Fornits

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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

I seriously read the original post as satire. But I guess it wasn't....?

I watched GW with a couple of folks who went to Straight.   I hope to see similar films providing a visceral experience.

Still, I think that the movie gives a fraction of how bad it really was. It was an incredible foray, and I'm looking forward to more films to build upon it.  

Straight exacted a level of total control that left no room for dignity or self respect. My understanding is that Kids was the same.

I think that Delivered from Distraction is better than his first book Driven because it offers more solutions.  One of my kids is younger but not really easy. He has improved a lot in the past few years, but The Defiant Child helped me not to treat him as a problem, and to think of us all on the same team. It takes a lot of personal discipline on my part to maintain a level of calm as a stressed single Mother, but it has helped with consistent use. I read it after my son punched me in the arm. He did it once and hasn't done it again, but I do notice the book helped me to deal with him more effectively and not fall into an adversarial trap.  I've done other things too to help him, but the book was instrumental in helping me change my approach and perspective, and realizing that certain response  patterns were not working so why cling to them?

Lots and lots of kids deal with these issues, and most don't go to programs.  Many eventually come out of it, and it may be a rough ride for awhile.  I can't tell you how many kids have loving relationships with their parents after some hellish years, so, don't get attached to negative future outcomes. Just say, today is a challenge. How can I meet it best?

One problem a lot of these therapeutic (which is a BS marketing term) "schools" have is that they overstructure  not only your time but also your mind to such an extent that you CANNOT duplicate it in the real world and then you fall apart.  The program's structure is NOT real world structuring.  In the program I went to, every single second was accounted for down to shower minutes. Every second was taxed by "emotional" work (which was just crazy psychodramas that are discarded by real therapists) and chores and hard physical labor from the early am to bed time.  You were so emotionally and physically spent you actually could sleep at night on a regular schedule.  Sounds good, right? Well, no, every person I knew fell apart afterward because in the real world, you don't participate in heavy group psychodramas for four hours every other day right after four hours of running a mile and back several times chopping wood, hauling wood, sawing branches, etc...It's hard to explain. Even your "non working time" was not free time because it was really an extended period of social indoctrination.   But real life imposes its own structure when you work.  In a program, they are not only taking inventory of your time, but your thoughts and feelings. And not in a good, reflective way.  In any event, one of the biggest immediate issues by far was that kids fell apart in the real world because program structure is NOT analogous to the structure of daily living and responsibilities. Kid leave and are at a TOTAL loss. The program ultimately disempowers the kids.
There is also no opportunity to learn from mistakes because you were always terrified.

So the "give your kid the structure he needs" is one of big bowl of therapeutic malarkey.

Read Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction - books by a top doc with ADD. It is more solution oriented -especially the last one.

Another good book is The Defiant Child by Jeffrey Bernstein. The title is a bit of a misnomer in many ways because its really about parents changing their approaches and making loving choices  (not to be confused with enabling) over fear based choices.  Some of the skills are counter-intuitive but work with consistency.  It's not an ADD book, but it does help with approach and perspective.

Molly,

If your kid gets sent to Hyde, he will not be able to advocate for himself.  You will not get him out once he is there. He will drink the Kool aid as a matter of emotional survival, believing he is worse than he is. The program is particularly gifted at manipulating kids and parents into feeling the kid will be deadinsaneorinjail to keep the resident.  I've seen this happen personally many, many times including with me.  The level of pressure is so great you admit things far worse than you ever did in order to level up and escape the constant harassment and barrage.  The parents begin to view the school as the authority, and abdicate their own including their own intuition. The school will also give you a very false sense of treatment modality.  They may tell you he is getting individual therapy, but its really one-size-fits-all BS. When parents waffle, the program is excellent at reeling them back in using fear based techniques.  You will begin to see your kid not as who he really is, but who the program says he is. Your kid will, too, and when he graduates, he will say that right things and be scared straight for a period, but inside feel a profound sense of dislocation and later fall apart. there are no longitudinal studies fro a reason. Testimonies are from recent grads and I've known a lot of former "recent grads" who drank the kool aid and sold the school and wanted to vomit once the kool aid wears off.

When you visit the school, you will get the PR tour.  

Therapists often make recommendations based on brochures and websites and marketing (and kickbacks for some)... but they don't know. You have no idea how effective these programs are at marketing their PR tour.  I can't tell you how many former kids at my old program and other programs wanted to yell "RUN!" to prospective visitors but a special kind of hell, ostracization, and group attacks would occur if any of us ever contradicted the program. Heck, we even had to lie to ourselves to get by. We learned we even had to do the whole "this program saved my life" with our parents, too.

Find a better therapist who is committed to helping our your family - not warehousing your kid. Learn new skills at communicating.  My kid is a precocious, sensitive, oppositional kid and when I change my approach and stick to it, I see the benefits. Take the initiative and research options for YOU to change your style. Don't make it fear or worry based. One of the things that helped me as a mother is to realize I can't control everything, just me, and to try new approaches and do what I can, but not to live in fear or worry. We talk a lot about choices in my family and that I will guide them, but ultimately, they make choices; their choices net good, bad or neutral outcomes.  

Clearly, what you are doing doesn't work, but instead of outsourcing your kid, change your approaches.

If there is any part of you that is resistant to programs, do not bend to your spouse. This is too important.  

I will say that one of the things that helped me attending a private school (NOT A "THERAPEUTIC" school) that was college prep but alternative with university professors. The atmosphere was more conducive to pursuing real inquiry and open discussion over conformist, industrial education. Maybe your kid has a creative or athletic bent.  There may be schools that play to his strengths and interests.

Good luck.

Oh... I thought the answer was bananas.

Exactly. This is why  always detested it when people say the CEDU model is tear you down to build you up. No it isn't. It's just tear you down and turn you into a step-bot. Totally disconnected and full of the kool aid. And even when the kool aid wears off, you're still out of touch with yourself and disconnected from your NATURAL growth trajectory. Then you're in WTF Land for awhile and you're so dispossessed you don't get it.

Very funny, TOC.  I like my two, and don't plan on going Swift on them any time soon, but I provide for my modest family. I am definitely a 2 for 2 proponent.  A lot of our probs are overpop. Too much competition for resources... also the escalation of social ills, like more annoying people.  I wish people/gov't/religion would buck the theocracy and promote small families as responsible living in this era. As long as we have followers of religious nut jobs and literalists, this will never happen here unless we go totalitarian. So we'll probably just implode instead.  People don't like being forced to have common sense.

As far as pharmacology is concerned, control is secondary to profit.