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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

#201

Post by wintermutestwin »

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…

Trauma itself doesn't make you stronger, but learning to integrate and mitigate the impact of trauma absolutely does.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#202

Post by blindmute »

kyriee wrote: post #172
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why do you think that people "as they are" are the best thing for society to have? What about the people who are violent and employ tough love, as they are? Should they feel valid too?

Your premise of "everyone feels valid as they are" written directly alongside "[we should not promote] violence and tough love" betrays the contradiction. What you actually mean is we should strive for everyone to change themselves to be feminized and noncompetitive, and the people who are already this way should feel valid.

"The solution [to dealing with a bully] is communication and respect" is not based in reality. No bully has ever responded to communication. What they do respond to, and what society responds to, because we have had it ingrained in our brain stems for millions of years, is masculinity and assertiveness, backed by a (perceived) threat of violence. I'm sorry that you don't like this, but it cannot and I argue should not be changed, short of chemically poisoning everyone's testosterone levels with microplastics.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#203

Post by HDMI_Cable »

skrebbel wrote: post #181
detaro wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada the Indian Act allowed the state to force kids into such places until 2014 .

Do you know how often it was done in practice, lately? Ie did the law getting fixed stop the abuse, or did the abuse stop way earlier?

It was a pretty slow process I believe. By the 1970s, people already knew these residential schools to be bad, but the last one was closed in the 90s.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#204

Post by _y5hn »

torginus wrote: post #176
waterhouse wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

I read it as Ender successfully solved the problems that he were educated and grown into to solve, despite no known solution existing and while having to be creative and improvise in a "no win scenario".

The book is a critique, but more about wether it is good enough to be shaped by society, or how people shapes and make up society. When the latter is nearly non-existent, you end up with results such as in the first book.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#205

Post by shkkmo »

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…

How cam you reas that book and not think that the kida are abused and traumatized in horrific ways with minimal interest in the long term benefits to these kida? A core ethical question of this book is the degree to which the ends justify these means.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#206

Post by shkkmo »

bitL wrote: post #193
jessaustin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...most of our planet feels like a hellhole... Donnie, is that you?

Did you even read what I wrote or was this just a cheap reaction from minimal pattern matching? One could describe state of hellhole as something to avoid and help others to escape it/change it. In your case you went with the "prevent anyone from there to reach my blessed state" interpretation, more consistent with the Donnie.

I think it is equating the term "hellhole" with "shithole"...which seems pretty fair to me.

I think you haven't traveled widely enough or looked at the data and as a result are makinf broad and innacurate generalizations that do qualify as racist.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#207

Post by blindmute »

RobLach wrote: post #39

"When I was your age I got whooped all the time and I came out alright" says the parent who did not come out alright, left with an internalized belief that abusing children is totally fine.

Do you really think that for 5000 years, throughout which physical punishment was the norm, nobody was "alright"? And that only in the last 50 years of human existence have we started to realize how to raise children "correctly"?

We can ignore the swiftly rising depression rates among children for the sake of the argument.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#208

Post by belatw »

I know two very successful startup founders who were forced into bootcamps in Texas. One of which is a really honest, trustworthy, productive engineer.

The other is a masterful conman who has made 10s of millions of dollars as a developer “evangelist” who in the 20 years I’ve known him has never much launched a product or committed a line of code.

If you get a few coffees in him he’ll tell you, “It’s a huge scam. I don’t work. I get up on stage at 30 conferences or workshops per year and say the things the ‘thoughtleaders’ are saying, but with a devilish grin and a couple of sarcastic jokes.. and that’s why I live in a mansion”.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#209

Post by bjornsing »

blindmute wrote: post #199
brian_cunnie wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Trauma is like a sunburn. Adversity will give your brain a "tan", letting you handle worse adversity over time, but too much at once and it's trauma. The problem is that the kind of teens who go into these programs are often the equivalent of ghost pale, and get traumatized by even mild adversity.

That’s a good analogy. It also covers the increased sensitivity to additional trauma/adversity that it seems many people can’t understand: If you already have a serious sunburn then just a little more time in the sun, something you could normally handle, can cause a lot of pain and damage.
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