Fornits

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

It defies logic that they would hike between 11 and 3 during the summer in the first place. This is the hottest part of the day. Are they closed right now? They dont seem to have a website up

I think that America is certainly in love with the idea of "therapy". Woody Allen often laughed at the idea that in some east coast middle class circles it is almost a status symbol to have a therapist.
I think that while this idea that you can never have too much therapy has obviously rubbed off on this industry (how  else to explain the concept of high school kids taking "therapy" sessions every single day at  whole special school where feelings come before the 3 rs )
one thing that plays a big part could be the legal system, particularly the rise of zero tolerance policing in the US. I dont know if this is cultural. i too would be nervous about what my kid was up to if their sex life could have them end up on an offender registry for years or if a bit of dope could land them in jail.

Personally I have never been able to embrace sitting on a couch navel gazing and paying someone to listen. Discussing your woes is far better done over a nice glass of white with the people you love, agression is more effectively expressed through some sort of team sport and sadness expressed by watching a mawkish chick flick and having a good cry. Lets face it people are social animals. We form friendships for a reason.

I can answer this danny. The US would have to deal with delinquent/drug taking/rabble rousing/mentally ill/insert random ailment here kids in the same way that Britain, most of europe, Australia and New Zealand and any latin american country does. All of these countries have kids and families struggling through adolescence and mostly coming out the other end OK. When you also consider that the sheer cost of even a bargain basement program like WWASP means that the kids are by default mostly middle class it further weakens the pro program argument  as adolescent middle class "rebels" from most parts of the world are statistically the ones least likely to fall through the cracks. It just sometimes means natural consequences are a little more real. IE if you get expellled from your posh private school and your parents cant get you in anywwhere else, you go to a public one. If you dick around taking drugs when you should be studying and get really shit grades you either have to repeat year 12 or you dont get into university right from school. So you either work  for a couple of years and apply after 21 or you decide higher education is not for you. Either way our life is not eternally ruined.

Granted there are some things that make it harder for American families, like zero tolerance policing and in some states hysterical sex laws that put kids on sex registers for pretty benign behaviors, but these did not always exist and can be changed if enough people do something.

To people who say a program was the only choice I liken programs to mobile or smart phones. It genuinely feels to me like I cant live without my smartphone. But for the first 20 or so years of my life i did great without it. If it were taken away I can still be reached by skype, im  and at 3 email addresses. So while it feels to me like I cant in actual fact I can and there are people and places in the world where the thing is completely unnecessary.

Walters daughter went to one of the cedu schools. Her name is Jacquie Danforth. She then tried to complete a degree a few times and never got the hang of it. Eventually she opened a wilderness program for girls that closed down during the economic down turn
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080101
http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/p ... 1012.shtml

Good to hear it was positive for you
I was wondering as well as being able to call family did you get to call any school friends or wider relatives?
If you could call friends etc did staff listen to the calls or were you free to make them unmonitored?
Could you write to anyone you wanted or email them?
How often did the average student get to go off campus on an outing?
Were you ever allowed to go for a walk around the neighbourhood during freetime?
Were any academic credits transferable to a regular public school?
Were there any opportunities to play sports against other girls schools or do co curricular activities like chess or play an instrument?
Were there any group therapy sessions? If so was there the option to not share on any particular day?
Were you able to view your therapists notes?
If medication was involved did you get any input into its use or did they just make you take it?

That i can not answer definitively because i do not work for the church or the vatican! I dont know that in western countries (at least the more secular ones like the UK and australia) the church is all powerful anymore. At least in this part of the world joe public has been fairly sympathetic toward most complainants.
Moreover the church is not the only thing with a powerful publicity machine. This industry has one too. But this does not mean its victims have been silent. You can read the program publicity, you can read what those who have been through programs have to say and make up your own mind. What always came across as telling to me is that those who claim xyz program saved them often dont deny some of the wierder or more horrid experiences. The just figure it was what had to be done. I have not heard from either group at boystown
 
What I do know of catholic education is only from my own experiences of it. This may not echo somebody elses. My relatives have kids at catholic schools which have a boarding wing though their own kids are day students and as an agnostic or a cathnostic I cant say i agree with everything that the school teaches. I don't know if i would choose this for my own kids. But I do know that the precedure for reporting abuse is extremely thorough and transparent and the diocese we live in has made it mandatory for all catholic schools to have the same systems in place. The schools sex education program while flawed in many ways also talks about good and bad touching and what to do about it from a very early age.
 I dont kid myself that this is because of the benevolence of the church. But there is no longer any conspiracy of silence that I can see. My own experiences (i graduated highschool in the 90s) were not of abuse either physical or emotional. I can remember in grade 3 the nun used to kiss each girl on the forehead as we left for the day but there was not anything sinister in it and most secular teachers in those days were a whole lot more tactile than they are today. I also remember once being smacked across the back of the leg by the same nun for climbing on a wall that was of of bounds because it was earmarked for demolition. The next year corporal punishment was banned in all schools. I appreciate that the population of boystown is more vulnerable that your average kid at a catholic day school or even a boarder but there are checks and balances in place and i have not yet heard any students accuse them of brinwashing techniques or communication interference or the rest of the insanity associated with this industry

whats creepy about that? Lots of principals of small boarding schools or parish priests do this. Id just assumed that in the US it is standard practice as it is in other western countries. Portsmouth Abbey for instance does this from time to time and it is not a gulag.
Id be more concerned by the fact that boystown had its own press officer with them for the dinner than the fact of it on its own.