Behavior Modification: Persuasion, Manipulation, and Coercio

[Deborah]

I finally found the article I'd been looking for on my old computer. The link no longer works so here's the entire essay.

http://www.seaburyhall.org/compcl/grcla ... odify.html

How Do Behavior Modifying Schools and Camps Work?

II. History of behavior modifying techniques
Behavior modification is the use of outside stimuli to alter behavior. When stimuli are used repetitively to encourage or discourage behavior, behavior gradually changes. For example, when a puppy is trained not to jump on the couch, the owner responds to the puppy?s bad behavior of jumping on the couch in a authoritative voice: ?No, bad puppy?. Then, the owner picks up the puppy, and puts it on it?s puppy bed. The owner gives the puppy a biscuit when it settles down, pats it?s head and says lovingly: ?Good puppy?. The owner continues to encourage the good behavior of the puppy, sleeping on it?s puppy bed, and discourage the bad behavior of jumping on the couch. The owner repeatedly does the aforementioned until the puppy?s original behavior changes, and she learns the owner?s idea of good behavior and bad behavior.

During the 1960?s, trendy behavior modifying techniques were ?widely taught in colleges and universities, and widely practiced in schools, prisons, hospitals, homes for the developmentally disabled, businesses, and in private practice offices? (1)   By 1970 behavior modifying techniques were being challenged on ethical and legal grounds. (2)   Depending on the type of behavior control used, techniques may raise concerns about the dehumanization of people, denial of human rights, and manipulation. Some techniques such as coercion, are a threat to persons regarded as autonomous. Coercion often involves a tight control of a person?s environment, and aversive procedures. (3)
 
III. Types of behavior control used in behavior modifying techniques
In behavior modifying schools and camps, techniques are used to modify the teenager?s perceived inappropriate behavior to a more desired one. Because the location of the school or camp is remote, and the environment is controlled, questions have arisen concerning the ethics of the behavior modification used. The use of behavior modification at these institutions may be against the wishes of the teenager who did not consent to be escorted to the school. This was the case when David van Blarigan was involuntarily escorted to Tranquility Bay, a behavior modification school in Jamaica: ?Just past midnight, David van Blarigan,16, woke up in Oakland, Calif., home to find his parents at his bedside with the two burly strangers they had called to take him away. ?Why are you doing this?? the teenager cried out. ?Because you?re unhappy here,? his mother replied. ?If you don?t cooperate,? one of the escorts said, ?we?ll have to put you in handcuffs.? (4)   If a teenager like David van Blarigan is coerced to attend a behavior modifying school or camp, then the application of behavior modifying techniques is coercive treatment (5)
 
There are many strategies for getting a person to act in a desired way. Strategies can be grouped into three types of behavior control: rational persuasion, manipulation, and coercion.
The type of behavior control that is called rational persuasion is when the authority figure?s communicative approach is straightforward. This encourages the person ?to reevaluate his intentions toward a certain act without bringing to bear any pressures of incentives extraneous to the rational evaluation of the likely consequences of that act from the point of view of the self-interest of the person being asked to act?. (6)   An example of rational persuasion being employed is when a young kid is caught by his adult neighbor, smoking a cigarette. The adult neighbor asks the kid why he smokes. The kid shrugs. The adult tells the kid that smoking is bad for your health-- that it causes lung damage and turns your teeth and fingernail?s yellow. The kid is left to evaluate his action of smoking a cigarette on his own.

According to Berghman, manipulation is being employed if a person trying to influence the behavior of another, through communicative means, and is not straightforward or open. The manipulator deliberately uses pressure on his subject?s ?motivational system? that is to be manipulated in an attempt to obtain the needed assent from his subject. (7)   Such a manipulative technique can be seen at home: two boys, Jack and Ryan are trading Pokemon cards at Jack?s house. Jack has the desired Pokemon card that Ryan desperately wants. Ryan tells Jack that unless Jack gives him the envied Pokemon card, he(Ryan) will go home. Jack, not wanting Ryan to go home, agrees and gives Ryan the coveted Pokemon card.

With coercion, the absence of freedom to refuse or assent can take the form of an offer or a threat. In the form of a coercive offer, strong incentives to act are given. Therefore, any reasonable person would be expected to act. Using rational persuasion and manipulation in behavior modification, the subject has a choice to refuse or consent to the attempted behavior control. In coercion, freedom of choice is absent. This is a threat to persons regarded as autonomous. (

In these schools and camps teenagers have to move up in the level system in order to leave the program. This is a coercive threat and it offers an unattractive result: If the teenager does not want to cooperate with the authoritative figure or comply to the rules of the level system, he will remain at level one and cannot leave the program. Desiring his freedoms, he will appear to comply with the coercer, the authority figure, in order to leave the program.

In behavior modifying schools and camps, coercion is the primary method used to behavior modify the teenagers into conformity with the goals and purposes of the program. In the majority of these programs, levels systems, systems of rewards and punishments based on propriety are used and are perceived as a coercive offer. The teenagers cannot refuse participation in the level system. Therefore, it is coercive treatment because the behavior modifying technique of level systems used is against the will of the teenager. Rather than staying at the bottom level where all personal freedoms are relinquished, a teenager will participate in the level system in an attempt to move up and get out. Moving up in the level system is desirable because there are privileges, and any reasonable teenager will act in order to obtain more of their personal freedoms that have been denied. This use of coercion is unjust because our society respects the autonomy of persons: ?In societies stressing the values of respecting the autonomy of persons, from a moral point of view coercion is prima facie wrong?. (9)   At some point, trying to modify someone?s behavior forces him to act in a certain way, and this ?forcing? can be defined as coercion. (10)   Forcing a person to act in a certain way is different from rationally persuading or manipulating him.

IV.History of behavior modifying institutions
Behavior modifying programs came into existence during the birth of behavioral psychology in the 1960?s. Investigators in the behavior research area first began these programs with institutionalized adult and juvenile offenders, hoping to deprogram their criminal behavior. At the time, criminal behavior was believed to be ?a learned phenomena?. In such a closed environment, the behavior modification system of punishments and rewards could be stringently controlled.
In the late 1960?s and early 1970?s, these behavior modifying programs flourished. Studies show statistically short-term improvement in the reduction of undesirable inmate behavior for more desirable behavior. These changes in behavior were associated with the reinforcement contingencies of reward and punishment . However, in the late 1970?s, some problems were found in these institutions that led to reduction of many institutional behavior modification programs. The problems identified were: ?institutional constraints,? ?external political and economic pressure,?, ?limited supplies and personnel,? and ?the often deleterious methodological compromises caused by these influences?. Also staff resistance to adherence in the behavior modification procedures, and ?staff perceptions that experiments were inflexible and dictatorial?. These institutions? problems seem to stem from the use of coercion and lack of funding which may have sparked fear into the hearts of many--behavior modification programs gone bad.

In response to this trend, popular books and movies such as A Clockwork Orange, The Manchurian Candidate, Brave New World, and 1984 further amplified people?s fear of being controlled through ?exaggerated fictional presentations said to portray some version of behavior modification?. (11)   People?s fear of being controlled stems from the far-reaching abilities to control other?s behavior through behavior modification. Since the birth of behavior modification, words such as ?brainwashed? and ?mind control? have become part of the American vocabulary. These words also played upon the idea that people are afraid of losing their autonomy and dignity--of having their minds controlled by another. In a nation that respects the autonomy of persons, behavior modification could have negative effects when used on society as a whole. Heldman, a law review critique, ?argued that behavior modification could be used to ?impose an orthodoxy of ?appropriate conduct? on the community and thus to silence social and political dissent?. (12)   Heldman?s hypothesis may have ignited some of the attacks on behavior modifying institutions.

The most problematic attacks on behavior modification programs were legal challenges in court and in the House of Representatives. The most prominent of these was when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the notorious Special Treatment and Rehabilitative Training (START) program for the use of coercive strategies to achieve inmate compliance(U.S. Congress, 1974a). Congress was involved because ?members of Congress...criticized behavioral technology and expressed concern about the treatment of research subjects and infringements on freedoms in therapy and research in general, as well as specifically in behavior modification?.  (13) Ultimately, START was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Prisons during litigation. Questions remain as to whether or not the behavior modification that replaced it post-litigation, was more coercive. (14)

As a result of the legal challenges and ethical issues pertaining to these institutions, by the 1980?s behavioral approaches to crime and delinquency were almost nonexistent. Behavioral approaches to crime and delinquency are referred to by Milan and Long as ?the last frontier of behavior psychology?. (15)

V. When did these privately funded schools come into existence?
Behavior modifying schools and camps, known as boarding schools, had been established during the late 1960?s, early 1970?s and 1980?s. Privately funded boarding schools that had behavior modifying programs such as Cedu (est. 1967), Provo Canyon School (est.1971), Oak Creek (est. 1972), DeSisto (est. 1978), and Rocky Mountain Academy (est. 1982) were not well known. (16)    As shown through the growth of the teen help industry, these behavior modifying schools and camps did not become popular until the 1990?s. Now the aforementioned schools are well known among other newly founded behavior modifying schools and camps such as Tranquility Bay, Cascade, Cross Creek Manor, New Hope, and Red Rock Springs, to name a few. Recently, an alarming trend has been occurring in the teen help industry. Parents nationwide have been sending their troubled teenagers to behavior modifying schools or camps across the country, some to places as remote as Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Samoa. This explosive growth in the teen help industry is apparent in the mid-July 1999 web rankings ranked by the Alexa program at strugglingteens.com of behavior modifying/camps and sites related to them: 169,394 Intrepidnet Reporter,   240,383 Cascade School,   283,540 ASI,   417,337 SUWS, 566,957 WWASP,   592,368 CEDU,   660,723 Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy,   673,273 DeSisto School,   900,894 Natl. Assn. Of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps,   970,730 Arizona Boys Ranch,   1,040,931 Cross Creek Manor,   1,043,904 Adolescent Guidance Services,   1,254,308, Red Rock Springs, and   1,781,847 Spring Creek Lodge. (17)

Since then, behavior modifying schools and camps, nearly 2,000 of them, have become the subject of controversy and have been brought to nationwide attention through the media. These schools and camps have gotten wide exposure in the last 3 years: in newspaper articles in major dailies throughout the country; magazines such as Time, Outside, and Seventeen; television shows such as CBS?s 48 hours; internet sites such as ?Intrepidnet? and ?Teen Liberty?; and Alexia Parks? book, An American Gulag.

These schools and camps are the subject of controversy for three reasons. One, because they appear to be an improper response by ?new breed? parents to place the parenting duties on a school because the parents lack the ability to parent or because they fear their teenager. Two, because claims of abuse have been brought to attention by teenagers that have been escorted to these schools. These teenagers are either suing or planning to sue the schools and their parents. (18)   Sergio Alva, a teenager who was escorted to Paradise Cove in Samoa, plans to file a lawsuit against Paradise Cove on charges of abuse. (19)   David van Blarigan, a teenager who was escorted to Jamaica Bay, is in the process of filing a lawsuit against the school and his parents. (20)   There are many other lawsuits in process. And three, ethical questions about the denial of the civil and human rights of teenagers have been raised. Teen-rights activists such as Alexia Parks have responded through various forms of media in an attempt to have these schools and camps regulated by the government or terminated.

VI. Why did these schools come into existence?
Many of these schools and camps originally came into existence to respond to the needs of the truly disturbed teen. Now it appears that more of these schools are supplying the demand of apprehensive parents wanting to help their so-called ?troubled? teen. By their standards their teen is angry, defiant and also, may have committed juvenile status offenses.

Parents now have their teens escorted to these schools and camps in an attempt to keep them away from drugs, violence, sex or homosexuality. Moreso, parents want to keep their kids away from the seductive youth culture that has ?it?s own music, drugs, precocious sexual mores and values?. (21)   They want to mold their children into happy, healthy, individuals who have a better set of values and are grateful to their parents. Are these schools and camps just an expensive alternative to deal with teenage angst--to place the parenting duties on a school when a parents lacks the ability to parent their teen in a time of crisis? Or are teenagers today really that troubled that they need to be imprisoned in a remote school or camp and behavior modified so that they may have the values they need to achieve their society?s perceived notion of success?

It is apparent that more of these schools are coming into existence to meet the need for a set of values that the ?new breed? teenagers lack and that in their parents view need to be inculcated. ?New breed? parents seem to ?prefer self-fulfillment and duty to self above worldly success and duty to others--including their own children?. (22)   ?New breed? teenagers live in a separate world. A world that is isolated from respected adults, this may be due to the fact that many parents are divorced and working full-time, or have little time to teach (through example) values to their children. Teenagers rely on their peers and popular culture-- not respected adults. (23)   This absence from respected adults ?subjects children to a multitude of powerful, contradictory pressures?  (24).   These pressures cause ?new breed? children to do worse in school, have negative views of themselves and others, hurt others more often without feeling guilty about having done so, and to be prone to violence, to delinquency, and drug use. (25)  These schools not only meet the need for a new set of values for teenagers but also are a weapon in the war against drugs--they straighten out the drug and alcohol addicted adolescent. (26)
These behavior modifying schools and camps are similar to residential treatment centers for teenagers because they also help to straighten out the teen. But these schools have much more in common with prisons than residential treatment centers. While residential treatment centers only treat patients for a maximum of 90 days--what insurance will cover, behavior modifying schools and camps can ?treat? their ?patients? year-round for two to three years. These ?patients? are teenagers who were parent-sanctioned kidnapped to the school or camp, which is very similar to an arrest--but without the due process. These teenagers, incarcerated in the school or camp, have to follow a level system in order to move up and get out. Are these behavior modifying schools really ?schools? and are the camps really ?camps?--or are they cleverly disguised parent-funded prisons for teenagers?

1 Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Behavior Therapy p.75
2 Ibid
3 Ibid.
4 Time Magazine, January 26, 1998
5 Berghmans, Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry p.535
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Berghmans, Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry p. 537
9 Ibid
10 Ibid
11 Stolz, Ethical Issues In Behavior Modification p. 9
12 Ibid
13 Stolz, Ethical Issue In Behavior Modification p.12-13
14 International Handbook of Behavior Modification and Therapy p 527
15 International Handbook of Behavior Modification and Therapy p 526
16 Peterson?s Guide to Private Secondary Schools 1999-2000 p.1070,1071,1054, 1075
17 internet: http://www.woodbury.com/news/webrank.html
18 internet:http://www.teenaid.org- California attorney Thomas M. Burton is preparing 10    individual lawsuits    against Teen Help and its related companies..
19 CBS 48 Hours ?Breaking Point? 9/15/99
20 Time Magazine, January 26, 1998
21 Welsh, Tales Out of School p. 6.
22 Purdy, In Their Best Interest p. 116
23 Purdy, In Their Best Interest p. 119
24 Ibid
25 Ibid
26 Sunset Magazine

[spirithelps]

This is very excellent.  It looks like it was for a college class?  Do you know who the author is so I could cite it as a reference?

Toni

[Deborah]

I found this paper when I was in court battle to have my son removed from a program and was trying to gain some understanding of the industry and how BM was used. The link I provided is the original, which no longer works. As far as I can tell, from the URL, the author's name may be V Martin.

You might inquire to http://www.seaburyhall.org

[cherish wisdom]

Thanks, this information is extremely helpful.  

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
-- John Muir

[spirithelps]

If I can ask, how did the court battle go?  Which program was your son?

[Deborah]

Another good one that speaks to the sadistic nature of Punishment. Rewards are no better than punishment, but when the program relies solely on punishment, there is great possibility of psychological harm. Contact with parents should not be used as reward or punishment.

From The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development   Founded in 1943, ASCD's mission is to forge covenants in teaching and learning for the success of all learners.
http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edupdate/1996/1sep.html

Traditional approaches to classroom management based on rewards and Punishments are proving less effective today, experts find....Moreover, if teachers rely on punishments, students weigh the cost of misbehavior. For a particular student, it might be "worth it" to beat up Mary, despite the punishment that follows. Students in such an environment "never develop an ownership of the social responsibility involved," Riner says.

This last point is central to the beliefs of many experts: Authoritarian approaches may get students to COMPLY, but they don't help students develop self-discipline and responsibility. When teachers rely on punishment and praise, they "LEAVE KIDS AT THE LOWEST LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT," says Barbara Coloroso, author of Kids Are Worth It!: Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline.

Students' behavior is guided by the question: "What's in it for me?"

Given these considerations, many teachers are seeking new approaches to classroom management that not only work better but also teach better lessons. These teachers hope to instill an intrinsic motivation to do the right thing, so students will behave in a socially responsible way because they want to--NOT OUT OF FEAR.

Teachers can also build students' commitment to social responsibility by rejecting punishments in favor of "logical consequences" for misbehavior, experts say. The latter are closely related to the infraction and often include an element of MAKING RESTITUTION. Unlike punishments, which are intended to make children suffer, logical consequences give children who are at fault a sense of how to improve, and help them regain their dignity and self-respect, experts maintain.
Although a consequence may feel unpleasant, it teaches the child to make better choices, says Allen Mendler, coauthor of Discipline with Dignity. A punishment, such as putting a child in "time out" for five minutes, is "just a sentence," he says. The teacher should ask the child in "time out" to come up with a plan for doing better in the future.

Some experts, like Alfie Kohn, believe consequences are MERELY DISGUISED VERSIONS OF PUNISHMENTS  :tup: , and have the same negative effects on children. "To contrive some sort of conceptual link between the punishment and the crime may be SATISFYING TO THE ADULT, but in most cases it probably makes very little difference to the child," Kohn writes in Beyond Discipline. "The child's (understandable) anger and desire to retaliate come from the fact that someone is deliberately making her suffer."

[Deborah]

Programs are abusive by design~

National Child Protection Clearinghouse
Marianne James-Senior Research Officer
http://www.aifs.org.au/nch/issues1.html

Three types of abuse which can be included in societal systems have been identified: institutional abuse; program abuse; and system abuse.

Institutional abuse has been defined to include abuse as a result of: 'any system, program, policy, procedure or individual interaction with a child in placement that abuses, neglects, or is detrimental to the child's health, safety, or emotional and physical well-being, or in any way exploits or violates the child's basic rights' (Gil 1982, p.9).

Program abuse has been defined as occurring when 'programs operate below accepted service standards or RELY UPON HARSH AND UNFAIR TECHNIQUES TO MODIFY BEHAVIOR' (Gil 1982, p.9).

System abuse has been defined as abuse that is 'perpetuated not by a single person or agency, but by the entire child care system stretched beyond its limits' (Powers, Mooney and Nunno 1990).

Emotional Abuse is a behavioural pattern whereby a parent or caregiver attacks a child's self-esteem and social competence over a period of time.

Some examples of actions which may result in emotional abuse are:
 :exclaim: children constantly being told they are NO GOOD OR WORTHLESS [how many people's kids were told this-covertly or overtly?]
 :exclaim: children being continually REJECTED and shown NO AFFECTION [sent to programs and deprived for two+ years]
 :exclaim:  children subjected to repeated VERBAL ABUSE AND THREATS [the standard MO of most programs]
 :exclaim:  children punished by being LOCKED UP ALONE or NOT BEING ALLOWED TO HAVE FRIENDS or SOCIAL ACTIVITIES [a partial description of programs]
(NSW Child Protection Council 1993).

Emotional abuse can harm children just as much as other forms of abuse, with which it can occur concurrently. It may, however, be difficult to identify because it does not leave any physical injuries. It often goes unrecognised until a child shows signs of emotional problems. These signs can include: changes in behaviour; lying and stealing; destructive or violent behaviour; rocking the body or sucking things; being very withdrawn or depressed; being aggressive and constantly seeking attention. These signs can also indicate other forms of abuse (NSW Child Protection Council 1993).

To that list we could add:
PTSD, socially retarded, insecure in the real world, chronically vigilant, overly critical of self and others........

[Anonymous]

A good direction for finding source material about the downside of these schools is any solid textbook on Skinnerian behaviorism.

"Consequences"--when used as a program code word not describing the natural intrinsic result of an act (you touch a hot stove, you get burned), but an *imposed* result for an act, where the imposed result is designed to make the repetition of the act less likely---fits the textbook definition of "punishment" used in Skinnerian behaviorist research.

The definition, and the damaging effects on the subject of using punishment as a consistent strategy for changing behavior---whether the subject is a child, a dog, a cat, a pigeon, or a rat---will be explained clearly in any *good* college-level text on behaviorism.

The negative effects of punishment are: sullenness, resentment, and learning not to get caught at the behavior rather than not doing the behavior.

Most programs are set up so that no matter what the kid does, he or she is subject to punishment---particularly because students are rewarded, or escape punishment, for informing on other students, inevitably leading to kids being punished for no greater reason than that some other kid needed a scapegoat.

The negative effects of punishment occurring no matter what you do are grouped together in a phenomenon called "learned helplessness."  Any good college level behaviorist textbook will have a section on learned helplessness.

Where this might help relatives of captive teens (like noncustodial parents) get their kid out of a bad place is that if you can gather enough specific information about the program, retaining a professor in the psychology of learning (which includes behaviorism) as an expert witness can get these explanations----including the damage a particular program will cause to the child---in front of the judge.

A *true* rewards-based program would provide the kids the basic necessities as a matter of course, and would focus on rewarding positive behaviors, or specific neutral behaviors that couldn't be done at the same time as specific negative ones and reward those neutral behaviors as positive.

A well-designed rewards-based program wouldn't have levels, it would have a school store with desired extras and reward good behaviors with points and allow the students to purchase small (or even large) luxuries with their points.

Instead of punishing improperly made beds with demerits, a rewards based program would pay for a well-made bed with a fixed quantity of points, and would pay for each incremental improvement in the state of a bed towards being well-made with an incremental increase in points from 1 up to the quantity for a well-made bed (ie--partial credit).

If a perfect bed with hospital corners is 10 pts, a spread-up bed might be worth 2 pts and a made up bed that's not quite up to snuff worth 5 pts.

For behaviors done *right* you could get a much better result by providing points *plus*---where the student gets the fixed amount and then staffer rolls a die and adds the number of points on the die.

For going through a class showing respect for the teacher for the whole class, you might have the teacher roll the die at the end of class for each student---get a six, a second die roll and get points equal to ten times the number on the face of the die.  But only if you were respectful and not disrespectful for the whole class.  

Give the necessities, and let the kids buy dessert, tasty snacks, recreational books and magazines, tokens for video games, put a juke box in the cafeteria and let them buy tokens for the juke box.  Let them buy tickets to a Friday or Saturday night dance, or a Karaoke night, or a poetry cafe night.

Give each kid a photo-id credit card for their points, have the staffers carry PDA's to record the point earnings of each of their kids.

Give points for good grades and chores.

Issue the kids a boring but adequate uniform, and let them buy nicer clothes from the school store and let them wear them.  Monogram them and don't allow swaps, though, or you'll get cellblock bullies.

You'd have to make what you can buy with the points be mostly consumable in some way on the spot, so that it couldn't be transferred to anyone else--you have to make it pretty much impossible to steal the littler kid's lunch money, effectively.

That's how to do it *right*.  

A child's place is in the home.

But in the rare instances where residential treatment is necessary, that's how to do a genuinely rewards-based program.

Problem is the parents and the program providers are stuck in the punitive mindset that goes with dehumanizing these teens by labelling them "troubled teens" (translation: rotten little punks) in the first place.  The providers and parents get a certain emotional satisfaction from a punitive approach---at the expense of a more humane, more effective, and more lasting strategy.

Of course, if the kid is sneaking around going to drunken parties, doing drugs, screwing around, cutting school, etc.----the sneaking around to do bad stuff instead of not doing it in the first place is evidence that the parents and other authority figures in the child's life have already throughout the kid's life been pursuing a punishment-based discipline strategy and are experiencing the downside of punishment as discipline.

Doing the same old thing that got them into this fix all over again and expecting different results.

Punishment gets you a kid that sneaks around to do what you don't like, and is only sorry she got caught.

Reward gets you a kid that does what you want even when you're not looking and then tells you she did---a kid that actively seeks to get caught doing something right.

I'm not saying punishment is *never* appropriate.

I'm saying that if your kid is an insufferable pain in the rear, you've either overused punishment, underused rewards, or completely failed to provide and apply *consistent* rules.  Or all three.

And just about every program I've seen so far is more of the same over-reliance on punishment that creates troubled teens out of cute little infants in the first place.

Timoclea

[Anonymous]

Oh, I agree with you, Deborah, that rational persuasion is the best long term way of improving behavior.

However, sometimes what you want the kid to do, while there's a good rational argument for doing it, seems overwhelming to the kid in practical terms.  Keep a clean room? (living area) Speak politely and respectfully even to people I don't much like or want to deal with *all the time*?  Pay attention in class?  Study?  Do *homework*?  All the time???!!!

As a parent, I favor using rewards-based behavior change to build the habit and show the kid the good behavior is *possible* and not as onerous as he/she thought it would be----and then use rational persuasion to encourage the kid to keep the new habit.

Forex, I used small candies and small coins as rewards teaching my child to read---but now that she's learned and reading has become easier, she *keeps* reading for fun.

Acquiring good habits is usually harder than keeping them.

There's a good place for reward in helping children or adults (or even yourself) establish a good habit that *reason* tells the person it's going to be good to do and is going to be *ultimately* rewarding all on its own.

Unfortunately, a program that does it wrong appeals to the resentments and frustrations of parents for their rotten little punk not being the perfect little angel they wanted.

What kind of demand do you think there would be for a "troubled teen" boarding school prep that came right out and said they believed in rewards and persuasion, not punishment?

Parents have a vested interest in believing that a kinder, gentler approach couldn't *possibly* work with their rotten kid---because of course that would mean that the rotten kid was the result of the parents' bad discipline choices.

Ginger's right---a "troubled parent industry" indeed.

Timoclea

[hurleygurley]

thank you for all of this. i'm in the middle of  proceedings RIGHT NOW. this is useful. will let you know how it all goes.

[Deborah]

Good Luck Hurly Gurly,
The biggest challenge in terms of exposing what methods they use, is getting the judge to take your kid's word for it, as the program is not about to admit to the more abusive methods they employ. It would be great if you could somehow find an ex-staff to validate what your child alleges.

Also, was this child placed in violation of the ICPC? If so, read these threads:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?mo ... 9&start=20
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2265&forum=9
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?mo ... t=10&Sort=

It's a good argument because it's a Federal Law that's already in place which requires a psych evaluation/study prior to placement to prove the austere placement is necessary and in the child's best interest.
It's a conflict of interest for the program to dx kids and recommend placement based on their parents complaints. Parents and programs are not objective in this regard, both have a vested interest in the child being placed- when indeed it may not be the least restrictive environment or meet his/her individual needs. One size does not fit all.

[Deborah]

A couple more. Though I don't particularly like the spin of the last one, it contains some useful information.

http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp549755.html
We hypothesize that the reinforcement processes within the peer groups are quite subtle and potentially powerful. For example, Buehler, Patterson, and Furniss (1966) found that within institutional settings, peers provided a rate of reinforcement of 9-to-1, compared with adult staff, suggesting that the density of reinforcement from peers can be so high it seriously undermines adult guidance.
Moreover, interventions with HIGH-RISK PARENTS have shown results in improved parenting, concomitant reductions in child and adolescent problem behavior (Dishion et al., 1995; Dishion, Spracklen, et al., 1996; Webster-Stratton, 1990), and improvement in academic skills (Forgatch & DeGarmo, in press). Therefore, the cost-effectiveness of group interventions is retained if focus is on the parents and aggregating young adolescents is avoided.
Entire article here:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=15#49825

http://www.wpic.pitt.edu/aacp/Vol-15-3/Youth.html
From the American Associate of Community Psychiatrists

Sending youth across the country to a residential program, or limiting parental access to their children in a local program, is the antithesis of a family centered practice. Parents must be included in the assessment of each child, involved in regular contact with their child and central to planning the child?s reentry into their life outside the institution. Programs that offer rigid programming, or frankly misuse behavioral paradigms, are not providing individualized and tailored care as is becoming a standard "best practice" for ever more child care communities around the country. To provide a quality service, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners and other mental health professionals should have a strong hand in overseeing the treatment process. Children and youth taken out of their communities, when those communities have seemed unable to help a youth modify their behavior, are not optimally served. They are deprived of the opportunity to learn social adaptations in the context of family, culture and all that is familiar to them. When care is placed in the hands of a single entity, when information is not obtained from prior providers, and when parents are excluded from meaningful participation in treatment, the power and control of the staff over a resident in the facility is extreme and unlike most other situations except prisons. This gross inequity of power is, understandably, fertile ground for abusive practices. The facility becomes the new culture for the child. Treatment becomes for the child the game he or she needs to master in order to survive, or curry favor so as to get privileges. This is the essence of institutionalization that was recognized as harmful by the movement toward community based and culturally competent care. Regulations based on best practices might include a definition of what specific circumstances demand residential placement. They might assure that this aspect of care is brief, limited only to a period when it meets standards of medical necessity, and is well integrated into community based services. The CALOCUS would be an ideal tool for such a level of care determination process as it offers alternatives to residential placement when intensive treatment is indicated. Regulations based on best practices should assure that parents be full participants in the care of their child in a residential treatment facility. Best practices based regulations would demand documentation of critical incidents and would create a certainty of outside investigation of incidents involving death or serious injury. They would create a quality assurance protocol for licensed agencies providing residential care that would address such issues as treatment effectiveness and individualization, resident rights and humane practices and acceptable interventions for troublesome behavior.



[ This Message was edited by: Deborah on 2006-04-23 12:26 ]

[Anonymous]

These tactics were practiced by mark wasserman and michael allgood in running the fraud cult posing as school  emotional terrorism gulags like cedu, rocky mountain academy and recently CASCADE  school which was shut down when felons like allgood , eric melzer and craig cass were caught molesting young boys and then lying to parents and authorities .  wasserman's father mel wasserman was notorious for encouraging his followers to molest boys  and then tell the parents the boys were lying. they would then try to make themselves look like the victim  like all sociopaths  wassermans and allgood believed their own lies.  melzer is aka eric von melzer  who molested and was placed in the custody of allgood who encouraged him to molest more and said it was all part of being a friend.  Investigate the closing of Cascade   whenever the cops get too close to allgood he cuts and runs   we need the truth  he may say he has retired but it is all about controlling minds with this sadist