Fornits

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

Where was it that you were dragging kids around the swamp then?

Che has acknowledged everything he did publicly on the forum, apologized to students there personally, and done a lot here and elsewhere to hurt the industry, talk to parents, and help get kids out of programs.  Hell.  I spent a week with the guy in person and he said or did nothing to make me doubt him.  If nothing a person does can ever be enough for forgiveness in your eyes then perhaps you should hold yourself to the same standard.  Have you made mistakes?  Done things you regret?  Do you think people should never forgive you and never give you an opportunity to prove yourself again?

Let me be clearer.  If you or anybody posts any other poster's personal information (full name, address, phone, etc), it will be an instant ban.  That's not a power trip.  That's policy.

See.  I don't see any real evidence that the problem is as bad as it's portrayed in that article.  The article says that according to the PDFA (and i'd take that with a grain of salt), 1 in 5 kids admitted to using other kid's medication on an off-prescription basis.  Does that include the kid who forgot his Aderall at a sleepover weekend so he takes his friend's Ritalin instead?  It's hard to know anything without the actual questions asked.  Was this an internet survey?  How was it conducted?  It's hardly hard evidence. I mean this is coming from the organization that linked smoking pot to becoming a terrorist.  If i recall correctly, it was only after Djokar Tsarnaev quit smoking pot and started smoking religion that he set off bombs in Boston. Do we blame religion?  No.  We go out of our way to excuse it.  The point is the bias coming from such an organisation speaks to the reliability of it's findings.  True science is searching for the truth.  What the PDFA does is a search for evidence in support of conclusions they already have and i'm not entirely convinced they wouldn't stretch or even manufacture evidence out of whole cloth if they felt it suited their agenda.

You say many of the kids are using drugs all day.  Perhaps that's the case, but is there any real evidence the abuse is more than, say, in the days of Jack Kerouac, or even ten years ago?  And even in cases where kids are abusing pharmaceuticals on a day to day basis, how is that any different than any other drug such as heroin or cocaine.  I agree parents should probably do a better job of keeping vidodin, oxy, etc, locked up and out of the hands of their kids -- common sense stuff, but the article goes further than that, and with quotes like this seems to encourage parents to look for evidence of abuse even when it's not there:

When Francine Haight looks back on the last months of Ryan's life, she realizes that there were small clues: He was more quiet than usual, slept more, and started hanging out with friends she didn't like.

Such behavior is common among teens and hardly indicative of drug abuse on it's own, but a parent reading this article could easily forget that and let fear draw conclusions for them.  All is needed is that fear to prompt a parent to contact an educational consultant or one of these programs directly and even you would admit that many programs will not care whether a kid truly has a problem so long as their parents are fearful, desperate, and preferably loaded. I'm glad the article suggests bringing a therapist in first, but lots of teens will refuse to talk to one for whatever reason, especially when they think what they say will be reported back to their parents.  At that point, the parents start questioning what the kid has to hide, and the first roach that turns up ends up being the smoking gun to contact the ed-con.  You're right that some kids who are sent to programs end up being better off afterwards than before, at least superficially, but at the same time, parents who send their kids to these programs are taking a terrible risk that their kids will end up in one of the more unscrupulous places that only care about the bottom line, or worse.  It's playing Russian roulette as history has shown that even programs that were once considered to be the best turn out being horrific in reality.  Even the Aspen programs you're so very fond of don't have the best reputation (MBA, etc).

What then is the solution?  Therapy, for one (let the kid choose the therapist -- one he trusts), and if it's the kid's choice, an short term inpatient detox facility coupled with some sort of outpatient support group of his or her choice.  Nobody, however, should be forced into treatment for the simple fact, first and foremost, that it doesn't work.  Some people do have to reach a sort of rock bottom before they realize they have a problem, and there is some wisdom in the theory that you can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge it exists.  In the mean time it should be the parents job to be as responsible as possible keeping the home environment both safe and welcoming while at the same time providing offers of support if and when the teen decides he needs help.  You don't force a teenager to do something.  It simply will not work and breaking the teen is not a solution.  What you do instead is let the teen make mistakes and provide a way out if and when those mistakes become too much.

Ginger's older brothers and sisters were in Seed, she being the youngest iirc, went to Straight.

That's it. I had my family history confused.

Indeed.  The child will be denied the loving kindness the likes of which other Aspen programs such as MBAcould provide, and instead will handed off to some lockup where go knows what will be done to gain compliance.  Then again, programs have been known to make exceptions to their admissions rules.  I wouldn't be surprised if a "soft-core" program would do this were the runaway otherwise non-violent.  It's happened before.  Some programs make a habit of it.  But that's beside the point.  It's a good thing this runaway is away from the wilderness program, but I'm afraid it's out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Quote from: "Che Gookin"

Even residential programs often tell the kids to suck it up and deal with coming off whatever drugs they might be on. It isn't just limited to wilderness programs.

And your point?

I think his point is that it's common for programs to do this, yet it can be very, very dangerous or even fatal depending on what substances the person has been taking (prescription or otherwise).  See Oscar's post.

Based on the posting history, it does look like that poster is automated.  Removing it and all posts now and moving this thread to the CEDU forum (if I remember correctly, BCA is a CEDU>RMA derivative).  Welcome back, BTW.