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Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

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Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#171

Post by tluyben2 »

anm89 wrote: post #40

I went to one of these places when I was 13. Same thing, picked up in the middle of the night, and sent to a wilderness program that turned into 18 months of boarding school. The school was burnt down by the students a few years after I left and I got a couple thousand dollars in a class action lawsuit when it came out that they were hiring unlicensed therapists and admitting students who should have been in intensiv…

Maybe your parents could have instilled those same qualities in you without the crazy shit?

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#172

Post by kyriee »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #143
watwut wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was rewatching shows from 1990 and so on lately. One of surprising observations was that "tough love" came up multiple times, always as positive. There is something appealing about tough no nonsense solutions to people with authoritarian tendencies. And there is ignorance about how bad it can get in isolated communities where weaker individuals have no where to escape.

When growing up as a teenage male, there was a turning point in my mental development. I was sitting in class cracking jokes when this jerk kid stood up and punched me in the back of the head. I didn't know how to respond, so I just sat there. I was an out of shape kid who would have definitely lost. That event changed me. In the weeks and months ahead, anger and shame in my response led to a focused and intentional…

Your response to that problematic event seems like dealing with trauma and some of the words you use like “our society has become […] significantly more feminized” seem to indicate some of those issues are still unresolved.

While I appreciate that you turned this into a positive, I don’t think violence and tough love is something we should promote, celebrate or even tolerate as a society.

Here is a crazy thought: how about we strive to create a space where everyone feels valid as they are, where they feel that have a space where they can contribute, rather than make people feel like they have to toughen up in order to “take charge” or forcefully “making space” for themselves by forcing others to follow their will.

The guy hitting you was not an appropriate response, neither is you possibly disrupting class by cracking jokes. The solution is communication and respect. Getting buff and letting a culture of “boys will be boys” prevail is not.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#173

Post by tluyben2 »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #169
bjornsing wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I look back on it as one of the most valuable experiences in my life, not because there was any validity to the program but because it just confronted me with a lot of intense challenges at a young age that really developed my critical thinking and mindset at a young age. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Problem is, it does “kill”* some people. (*) Sometimes literally, but probably more often figuratively.

I asked a psychologist (Dr. Judith Bernstein) if it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and she answered unequivocally, "Trauma never makes you stronger." In a similar vein, with respect to "there are no atheists in foxholes", A three-tour-of-duty-in-Vietnam captain in the US Army (Harry McMenamin) said, "I was an atheist when I was in Vietnam, and I was in a lot of foxholes. There are atheists in f…

There are many atheists in foxholes: actually a lot of people lost/lose their faith in a foxhole. How can you think deity exists in any, but especially, a crap situation?

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#174

Post by woofie11 »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #169
bjornsing wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I look back on it as one of the most valuable experiences in my life, not because there was any validity to the program but because it just confronted me with a lot of intense challenges at a young age that really developed my critical thinking and mindset at a young age. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Problem is, it does “kill”* some people. (*) Sometimes literally, but probably more often figuratively.

I asked a psychologist (Dr. Judith Bernstein) if it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and she answered unequivocally, "Trauma never makes you stronger." In a similar vein, with respect to "there are no atheists in foxholes", A three-tour-of-duty-in-Vietnam captain in the US Army (Harry McMenamin) said, "I was an atheist when I was in Vietnam, and I was in a lot of foxholes. There are atheists in f…

Psychologists mostly mirror the cultural values they're raised in. A lot of historical figures contradict the prevailing narrative.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#175

Post by wayoutthere »

tluyben2 wrote: post #170

This should be illegal: it is inhumane and weird. Parents sending kids there are weirdos imho. They had (do not know if that is still the case) something similar in France. My cousin committed suicide after being sent there. People are insane sometimes.

Parents do this because on some level they feel resentful of the kid’s needs of them and want to push the hard work of being a parent on to someone else. The parents also tend to be in a narcissistic / enabler dynamic, so it really is all about them and solving their inconvenience, not the kid’s best interest.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#176

Post by torginus »

waterhouse wrote: post #74
anm89 wrote: post #40

I went to one of these places when I was 13. Same thing, picked up in the middle of the night, and sent to a wilderness program that turned into 18 months of boarding school. The school was burnt down by the students a few years after I left and I got a couple thousand dollars in a class action lawsuit when it came out that they were hiring unlicensed therapists and admitting students who should have been in intensiv…

My reaction to these kinds of things (see also: the abuse of the Battle School students in Ender's Game ) is to think: (1) Perhaps it was the best way to teach certain things; but (2) I don't think the people who do such things usually rule out all the gentler methods first. It sounds like the "challenges" weren't necessarily intended to teach you what you learned, and you just happened to have a mind and mindset tha…

I think Ender's Game is the most compassionate protest against this kind of thinking - it is a thought experiment that demonstrates that with the right environment, even the most intelligent can be taught to use their skills in an utilitarian and amoral way - the book ends with Ender becoming the worst mass murderer in the history of the human race, despite representing the moral middle ground between his monstrous brother and his saintly sister. The later books are about him trying to undo the damage he did.

I don' think the author intended the readership to see Battle School as an ideal form of education.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#177

Post by bitL »

arcturus17 wrote: post #157
bitL wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I traveled around the world and spent some time in Brazil. Look e.g. at Rio de Janeiro - a small "city" with a few luxurious somewhat safe neighborhoods like Ipanema and Gavea, then a bit more seedy Copacabana, then a Maputo-style Centro, and all this surrounded by slums that take about 20x the size of the core Rio, including the famous "Zona Morte" a foreign tourist sees first when arriving via the international air…

I volunteered as a teacher in Honduras, embedded in a piss-poor shanty town near La Ceiba that was once ravaged by hurricane Mitch, and while I saw some horror stories (ex: one of my pupils had a forced abortion b/c her partner kicked her), I still believe that about 95% of people lived decent, happy lives and not the constant oppressive existence you describe. I've also travelled across Africa, and have seen plenty,…

I don't think it's defeatist at all - it's realistic, I am not putting on rosy glasses but see the reality as it is. Even the people you saw living happily at the moment are in a high risk of experiencing a massive trauma that would scar them for the rest of their lives as their environment can change abruptly. If you want to change something for the better, you need to understand what is the exact state right now. At least we agree on the amount of work that needs to be done.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#178

Post by tluyben2 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #175
tluyben2 wrote: post #170

This should be illegal: it is inhumane and weird. Parents sending kids there are weirdos imho. They had (do not know if that is still the case) something similar in France. My cousin committed suicide after being sent there. People are insane sometimes.

Parents do this because on some level they feel resentful of the kid’s needs of them and want to push the hard work of being a parent on to someone else. The parents also tend to be in a narcissistic / enabler dynamic, so it really is all about them and solving their inconvenience, not the kid’s best interest.

Yes, which is a better way of wording this even more negative. Which it should be. There is no upside imho. It is hired bullies as a service hired by parents.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#179

Post by ganzuul »

bjornsing wrote: post #155
dash2 wrote: post #68

My first thought: wow, the US is crazy, I’m glad they don’t have this in the UK! Then I remembered that I was at a famous boarding school for five years, the most miserable years of my life. Thirty years later I’m still coping with the aftereffects. I think of that place as a form of institutionalised child abuse, and frankly if someone pipebombed it, I would not shed a tear. One simple thing: it wasn’t authoritarian…

> One guy, who I think was genuinely evil, took psychology as a minor subject. As an experiment, he decided to drive another, younger, vulnerable pupil mad. Gaslighting him, messing with his head, that kind of stuff. And he succeeded! I’ve seen grownups engage in this kind of abuse too. It’s incredibly disturbing, almost a legal (or very hard to prove) kind of homicide... But what can you do about it, other than try…

You don't have to prove it but you do have to stand up for the victim. Otherwise you enable the abuse.

You would be surprised how often people react positively when you stand up for someone.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#180

Post by germinalphrase »

candiodari wrote: post #128
andrei_says_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most child soldiers’ mental health is ruined for life. A model of obedience and desensitization achieved through abuse followed by committing unspeakable atrocities is not a great formula for making good citizens. What kind of twisted mental gymnastics convinces the creators of these programs that their programs are anything but harmful?

Psychology. (Ortho)pedagogues. Even some psychiatrists. It's incentives versus how human minds work. https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/article23820... You see, if you look things up you will find that psychology is good at exactly what you'd expect it to be good at if you look at their methods: describing behavior "in the large". Think "Of 100 drug addicts, 10 will commit crimes due to drugs", those typ…

IDK, man… I know you’ve created a whole narrative here to conflate child soldiers and CPS/psychologists, but I’ve known several people who do CPS work here in Minnesota and the situations that get kids removed from a home are either chronic neglect, abuse and/or intense and actively harmful (like: kids chained to radiators in the basement). Even when kids are removed, the law actively requires the child go to a blood relative if possible (and returned to their parent as soon as possible). We’re not sending them west on orphan trains anymore.
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