, I will try to answer why the police do as they do here.

The worst that can happen in a society is for people to found sub-cultures. Sub-cultures are in fact new mini-societies with an own set of norms, morale and laws.

Some of those things happening in such sub-cultures can be criminal acts in the general society. Gangs were once created because some people did have a need to seek interests which were not understood by the general population.

If the society makes it too hard to get alcohol or tobacco by minors, which are the two drugs accepted in our culture, they will try to get it from criminals. Criminals, who also sell other drugs.

So our police and social services work close together to locate youth in risk of forming their own sub-cultures so they can "comfort" them back to the "real" world so they all become "normal" Danes.

One thing which are common for youth all over the world are that they like to have people listen to them and then dont like to be condemned. So it's a sneaky way of keeping control and track of underage drinking. People drink less if they are talking with someone. Where do you get the truth? From small children and drunken people! You can save two hours of intense therapy and cut right into the core of the problem the youth have if you approach them while they are drunk. You don't have to break their "wall" down. They remove it themselves.

For years we have only seen death caused by bingedrinking when the youth have been traveling with lazy parents or with schools abroad.

Unfortunately this strategy doesn't work with youth, who for some reason don't drink. That is in fact the reason for the latest gang war. We have an army of social workers ready to hug and cuddle the youth, who are unable to reach them because the communication tool cannot be used with that targetgroup.

There are no generally fix for all problems.

1508
News Items / Re: Katies Story
« on: April 09, 2009, 07:45:24 AM »
Reflection on part 2

I understand how parents can be scared when they discover a bloody arm. I am a parent myself.

However I am a product of the cold war. I live in a country which would have been one of the first the Russian would have taken if they wanted to conquer Western Europe.

When I read of youth, who during therapy has been forced to plan their own funeral, it is déjà-vu. Having been trained to stand in the way of the red army we are asked to prepare everything for those we leave behind, so we can fight for our cause without having to worry about anything, we missed saying. I worry for death and having to drive through the local warzone called Noerrebro every single day to reach my work, it is a real risk I take. But I take it well knowing that I have done my best to prepare my children and wife for the situation of me ending up dead.

However another lesson I learned in school, which is related to part 2, is that we all go through life picking up small pieces of pain, frustration. We have to contain anger and sorrow. There is no time to react on them in daily life. So we put them in our emotional backpack where they remain until we have time to process them. What happens if we don’t get this time and the backpack becomes too heavy to carry? My background as a Dane makes me able to choose a different option if/when my children choose to cut in order to unload their problems.

Katie: What you did at that time, when you started cutting, was healthy. You had insight to know that you needed to unload your backpack. It certainly wasn’t the smartest way of unloading your baggage, but you were not educated to know better. What’s worse your father and step-mom wasn’t either. That’s the real tragedy in this story.

As for the drinking and its part towards drugs - which in your culture is related because the alcohol drinking by teens opposite the situation in Denmark is not accepted – it follows as a consequence of the lack of motivation from your family to engage the problem rather than condemning it. I hope that the program has taught them the reason for cutting so they can take a wiser approach towards your siblings. Else their money is truly totally wasted.

When I meet social workers they are always on the look for places where teens drink, so they can out there and listen. Whenever the police spot such a place they are quick to start communicating and this summer they grilled sausages for the teens so they didn’t drink on an empty stomach. A lot of the problems can be stopped before they grow into disasters when someone will listen.

It is a sad story to read because there wasn’t really a problem which needed professional help until the adults stopped listening and started to condemn.
I wonder where Christy is today. You were not the only one and I will bet 100 dollars that in the local community there ware at least 10 more in the same situation. That’s why I support community programs. There are not reasons for every parent to pay 50-100,000 dollars on treatment if it can be done locally for 1/10 of the price.

Taking a person to the hospital, stabilizing them and then releasing them are no cure. It is a huge, huge red flag no to understand that once a person leaves the hospital the treatment starts. As some know the founder of Spft has some experience in this matter with family. With his permission I can reveal that 20 weeks on intense therapy 3 times per week combined with additional treatment for anxiety did work, but did not restore the individual to a level where a full time job is a possibility. There are – 2 years later – a long way to go.

It was a big mistake by your father not to remain in the situation and personally drive you to therapy - outpatient therapy – but intense therapy I have to point out.

Your parents are not educated in medicine. That’s why they should have been advised by the hospital that it could have cost you your life, if you did not remain in an out-patient program - a program, which could have addressed the problems. The cutting, alcohol and drugs are not the issues, they are only a symptom. I am so sorry that this chance was wasted.

The first two chapters don’t create basis for a mandatory stay in a program.

What is there to say? Did the program teach you how to handle problems or did they just as any cult point out a single answer to life? Based on what I have seen so far, I will recommend you to read some novels by the Danish author Soeren Aabye Kierkegaard. As he writes life hurts. There is no single answer to a problem. Life is supposed to be complicated.

Once again I have to state that you should not feel bad about yourself smoking and cutting today. Smoking is a skip action method. You shouldn’t feel guilt over it, but if you want to quit find some other activity to do so you can take some time off during the day to do instead. Is cycling possible in your area? I personally find that this activity to both gives me time to reflect and remove some of my aggressiveness at the same time.

As for the cutting my best advice would be to find a person you can trust. How is your extended family? Another Cross Creek survivor (from around 1990) found an aunt which helped her to go on in life and she has made it. I feel that you are a strong person who just now is looking for resources inside. You found the strength to take the exit plan because you knew that you were finished with the program. There was nothing left the program could give you and the insight to realize it and take the consequences based on that insight testifies about a strong personality, who just needs a place to dump the worries in order to succeed in life.

Find this person. Dump your weekly load of worries by this individual.

Yet another good piece; you are a good writer.

As sad as this story is, I cannot wait to read the next installment.

1509
News Items / Re: Katies Story
« on: April 08, 2009, 01:02:11 AM »
So far so good.

1) If you want to mess your kids up, then use them as weapons after a divorce. Let them be the rocket you deliver your verbal bomb load with. How is the rocket doing when it arrrives at its target? Oh. It explodes!

2) If you want to destroy a household, then invite a new partner in your home and let this person become the disciplinarian. The birthparent has to set the rules or change them if the step-parents want changes. The birthparent does also have to enforce them. The child has not chosen the step-parent. The step-parent has chosen to engage in a relationship where there are children. A male lion kills the kittens not produced by himself once he takes over a lion family. That option is fortunately not one a human can choose but then they have the option of WWASP. Somehow the step-parent shows that the difference from being an animal to being a human which involves a whole lot of empati is deselected.

3) If you want to increase the risk of your kids being involved with alcohol or drugs, create the basis for the child to find a group of peers which seems to care outside the family. The cutting is not a problem it is a symptom that the child need a dumping place for all the thoughts any human gathers during time. Once a person starts to cut this person feel releaved for the problems and are ready to take on new challenges. In a divorce the children often picks up small pieces of guilt due to the shattered relationship between the parents and put them in their emontional backpack. That backpack becomes heavy to carry and then the cutting starts. If I found my child cutting I will know that she needs another adult to speak about her problems with before she starts talking to the dealer. You have to remember that the dealer is a businessman. Of course he will listen to his customers and let them cry out by his shoulder if he cares for his business.

You are making a good start.

1510
News Items / I have an idea.
« on: April 07, 2009, 03:03:46 AM »
It could make at really good book with the blog and her comments mixed together.

FemanonFatal2.0:

You have contact to her. Write her about this idea. So far we only have Comeback as a statement of the parent-child relationship during and after a program.

It would be nice if the media had a more balanced view of this situation. If she wants a ghost writer to help her, we could help her but someone with a better english grammar should make the final touch.

I believe that writing her side of the story blog-entry, would provide her some healing therapy too.

She has apparently a lot of problems right now and I guess that some of the siblings are hostile because regardless of the father acknowledge it or not, the program took their money and only provided warehousing for her.

If she gets it published she would have a something to start her life on too. Suggest her that. It will be hard work for her because it will take her to her darkest corners and their abusive "therapy" has taken her someplace where none want to go.

But I believe based on our other caseworkers continued work with people who are doing the exact same with their experience in other programs that she would find it rewarding in the end.

She can contact me by mail: oscar<a>secretprisonsforteens.dk if she is interested.

1511
News Items / Re: WWASP and Learning Technics - is there a connection?
« on: April 06, 2009, 02:38:28 PM »
Due to another thread Paulu took at look at the website of La Europa - a TBS in Utah controlled by CERTS.

The run an operation with 6 levels and on one of their pages there is a link to Learning Technics down at the buttom.

1512
The Troubled Teen Industry / Re: Film on Aaron Bacon
« on: April 06, 2009, 03:24:18 AM »
The existense of a Rotsne name on this board is enough. In fact as it has turned out, the banned the wrong person, because the person behind Rotsne there is not the Rotsne here. He was only contacted by us and given advice.

But what made them ban him was the thread about northwest Academy in this board where one of the posters son is detained. We know how much this son is going to struggle once he is released. Now the mother has moved to another state while he is detained and the birth-father is gone because he cannot communicate on free terms with his son.

What seems to be a real problem is the easy access to extend custody to 21 in this area. It is still too easy if you ask me. UHSINC provide so many job in this area so it is easy for them to get paper work done. It is almost as bad as Pennsylvia.

We still have an uncover member on the board posing as a mother from California.

1513
CAN ~ Collective Action Network / Re: Mom of H.S. dropout needs help, not condemnation
« on: April 06, 2009, 12:49:15 AM »
We have agents on conductdisorders.com, which are a parent-forum. While they tend to overmedicate, many of them have come to the same conclusion. The TBS became warehousing. Some of them think that it kept their kids alive through a dangerous phase and the matureness gained during the program will see to that they will avoid death.

Some if you scan their "Parent Emeritus" forum, you will discover that some of them have no contact for years and other are following their adult kids to jail - time after time after time until the kid him- or her-self turn around.

Many of them have been forced to accept that a drug problem cannot be solved until the drug-user decide it is time.

So we have also tried to find out how the best approach to the world is after being locked up. Not because we have TBS's in Denmark, but we do have Afghanistan. The soldiers - many of them 18 to 20 years of age - return home suffering from PTSD. We now know that if you cut a person off from the real world and place them in a non-normal environment like a war-zone or a wilderness program or a TBS, there is a risk of PTSD.

We have learned that people returning home from an intense environment have to go through a transition-phase before entering the normal world. They also need free access to counseling for a number of years. An intense environment can be a war-zone where you can be shot but it can also be a program where there is opened a 6 lane highway into the darkest corners of the human mind. In a non-professional group therapy session which is the norm in most TBS's due to the cost of qualified staff, real damage can be inflicted because the normal psychological shield we all have are forced away during the lower levels, so the patients are vulnerable.

You have to go back to when she was released from the TBS. What did she or you do beside writing a home contract? Did you go to counseling? Did you shield her from most of the daily decisions other youth have to decide on? A TBS is a kind of operant conditioning chamber. The choices are few so she could concentrate on solving her problem guided by the staff outside the chamber. If you suddenly release people from such a box after a lenghty period what then.

We keep our soldiers in a camp in Denmark for a month when they return where their families can visit them any time. We have improved our communication with family while abroad. They have access to support-hotlines for the rest of their lives. We do a number of things, but still they turn up as criminals or are found dead. We are still in a process to learn, so I have not the golden solution to your problem.

But I feel that you have skipped the adjustment phase when she returned home. She need an out-of-the-box experience in an environment open and supportive, but at some distance from the temptation she is poorly equipped to handle.

That is the reason for my suggestion to her future so she is ready to go to art college, once she return.

1514
News Items / WWASP and Learning Technics - is there a connection?
« on: April 05, 2009, 05:35:27 PM »
WWASP- Learning Technics - relationship?

Look at the photos of the students - is that a coincidence?

1515
CAN ~ Collective Action Network / Re: Mom of H.S. dropout needs help, not condemnation
« on: April 05, 2009, 05:25:47 PM »
As I have posted in the other thread, I believe that the fact that she had problems taking a high school degree and also failed to move forward are caused by her suffering for a form of PTSD as result of her stay at the TBS.

I have not attended a high school in the states but having a businesses degree I know a little about student culture in several countries. She is institutionalized and will function well in a restricted environment. But both high school and college are not restricted enough.

PTSD is difficult to heal. She needs to snap out of it and she cannot be forced. It has to be her doing.

That's why I suggested to give her a stay in an safe environment where people of all agegroups collect successes in another culture.

If you insist of pushing her and stressing her after she has taken the GED without giving her a out of the box experience, I fear that she is set up to fail.

Pages: 1 ... 99 100 [101] 102 103 ... 110