posted February 07, 2009 06:28 PM         

I don't think every child can be dealt with the same way; with the same parenting approach or rules. Each individual is so complex and cant be dealt with the same way. I think good or skillful parenting is an art and the ones who approach it that way have an advantage. There is no rule book you are given and no set of rules will work for every child even if you could be given one.

This information might be useful at some point, to you or someone you know, now or in the future. So I feel the need to pass it along. Maybe it will save someone, in some way, sometime.

Without going into too many details, my brother was sent to one of these wilderness survival programs & in and out of boot camp/detention centers, and has now been in and out of jail for most of his early adult and now adult life. My mother was a member of ToughLove. Very sadly, it seems he is now "institutionalized" and a "career criminal", though I will never completely give up hope for him to make a better life for himself. He is also a drug addict. This current time around he has been in prison since 2004 and if he maxes out will be out in 2011. It's all extremely sad to me and cant be put into a nutshell. We have both been through our own hells; I just managed to take a different route than him and wound up in different sets of circumstances. I know most people will quickly judge, but I don't care. I want to put some information out there for parents and the teens they are raising or one day will be and may encounter these parent groups. Feel free to add your thoughts or any other useful info you may come across.

quote:

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By the '90s, tough love had spawned military-style boot camps and wilderness programs that thrust kids into extreme survival scenarios. At least three dozen teens have died in these programs, often because staff see medical complaints as malingering. This May, a 15-year-old boy died from a staph infection at a Colorado wilderness program. His family claims his pleas for help were ignored. In his final letter to his mother, he wrote, "They found my weakness and I want to go home."

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Trouble With ToughLove: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012800062_pf.html

posted February 07, 2009 09:16 PM         

Is she a moon in Capricorn? I saw you mention that in the other thread. My mom has that - she was huge on the whole Tough Love bandwagon, but I fought pretty hard and she got sidetracked with my other siblings who were MUCH younger. I wasn't involved in drugs, but I had bad grades and an attitude with her (not any other adult though, interestingly enough LOL).

I'm sorry about your brother

I'm not a parent, but I have a huge gap between my siblings and myself (from 12 years - 20 years) so I took care of them a lot when I was growing up. It doesn't make me a parent...though sometimes I just feel for kids. I'm all for discipline and order and good manners in kids, but some of this stuff is WAY harsh and just overlooks the human being, which I think is terrible...and obviously it can be really traumatic too.
Fanatical, really.

posted February 07, 2009 10:36 PM         

Sorry to hear about your situation too. Yes! I know what you mean about your natural attitude around everyone else, including other adults & it not being a problem. I'm the most easy-going, well mannered, polite person and that's something others notice and appreciate about me (especially when i was younger), but family dynamics can often be a difficult and different story.

That must have been difficult to take care of your siblings while you were growing up yourself. Kudos to you! It seems you have turned out more than alright!
Yes, fanatics can be very traumatizing people to grow up around.

posted February 08, 2009 09:57 PM         

http://www.libertarianrock.com/topics/teencamps/teencampsindex.html

http://www.teenliberty.org/An_American_GULAG.htm

Another:
http://www.nospank.net/boot.htm#n-h99

"If I can't make a kid puke or **** in his pants on his first day, I'm not doing my job." --A youth trainer at a juvenile facility

posted February 08, 2009 10:15 PM         

So often, parents mean well, and then...

This pulls at my heartstrings. Maybe one day we'll learn.

posted February 09, 2009 11:52 AM         

my father lobbied hard, though unsuccessfully, to send me to one these. scary.

there's been some casual talk lately of sending my husband's 16 year old son there too. He doesn't live with us, and his mother allows us little to no control over his life, but hopefully, if need be, some of this info will prove useful. I don't know if I would have even looked into it otherwise. thanks.

prayers for your brother, 26.
It's hard to watch, I know. Hard sometimes to trust in another soul's process.

posted February 09, 2009 12:24 PM         

I just dont see it as a helping option.

i think keeping communication open, loving despite short comings.

i am not a perfect parent with perfect kids. i am a human parent with human kids, some with issues and problems, some very focused. every child is different and has to be treated differently.

I just know tough love was not the answer for me. when my kids hurt, i hurt. purple hair doesn't matter, peircings and tatoo's? dont care. my son had a drug addiction a few years ago, and had i called the police, or made the situation worse by tough love tactics, i might not have been the one he called when going through painful withdrawl.

I mean, sometimes i wish the kids didnt talk to me about everything, somethings i would rather not know...but they know i am on thier side even right or wrong we will get through anything, and that is something i never had growing up, someone who listened and really tried to help. and like i said, my kids are not perfect and they are super awesome at getting caught at stuff.

posted February 09, 2009 05:18 PM         

It makes me wonder about the ranch I was planning on interning at before graduating and maybe work at after graduating. I've only heard good things but I guess it will be worth investigating.

I think tough love for anyone is usually a last ditch resort when the kid is already going to prison, but maybe some people with money send their kids to them when they are just in a little trouble. The kids on the shows were 13 year old girls saying things like, "So f-ing what that I F--- old men for money for my crack?!? I don't give an F about that B (mom) or what she f-ing says! I'll f-ing kill her!"

My ex bf from about 10 years ago probably should have went to a program like that. He never went to prison so he has a gun permit and many rifles some legal... some not. He put a pistol to his last girlfriend's head. He always used to tell me that some day he was going to sit at the top of a tower and snipe people. Then he would hold the imaginary rifle up to his eye and make sniper rifle bullet sounds. I left him because he tried to snap my neck.

I guess my mind is just doing the Libra thing now because those places don't jive with my spiritual happy hippie sesame street camp ideas but at the same time I have to say that there are young men out there who have been taught that the only authority is someone stronger than they are and sometimes it takes a drill sergeant to break their hard shell before they explore their gooey insides. For some kids its either drill sergeant camp or prison ass raping... so the scary guy making them cry or crap their pants is the better option when they reach that point.
Not that it isn't societies fault for allowing the atrocity that is the angry- hurt- beaten down- stressed out people having children and then teaching their children to be even more angry, hurt, beaten-down, and stressed and then THEY have children etc endless cycle of the sins of the father passed down generation after generation with no one caring and only judging etc etc ad nauseum...

but no one has figured out how to soothe this atrocity yet. But there are some who are trying.

posted February 09, 2009 05:51 PM         

I'm still a little in love with him.
He was a true teacher.
He's married to some Aries chick, has a little girl, and is still working at the same grocery store he was 12 years ago. But during his time he probably saved a boy or two from getting into an altercation with an authority figure which led to their arrest, or death, or to the deaths of others. He's a hero in my eyes.

posted February 09, 2009 06:01 PM         

edited....*barfing my stuff up on the forum isnt right, so i've cleaned it up.

quote:

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Sadly, tough love often looks as if it works: For one thing, longitudinal studies find that most kids, even amongst the most troubled, eventually grow out of bad behavior, so the magic of time can be mistaken for the magic of treatment. Second, the experience of being emotionally terrorized can produce compliance that looks like real change, at least initially.

The bigger picture suggests that tough love tends to backfire. My recent interviews confirm the findings of more formal studies. The Justice Department has released reports comparing boot camps with traditional correctional facilities for juvenile offenders, concluding in 2001 that neither facility "is more effective in reducing recidivism." In late 2004, the National Institutes of Health released a "state of the science" consensus statement, concluding that "get tough" treatments "do not work and there is some evidence that they may make the problem worse." Indeed, some young people leave these programs with post-traumatic stress disorder and exacerbations of their original problems.

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posted February 09, 2009 10:49 PM         

That's me on the right.

posted February 09, 2009 11:58 PM         

quote:

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You may be right about it being a last ditch resort for some, Melody. I don't know...I still, I think in most cases almost all of the fault can usually lie with the parenting and sending these kids off somewhere makes it worse for them. In our case, the whole "I was just doing the best I knew how." defense just doesnt fly with me anymore and is a flat out lie. The therapist I'm seeing now thinks I need to get angry. She continues to suggest it. About the situation with my mother and about my father. I've been thinking alot about this lately and I am angry. I'm also angry with a lot of the new age-y BS i filled my head up with over the years that really just worked at repressing it. Im in a weird place these days.

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posted February 10, 2009 10:45 AM         

lol at my funnnny self

it's true though, right?
I just never had good girlfriends and always had an abundance of a - hole men. Now that I have good girlfriends I can see the benefit of the occasional a - hole man experience.

Ok,
that's it.

(I was getting a little anal)

posted February 10, 2009 11:01 AM         

Thank you, Zala!!!

Mel, yeah, very true.
I know what you mean.

EDITED LATER TO ADD THIS LINK: http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/010806.html

posted February 20, 2009 06:57 PM         

Scroll ahead to 4:50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEkpcQkmsWQ&NR=1

Mourning the death of generational icon, Kurt Cobain,
his wife reads his suicide note aloud to a gathering of fans,
and, immediately afterwards, rebukes what she calls "80's tough love".

"It doesn't work."

posted February 20, 2009 11:27 PM         

Just a general comment to anyone or no one .... Around the time of Cobain's suicide, I wasn't practicing "tough love" with my very troubled best friend, who then proceeded to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills and cut open her wrists. My uncle and great uncle both died from complications due to a lifetime of unapologetic alchoholism. The mere mention of their addiction was taboo in my family. Polite euphemisms like "sick" replaced "drunk". Maybe if someone had stated the obvious .... maybe not.
It's sometimes difficult to know if and when compassion has become enabling and respect for someone else's choice was really just washing your hands. I honestly don't know.
I wonder if the issue is somehow different between two or more adults then it is between a parent and child.

quote:

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I think in most cases almost all of the fault can usually lie with the parenting and sending these kids off somewhere makes it worse for them. In our case, the whole "I was just doing the best I knew how." defense just doesnt fly with me anymore and is a flat out lie.

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I suppose some parents have better intentions than others, but I never really bought that "doing the best I could" defense either. Hindsight, and the passing of a lot of years, have allowed me to understand that my parents were very much at their wits end with me, but I saw it then as abandonment and, for the most, I still do.