Sending your child away

[Liberal_in_LA]

Sending your child away
When parents feel overwhelmed in dealing with a problem adolescent, a costly boarding program may seem like the only way out. Making such a decision can be scary and humbling.

This past summer, a couple in Northern California paid two imposing men to come into their home at 4 in the morning, handcuff their 17-year-old daughter and force her into a car headed for the airport. After months of threats, the parents had enrolled her in what's called a therapeutic wilderness program, where she would hike three to five miles a day with a 25-pound pack, learn to make a fire with two sticks and theoretically transform from a manipulative teenager who cursed out her mom and dad and had started failing in school back into a young woman they could live with. Six months later, the daughter still has nightmares about being taken from her bed in the middle of the night, but when recounting the story over the phone, her mother calmly said, "I would do it all over again in a heartbeat."

Parents in the South Bay relayed a similar story. They had found a large handful of unprescribed Xanax on their 16-year-old son's dresser, and suddenly the moody behavior and the days spent locked in his room started to make sense. Their son didn't want to go to rehab, he didn't believe it would work and he didn't want his parents to spend the money. He talked about running away to Portland, Ore. And so they too hired a transport service -- the son referred to them as "the big, scary men" -- and after the parents woke up their son (also at 4 in the morning) and told him that they loved him and that they were doing what they thought was best, they watched him pull out of the driveway in a car driven by strangers, the son's middle finger raised in the air.

There are times -- emotionally exhausting and agonizing times -- when parents realize that something in the family system has gone horribly awry and that for a kid's safety and future, the son or daughter is better off living somewhere else. It is a terrible decision to have to make -- one that is scary, expensive and humbling. So what makes a parent do it?

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-parentology14-2009nov14,0,3412672.story

[mzmolly]

1. I think it's fine to send children into a wilderness program, but not without

the child's consent.

[EFerrari]

4. No kid who is self-medicating at home in the cocoon of family and friends

is ever going to consent to that.

And these "wilderness programs" -- does anyone regulate them? Is there any data that show they are effective? I don't think so. It's like the diet industry -- frustrated people throwing money at a problem. :(

[mzmolly]

28. I recently read a book ...

http://www.amazon.com/Against-Medical-Advice-Struggle-Agonizing/dp/0316024759

The book above is based upon a true story. The child featured told the story, and he felt that Wilderness Camp was very beneficial in his case. He had a sense of great accomplishment when all was said and done. Described it as life changing. That said, I don't know if they're regulated and anyone considering such a program would have to do serious research before thrusting their child into a situation like this. Every child is different as well and I can't imagine that every program would work for every child.

I did find a bit of info from a research perspective: http://obhic.com/research/ if you're interested in checking it out?

I certainly have not made up my mind about every program available, but I can't imagine not giving my child any consent if we were ever in such a situation.

[EFerrari]

29. Teens who are addicted require very careful planning and handling.

The desire to go to such a camp to dry out and get somewhere new mentally would be a great goal. But if there's no family component, if the staff isn't all on the same tightly coordinated page, I don't see how such a program would be more than a rest for the family back home because it sets the child up to fail when they get back home among all their triggers.

[mzmolly]

34. I'm sure you're right. The family in this story was very supportive.

I hope all is well for your child these days?

[EFerrari]

37. The tricky part is that the family has to try to manage moving

from being supportive to being active in rehabing the family. It's easier to get cats to sing on cue, mzmolly. lol

My "child" is in his thirties now so all of that was about 15 years ago. Yikes, where does time go? :)

[mzmolly]

39. So glad your son had a good outcome.

No doubt, in large part due to your efforts. :) Indeed, time flies!

[EFerrari]

40. I still have one that's out there but that didn't happen for him

until he was an adult, a whole 'nother kettle.

My kids got their stuff from all sides in their genes. Three of their grandparents had trouble with addiction and as far back as I can trace. Not me or my ex although, I don't know why, to be honest. Maybe these families need one generation every so often that don't go out just to keep the line going? I don't know.

But my heart goes out to any family dealing with drug use, abuse or addiction in their teens. Those years are hard enough with out that.

[Cleita]

41. Back in my day the parents of incorrigible children, who could afford it, sent

them to boarding school. It was the convent for girls (even non-catholics, read about Christina Crawford in "Mommie Dearest") and military academy for boys. Sometimes it helped and sometimes it made them worse, but at least the schools fell under some sort of regulations and the local school board. The poor kids were either sent to juvie hall, even though they committed no crime, if the parents requested it, or were pushed into the army if they were old enough. I find these wilderness schools to be devoid of even the checks and balances that the above institutions were subject to. It seems that today, enlightened parents should try to get their kids into therapy to try to find out what is at the bottom of the behavior problems and then deal with them from there. I never had kids so I really shouldn't speculate and I don't know the depths of agony parents are going through.

[EFerrari]

2. As many parents who have dealt with an addicted teenager know

there comes a point when you know you have to do something or your kid is going to die. That being said, I could never have sent my kid off somewhere where I couldn't check on him or on the staff of people I was trusting him to. That's a set up, imho.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. I agree

I think that the parents should do something but I would be very careful about which place I was sending my child. I have heard horror stories about some of those places. Some of those places can be physically violent.

[EFerrari]

8. The other piece is: the idea that you can send your kid away to be fixed

is bullshit. The kid may have problems but the whole family needs to be involved in the process. The whole family needs to make adjustments because no matter how well Kid does in whatever rehab, coming home to the same old thing will have the Same Old Results.

My .02 worth, anyway.

[wordpix]

11. you're right--the whole family needs to be counseled

I am friendly with a woman who I don't see that much because her husband is an alcoholic. All their kids have major problems with hard drugs, failing school and/ or mental problems. She is beside herself with grief and so is the husband, and they go for counseling but he doesn't stop drinking. When the kids come home from rehab or the mental hospital, it's the same thing---they come home to a raving alcoholic father and all that entails in the home. Nothing will get better for the kids without his stopping drinking. And she puts up with it, sometimes by smoking too much pot.

[EFerrari]

13. I did two years worth of rehab with my oldest kid.

So did my ex, so did his brother, so did both his grandmothers and his uncle, my brother. We were in it to save a life and the results were amazing. But it wasn't easy and it was a lot of work and it was almost always upsetting, lol. The family is a feedback loop. You can't fix one part and just shove it back into a messed up system, no matter how much you'd like to.

[varelse]

36. If I could recommend replies

I would rec this one. :thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

44. When you really know the work involved

it's no surprise that some people look at a glossy brochure and want to believe it will work, is it?

To my dear, great kid and to the great people really applying the seat of their brains to their families. :toast:

[SoCalDem]

19. In our son's case, the state intervened when he went joyriding in a stolen car

he was a passenger, but since he had amassed quite a juvenile record of stupid stuff he could not stop from doing (and always getting caught), he ended up doing 8 months at a "state run youth facility"( @$87.00 a day charged to us)..just this side of jail.. It was in a wilderness type setting, but not the camping out stuff.

This is a kid who tested 165 IQ when we tried to get him into the gifted program.. he was rejected because he refused to follow rules..

He was one of THREE "anglo" kids at this place..there were crips, bloods, & some asian & central american gangsters there, and he was a model citizen there, liked by all and a "pet student" of the staffers & shrinks.. He always did well when he was in a "lock-down" situation, but in any other setting, where he had ANY opportunity for choice, he always chose badly.

It's sad, but we always thought that "success' for Michael, would be being alive at 21. We did have faith that once he grew up, he would "grow up"..and luckily he did.. There were so many times we could have lost him.. He's now almost 32, and doing fine..a law-abiding, contributing citizen..but what a wild ride he took us all on:(

[EFerrari]

25. I can't tell you clearly enough how much I know what you mean.

I didn't age "overnight" but inside, maybe. It was the longest, most unexpected, costly, exhausting period ever.

[vadawg]

3. rofl just the vision of the 16 year old with the finger....

i know that many thing a 17 year old is still a child, i disagree. i wouldnt have done this program this way but she wouldnt be living in my house if she was behaving badly...

[liberal_at_heart]

7. just sending them out in the world doesn't always work

I had lots of dysfunctional friends who when thrown out of the house just ended up doing drugs, getting fired from minimum wage jobs, and getting thrown out of whatever trashy apartment they were in at the time.

[vadawg]

12. mayby but at what age would you throw them out into the world

i dont get people who have their kids still living with them in their 20's, never mind their late teens...

[EFerrari]

14. So, what do you make of extended families that live together for generations

Think of all the options you'd have for a beer run.

lol

More seriously, they're finding that our brains aren't even done until we're in our early 20s. That makes a lot of sense to me. Most people in my family are pretty successful AND late bloomers. But, the family just hung with them as long as it took.

[vadawg]

15. different courses for different horses, we go out into the world

and then usually come back into the family group at a later date, just depends on the individual when they come back, but we dont stay all through our teens at home, thats the time when you go out into the world t find who you are....

[EFerrari]

16. I agree. And a teen who is needing chemical enhancement to get it done

ain't ready. They have some kind of tab somewhere that needs to get paid off first.

[vadawg]

18. thing is we agree to a certain extent. But even if they want to use its part of the growing up

especially as their father i cant intervene in the decisions my kids make when the time comes, they gotta go out and find who they are, even if it means they make mistakes or worse...

[EFerrari]

21. Agree there, too. As parents, though, we have to figure out

the difference between a kid who is just making their way out there and blowing it sometimes like we all do and a kid who is not and who can't without going back a oouple of steps -- sort of like retraining -- before they can move on. I had one of each. And when I tried to handle one like I handled the other one, it didn't work.

It's not an easy call, imho, and these damn kids don't come with a manual.

[vadawg]

23. lol your kids sound like me and my sister, she went out got a husband, travelled and came back

i was a different case, i guess every kid is different and its pretty cool there is no manual, i would hate to think that they were all the same :)

[EFerrari]

9. Isn't putting your minor child out on the street a crime?

[vadawg]

27. depends where you are i suppose, and the age of majority

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Addiction is one thing, but the parents who have to resort to boot camp for a

teen who is merely difficult may be the same ones who were unable to keep their two-year-old from destroying everything in his/her path.

[EFerrari]

10. This whole tough love bs has gotten completely out of hand.

I'd dearly like to see any evidence that it works on acting out teenagers.

[niyad]

17. apart from some of the excellent suggestions in response to this post, possibly sending the child

to a real boarding school--but letting the child know what is going on-- being abducted at 4 am seems like abuse to me. and I have heard enough about these "wilderness programs" to know that most of them need to be shut down. run by real sickos.

[riderinthestorm]

20. Okay, I'll fess up. I'm a long time DUer with a niece who's had a similar experience.

Her mother, a very, very progressive woman had increasing difficulties with her teenage daughter. Drugs, prostitution, alcohol dependency (which scared the crap out of the mother since there was a lot of alcoholics in the family) etc. etc

While I don't know the dynamics of how she got her daughter to the Outward Bound camp, she managed to get her into their wilderness program for troubled teens. I don't think there was a physical stranger abduction but I do think it was something close and similar.

It was life changing. The girl was transformed. She is a vegan chef, a homeschooling mom, a true progressive in every sense of the word. She's off drugs and rarely touches alcohol (10+ years now). An amazing person.

I can't say enough about it.

I think that taking a child out of their "element" and dropping them into something so totally, utterly "different" where they HAVE to cope, and change, and reflect, and figure things out in the most elemental way, CAN be transformative. Programs like Outward Bound aren't schlocky, they "get" how nature can transfigure a person.

I'll also say I'm a farmer. I've had a LOT of teens work for me over the past 25 years. Hard work putting up hay or working in the garden, outdoor tasks like painting the barn or mucking stalls, grooming horses, riding... working for me changes teens who come from a suburban environment.

[vadawg]

22. yup i agree with the working the farm thing, i worked in my early teens on a few farms

loved it, and ive seen the changes in some of the juvies who ive seen shipped off to work farms etc...

[LWolf]

31. Outward Bound is for everyone,

The have a division for at-risk youth, but it's part of the overall expeditionary learning experience.

Outward Bound? Positive, according to those I know who've participated.

Wilderness bootcamps? Not always. Our local wilderness bootcamp killed a kid this summer:

http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=11355998

And another alternative school owned by the parent company closed:

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091104/NEWS0107/911040390/1001/NEWS01&nav_category=NEWS01

[Robb]

32. Outward Bound has been an amazingly good program for a very long time. nt

[aikoaiko]

24. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measure

I don't know anything about the program in the story, but I worked for an outdoor adventure residency program who mostly took in DOC or DES kids. The first part of the program was tough as nails boot camp type of regimen that was followed by a much nicer half-way house placement. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but I know the boys I worked with learned how to take care of themselves in terms of the basics of life.

Handcuffs in the middle of the night sounds a little over the top.

[Withywindle]

26. Do you know how many teens have DIED at these unregulated "bootcamp" programs?

Quite a few, over the years. These programs tend to be notoriously insensitive to issues like heatstroke and undiagnosed medical problems that present themselves violently under sudden physical duress. They also are, almost universally, paramilitary, cultish, and fascist.


Even if the kid survives, how is being woken out of bed at 4 AM by "big men" from some nebulous "program" and dragged off any way less psychologically traumatic than any other kidnapping? If the parents paid for it and condoned it--even worse! S/he knows there is NO ONE s/he can trust, which only reinforces the problems that led to this in the first place!

If the kid is addicted to drugs or alcohol (addicted, not just self-medicating or recreationally using), then s/he needs a legitimate medical rehab program. If the kid is committing crimes (REAL crimes, not the sort of thing that wouldn't be a crime if the kid was an adult), then s/he needs to face the consequences in juvenile court. If the kid is sexually promiscuous, then s/he needs stern counseling about safer sex and self-respect. If the kid is violent and abusive to the parents, then the parents need to make a domestic violence call to the police and accept what comes of it.

The 16-year-old Portland kid? Still a minor. His parents still have the authority to have him committed into a real hospital rehab program. That's what they should have done.

What exactly was wrong with the 17-year-old girl, except for cussing our her parents and being rude? That is NORMAL in a teenager. If you don't want to experience that, don't have kids! Not all teens are like that, but enough of them are that parents ought to know this is a good possibility, and ought to be prepared with better possibilities than having her kidnapped and traumatized. (I doubt she feels any more kindly disposed towards her parents than she did before...)

[Shagbark Hickory]

30. These are complicated decisions that I'm thankful I don't have to make.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Midlodemocrat]

35. Oh. Dear. God.

*face palm*

Why not just take them down to a Kill Shelter and have them put to sleep? It's quicker than this treatment.

[JVS]

38. Good idea!

[Liberal_in_LA]

42. I know. I realized parents sent troublesome kids away, didn't realize they paid thugs to

hustle the kids off.

[Midlodemocrat]

43. It's probably the biggest mistake you could make as a parent.

There are other avenues besides abandoning your child.