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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

#261

Post by RobLach »

blindmute wrote: post #207
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.

Do you have a justification for implying that adolescent depression stems from the lack of abuse? I'd point to half a dozen potential other reasons that immediately spring to mind.

And, to answer your first 2 questions: yes.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#262

Post by npteljes »

bitL wrote: post #125
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…

I'd say that's how childhood looks like for the majority of people on this planet outside of the first-world protective umbrella. Imagine growing up in war-torn Africa, drug-ridden slums of South America or fanatical Middle East with daily executions.

I think prevalence doesn't lessen the trauma. And the existence and prevalence of "worse" things doesn't either.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#263

Post by npteljes »

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.

Weird shouldn't be illegal, in fact, the opposite should happen. The more weirdness can peacefully coexist, the better. Inhumane, on the other hand, absolutely. The fringes of society are under constant abuse, and it's a sad state of affairs, given that much of this abuse is straight-up illegal already, just not enforced as much on the fringes.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#264

Post by npteljes »

blindmute wrote: post #207
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.

There are beautiful flowers growing in the cracks of the asphalt, but that doesn't mean that it's the best place for them to grow.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#265

Post by npteljes »

xvilka wrote: post #110

No matter the reason only sick, crazy parents would do that to their kids. They should either lose their parenting rights or forced to take a psychological treatment themselves.

Desperation plays a bigger role I think. And you just can't trust any institution to handle "parenting rights". There's no easy way out of this issue.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#266

Post by candiodari »

candiodari wrote: post #228
orwin wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially with kids, the problem is the environment. Generally not the home environment, but the school. Yeah, no. I'm not living in the US so maybe you really have a weird bully culture like it was showed in TV shows ten years ago, but no, generally its the home environment. Some children DO have issues with schools and schoolwork, but the broken children i took care of when i was a youth camp counselor were brok…

Whether children were wrongly placed is not a matter of whether there's a reason at all, but a matter of whether the kids are better off like this. This has been researched and the answer is largely no. I would also like to point out those kids are repeating what social workers tell them to avoid trouble. At least half of it isn't true. I want to repeat what I said before. It isn't because home situations are great.…

See for example the largest study on CPS ever:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583

Or it's popular summary "Troubled homes better than foster care":

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-02-foste...

And let's not forget just how bad the reputation of CPS is where it comes to getting things wrong. Some studies claim that false accusations of child abuse, because there is no standard of proof for taking the kids away (only for locking up the perpetrators), that the false diagnoses and false accusations far outnumber the true ones.

And like anyone who's seen an orphanage (they don't like to be called that anymore) and half of all foster homes knows. Seeing damaged kids in those places is perfectly normal: those places damage kids. These places are not hospitals, where patients come in damaged and get fixed. These places damage kids, they don't fix them. They're more like the ragged pillow at the bottom of a half-pipe, a catchment area for broken bones, doing MUCH more to protect the reputation of the rest of the system than preventing or helping with injuries.

And the horrible thing about such places is that they effectively prevent the kids from having a future (they have extremely bad schools, no alternatives, limited learning materials, ...), but throw them out at 18 years (and please: 21 years or even something ridiculous like 45 years would NOT be better). Please stop pretending that after 10 years where crime (from stealing from other kids to dealing drugs) is the only way to get even a trivial little extra, no-one would remain clean.

That only happens in protected settings. And the sad truth is that even very bad parents still provide a very protected setting for kids.

Besides, these places, for the large majority they don't even try: treatment, though often the very reason kids get taken away, effectively doesn't happen in such places. Just 1 underpaid person, often without any qualifications, per 15 or 20 kids, and some director "handling" 20 groups. That's all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Term_12

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Crasher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Family

Please note: "System Crasher" is the more realistic of these movies (especially "Instant Family" is extremely toned down, I can guarantee a kid doesn't just shout 2 sentences if they fear everything they have will be taken away. They fight and scream and cry and kick and ... for 2 months).

If you watch "System Crasher" 5 times you will even start to see WHAT is happening. This kid made a mistake. Mistake lead to reputation (ie. to school teacher at the very least pestering her), which escalated matters. Help, effectively meant using violence against the child and more and more fear. And of course, the kid never gets any say, and therefore never learns WHY one needs control over oneself. This escalates and escalates and escalates BECAUSE OF YOUTH SERVICES. If they refused to intervene in the beginning of the problem, the odds of it just blowing over were very, very high, as the kid and parents would be forced to self-regulate their relationship. That would have happened, and at that point there would no longer have been a problem. And, frankly, it's hard to argue that any tactic, other than what was done, was worse, given the outcome.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#267

Post by woofie11 »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #185
woofie11 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> A lot of historical figures contradict the prevailing narrative [that trauma never makes you stronger]. I'd argue that the key word here is "trauma"; I think _adversity_ can make you stronger (more disciplined, and more focused), but I think that Dr. Bernstein is using the word "trauma" in its technical, medical, sense, i.e. "Psychological trauma is caused by an adverse experience, or series of experiences, that re…

I would look up the life history of Temüjin, Viktor Frankl, and others. Seriously. Do a quick web search.

There is a circular definition here. If we define trauma in terms of harmful outcomes, it's bad by definition, but that's arguing semantics and not psychology. The slipperiness comes in when we switch definitions mid-paragraph.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#269

Post by ksaj »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #254
yarcob wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Productive masculine behavior is shamed nowadays Can you list some examples for that? It just doesn't match my experience. When people complain about masculine behavior, it's never the productive kind.

Jumping at the opportunity to lead and fighting (figuratively) to spar with the instructor first seems like behavior that some would find heroic and others would find unfair. (note that boys that behave this way in elementary school are mostly advised to take medication to calm down and behave like their female classmates).

They say Ritalin is prescribed primarily for the teachers.

It doesn't really help the student all that much since they go from hyper, attention-seeking and not paying attention to stagnant, inhibited and disinterested (and still not paying attention).

I believe it does work for its purpose, but the dose is usually much too high and had to be taken often enough (it only lasts 3 to 4 hours) that the kid is pretty much constantly peaking then coming down.

Eventually they did create "extended release" tablets that probably fix that issue, so my experience may no longer apply.

Re: Troubled teens left traumatised by tough love camps

#270

Post by ksaj »

aaron-santos wrote: post #224
bjornsing wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also covers the case where repeated sunburns increase ones chances of malignant cancers.

I think you just hit the nail on the head.

My family is forever destroyed from "tough love." I'm in my 50's and we still don't talk except for exchanging cards with the parents at various appropriate times throughout the year. They've apologized, but the scars are very deep.

We grew so distant that it is no longer repairable, and so we at least maintain that very distant relationship. I don't communicate in any way with the siblings since "tough love" taught me to despise them. Obviously I don't despise them any more, but the damage is done, and quite thoroughly.

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