Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Hello, Edward Kahn!

So you are the marketing director for the IECA? Or maybe an online marketing content provider paid by Aspen? Or an educational consultant looking to drum up business?

Aspen Education Group is indeed one very finest top-notch profiteers in the troubled teen industry. Its parent company is CRC Health Group, Inc. of California, which is, in turn, owned by Bain Capital, LLC, headquartered in Boston with offices in New York, London, Munich, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. In 2010, Aspen/CRC Health's annual report showed that the company’s average net income (so after costs) per youth per day in residential programs was $250.46, or clear and bankable profit of $91,417.90 per child per year. The outdoor division (the wilderness programs) is even more profitable, netting $440.23 per day or $160,683.95 per year.

Educational consultants are being paid for their referrals—the enterprising ones are, anyway—so let’s see, a 10% per head bounty would produce quite a comfortable living for an “ed con” if he or she found only 5-10 parents online who could be “scared straight” into sending their child to a program. Wow, I'm in the wrong business.

I'm probably just going to get flamed to hell and back for posting this, but here goes...

Our 15yo daughter is in a downward spiral.  She comes home if and when she chooses.  She attends school if and when she chooses.  We cannot prove but have very good reason to believe she is sexual active, drinking and doing drugs.  (She readily admits her friends do but claims she does not.)  She has a history of shoplifting and is a pathological liar.  She used to be a straight A student with a bright future.  We have tried various forms of therapy - and she now refuses to participate.

We have offered her rewards for good behavior and denial of privileges for bad behavior.  She invariably chooses the latter.  She uses school as a weapon to threaten us - "let me do what I want or I won't go to school" - unfortunately she has now skipped enough school that it no longer matters.

We've reached the point that we don't know what else to do and are considering the kind of TBS that this forum bashes as "abusive" and "coercive".  We're trying to balancing the rights and well being of our daughter against the absolute need for an intervention.  I personally had such an intervention when I was 16; I was heading down the wrong path and my mother forced me into a private school.  In retrospect I am very grateful; I went on to college and now have a successful professional career.  (In contrast, none of my circle of friends "made it".)  My case was considerably less dramatic however.  I was convinced to go, and our daughter has flat-out refused.

So here I am seeking advise from those whose views are among the most extreme I have found against TBS's.  Doing nothing and allowing our daughter to destroy her life is *not* an option.  She will not participate in any solutions we have proposed.  She is the most dependent independent person I know, and she depends heavily on those she can manipulate - older boys with a car and a job - for she was blessed with natural beauty and a quick mind.  While she believes this is an acceptable path to success we do not, and as her parents it is not only our right but our obligation to take action, which will be against her will and therefore coercive.

This is not intended as flamebait and I am not a troll.  I am posting here because I am sensitive to the inherent risks in the decision we are considering, and am truly trying to do the right thing for our daughter.

Are there *any* programs which would be considered acceptable?  When the kid simply won't participate in our efforts to save her from her poor choices, what's a parent to do?