On 2003-12-17 16:02:00, Anonymous wrote:
Ginger - You're reading something into this that is not there.
(earlier)
I don't feel ADD is a bad thing, but society as a whole does. A hundred or more years ago, ADDers were the ones that made things happen, got things done. Today, it's the other way around and to calm the ADDer, they are prescribed meds.
It's not there? People labeled ADD today are the same people who used to do things like invent airplanes, write brilliant, dark and moody satire to with the title "Best loved man in the world". The very same traits that America used to celebrate are now banned in places where we force our children to spend a large chunk of their lives.
What they learn and apply in a wwasp program is a gift to all ADDer's.
Where is the evidence of that, anon? What, exactly, makes you think that kids generally come out of WWASP better off for the experience? Please answer me that, if nothing else.
ADDer's are gifted, they're smart, creative and wonderful people. Change them? Hell, no. It's about finding out they're NOT damaged and can get past the meds that were prescribed by someone at home.
Well, thanks for the compliment. Why not start by
not going along with the professionals who insist on trying cure their giftedness?
Getting past the teachers telling them they're stupid for not paying attention or doing their homework.
Put the teacher in his or her place. They're wrong. Better yet? Take the kid out of school. Look for other options. There are many. Homeschooling can be anything from sailing around the world, joining parents on business trips to community learning coops to apprenticeships to pursuing a modeling career to ... whatever interests the kid. I would never stand for any teacher calling students stupid.
Each and every child, whether ADD or not, deserves the best love and support a parent can give them. Sometimes that's not enough.
Boy, tell
me about it! Sometimes a kid just has to get the hell away from their crazy parents and figure things out for themselves. Mine sure did. She left home at 16 to go be the local drug dealer's bitch. He did to her just about exactly what the Programs do to clients.
It was amazing, horrifying and somewhat ironic when I started reading up and talking to people about battered women and what they're thinking. Here I am, having walked away from a couple of relationships potentially as bad as hers, but never having given it much more thought than "Well,
that was not good."
So here I was spending a good deal of time trying to figure out how and to do what I can to end the practice of forced behavior modification, and there went my daughter, voluntarily, against our strenuous objections, to take a dose of the same medicine.
Earlier, you mentioned the rules and explained how benign they are. That has always a problem in trying to explain the Program to people who weren't there. Sure, all alone, out of context, complaining about any of these rules sounds petty. But, taken together, it's just adds up to an incredible amount of psychological pressure.
Maybe you'll understand and see the similarities if I explain how this boy, to whom we affectionately refered as Psycho Boy, went about keeping my daughter on lock-down.
He eavesdropped on her phone calls, read her mail and punished her with accusations and demands for confession if she tried to talk to us or any friend she had before she started dating him. That's how he kept her isolated.
He, his brother and a couple of other guys beat hell out of her best friend's boyfriend with bricks and boards right in front of her. The kid's crime had been to spot this boyfriend pimp slapping my daughter around in a public place and making him stop it. That's how he terrorized her.
When she had a job she liked and she started getting some independence, he'd go to her work and make a scene, threaten to kick the boss' ass or whatever till she got fired. He'd get her jobs where his friends worked and have them report back to him if she flirted with a customer.
He constantly accused her of various petty and great infidelities, dishonesty and sneakiness, most of it imaginary. He interrogated her about these things late into the night till she was tired and confused and just apologized. That's how he kept her addle-brained, confused and off balance.
By the end of it, he was litterally slapping her in the head, calling her stupid for anything or nothing. The kid was so beat down by then, it took her about 10 tries to manage getting herself to the bus station to come back home. She simply couldn't envision doing anything on her own and she was terrified every time the bus stopped because she thought the crazy SOB might show up to get her.
Never the less, once she got here, gathered herself up, got some much needed rest and reprieve, we've discovered that our daughter has grown up a LOT in the time she was away. She's back on track wrt her immidiate career objectives. She's catching up with some of her good old friends, working two jobs, saving for a car and about 3/4 of the way through the paperwork phase of starting her remedial courses to make up for the highschool that she missed.
All in all, she's learned a lot from the school of hard nocks and is no longer the wildly irresponsible 16yo who used to sneak out the bathroom window to spend all her time with anyone within a 2 mile radius who'd threatened our lives.
However, I would not recommend to another mother that they set their daughter up with a violent dope dealer in order to help them with wreckless behavior. Though I must admit, in monetary terms, this was definitely cheaper than a WWASP program.
All we did was keep the door open. We never did tolerate having people in our home who we didn't trust or any of the rest. We fought a lot before she left. We kept in as close contact as we could manage without getting arrested for violating the restraining order Psycho Boy had placed on us. When she needed dental care and he wouldn't spring for it, we paid it, no strings. When she needed a ride to go get her GED, I and her sisters dragged our butts out of bed early and drove her down there, really just happy to have a whole hour to spend with her.
Yes, it was hard, nerve-wracking, terrifying at times, insulting, hurtful and a whole big mess to deal with. But not so much that I didn't know what I was looking at the day Officer Friendly offered to "help" her, if only I would bring criminal charges against her.
And it was
not too much to expect. She's our kid. We love her. We had no choice but to stick by her, no matter what. We have always been on her side. She hasn't always known it. But we never forgot the important stuff. If I had it to do over again, I'd yell less, listen more, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.
I read that you think that there is never a reason to seek help when the parent truly feels there is a need. It's like saying the parent doesn't know their kid better than a judge or therapist? Can you give me more of your thoughts on this?
No, not that a parent should never seek help for their kid. But there ought to be some check against the kid being subjected to unneccesary, unproven and dangerous methods. And, even when the methods are fairly safe and effective, there ought to be some sort of diagnostic or criminal process by which we can reliably determine whether or not the kid even has a problem to begin with.
So much can be assumed in the written word, or in conversation. I really am not here to prove you wrong and me right. I'm not looking for answers to "why" parents do this. I made a statement about Torture and you made a separate thread for this asking those that responded not personally attack. You're judgment of what I am writing, your responses especially toward the end feels like an attack and an assumption that I have a child in a program. FYI, I don't.
You're right, that was uncalled for and I'm sorry. I just get so angry because I know there are so many kids in that position.
What, exactly, is your interest in this subject? You know mine. Are you an edcon? Program owner or staff? How do you come to know what you know about how these programs work? Please answer this, too.
You mention jail or juvenile detention as torture. But, before you land in either of those places, you get a charge, to which you can plead guilty or not. You get some kind of representation. There are rules and laws in place, sometimes even enforced, to ensure that confinement is the least invasive, least restrictive means of addressing the crime. Oh yeah, there has to be some crime. Not just an overworried parent bent on believing their kid is mentally ill.
That's the biggest difference between criminal justice and these kinds of private placement. That and that the most obnoxious indoctrination tapes they're forced to listen to are Jerry Springer on the men's wing and Oprah on the women's.
I was in a program in Caliente, Nevada when I was 14 - over 35 years ago. :wink:
"
Speak gently! 't is a little thing Dropp'd in the heart's deep well; The good, the joy, that it may bring Eternity shall tell.
-- G. W. Langford: Speak gently.