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When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

nytimes.com

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Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#131

Post by DiggyJohnson »

noduerme wrote: post #103
unityByFreedom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author writes, > I was reckless, taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class That may be after 16 years of doing outrageous things to get attention at home. Some psychologists in the 1950s [1] suggested kids will do whatever gets them attention while striving for a way to participate in the family. That can include bad behavior. If they don't receive attention for good behavior, then…

>> maybe your family did effectively use positive discipline, or you were an only child, or you were the "good" one in your family. You omit the many sadly common cases for legitimate rebellion and escape, such as sexual abuse from stepparents or foster parents. Those unfortunately can't be remedied with "positive discipline" and they don't make a child the "bad" one.

Are you extending the conversation on purpose? Sexual abuse and trauma don’t seem to weigh into this story at all.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#132

Post by DiggyJohnson »

pc86 wrote: post #45
wolverine876 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do these cases not result in mass prosecutions? In Luzerne County, PA, judges were paid off by local juvenile detention centers to sentence kids there. Over years, they sentenced many, many kids, in court, for absurdities (e.g., I think one kid was sentenced for throwing a sandwich at their teacher). Much of the court system and local legal community had to know; nobody put a stop to it. Judicial conduct boards…

I don't think "the IT community" (is there even such a thing) has any sort of power where corruption in the traditional sense can even exist. Something like Kids for Cash is an institutional failing and requires the concerted effort and coordination of multiple, theoretically unrelated - or even opposed - parties that all have a lot of institutional power rarely found outside of government. Even huge multinational co…

The Middle Ground is wide open my friend. Try and land there, and consider that this reply seems to forget it’s existence.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#133

Post by DiggyJohnson »

wolverine876 wrote: post #59
lubujackson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "system" isn't a vague boogeyman but the product of individual decisions that funnel things in aggregate to a certain conclusion. Think of how birds fly in a "V" formation, something emergent from each bird following the same simple rules. A teen not abiding by the boundaries of society may be dealt with in a way that seems viciously over-reactive because maintaining order is the entire focus of each element of t…

We're not birds or beasts acting on instinct; they don't invent democracy and form judicial systems. The system is not somewhere else, it's not something else, it's not someone else, it's sitting in front of your computer right now.

We are literally beasts that invented justice and democracy. This is a reasonable interpretation of a constrained view of these things. Such is my view.

That said, I agree wholeheartedly with the conclusion in the second paragraph.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#134

Post by DiggyJohnson »

wolverine876 wrote: post #37
erdos4d wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe that the judges and prosecutors who send kids to these abuse factories don't now they are going to harm the child? That's why they do this, they like to hurt/intimidate/damage people, that's literally all their jobs do all day long. Why would they go along with prosecuting people who were performing the abuse they wanted done? I'm sorry but these places have been out in the open since they first…

We can think of other populations that consistently tell stories of abuse, over generations, and are downplayed and denied - today, yesterday, even here on HN.

Not really following, unless you mean in a general sense that this happens all the time, all over the world.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#135

Post by moffkalast »

Gareth321 wrote: post #114
unityByFreedom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author writes, > I was reckless, taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class That may be after 16 years of doing outrageous things to get attention at home. Some psychologists in the 1950s [1] suggested kids will do whatever gets them attention while striving for a way to participate in the family. That can include bad behavior. If they don't receive attention for good behavior, then…

>"Today, many psychologists suggest using positive discipline" From Wikipedia: >"It is based on the idea that there are no bad children, just good and bad behaviors." Given the fact that we've known for decades now that behaviour is roughly 50% nature (and 50% nurture), this foundational (implied) premise is unequivocally and demonstrably incorrect. Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. Th…

> I don't think it's a surprise that we now see an epidemic of kids with mental health problems

To be fair, it's likely those mental health problems were there with most generations but went undiagnosed.

We don't have a pandemic of cancer today, people just used to die from other shit before it got to them.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#136

Post by DiggyJohnson »

newaccount74 wrote: post #127
fsckboy wrote: post #91

> When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged There's a chicken egg problem here: when you were labeled a troubled teen, you already were a troubled teen. What happened to you after was bad, but it wasn't all peaches and cream before. Finding the appropriate way to deal with troubled teens (even if it did start with poor parenting) is not easy, and this discussion seems like a one-sided caricature.

The discussion is one sided because the practice is so horrible that there is no way to defend it. There are a lot of other ways to deal with non-conforming teenagers that do not involve kidnapping, isolation and brainwashing.

Pedantry incoming, I have no serious criticism of your comment. I just think it’s interesting that we seem to agree but I thought your word choice was interesting.

Non-conforming is a funny word to use for this, so I’ll rephrase for clarity to represent a bit of a middle ground:

Even shitty kids should not be kidnapped or psychologically abused.

Brainwashing has lost all its bite in this day in age. I’m coming around to the opinion/usage that something as innocuous as public school can reasonably be understood to engage in the “brainwashing” of children. Same is true with ‘isolation, ‘surely, or is ‘No Recess’ no longer the most effective elementary school disciplinary tool?

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#137

Post by orwin »

girvo wrote: post #70
arthurofbabylon wrote: post #68

Stories about these institutions get conflated into a mess that scarcely resembles the reality. In a way, this is inevitable with a wide variety of schools and treatment centers, and a yet wider variety of perspectives. This particular story tells us little about these schools – it describes the perspective of a student, a client. This is valuable and I'm grateful to read it. However, I caution other readers against…

I have a question. Do these programs exist in other countries? A cursory search (I honestly am not sure what I should be looking for) couldn't find any here in Australia. Is this a uniquely American thing? Surely not, I assume. If it's not, do these programs have the same horrible stories coming out of them elsewhere, and if they don't, does that not paint a picture that the approach taken in the US isn't a good one?…

I france, this allegedly doesn't exist, but we have some private schools that use some of the tactics GP and OP describe (especially isolement). Mostly highschools aimed to late teens, "luckily".

They might do better on test, so there is that, but they also have classes of 20 max, unlike most public and most other private but les stringent schools. I think this is 90% of their success (i can elaborate on that but this is personnal anecdata, not a all something to be taken seriously)

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#138

Post by johnbatch »

girvo wrote: post #70
arthurofbabylon wrote: post #68

Stories about these institutions get conflated into a mess that scarcely resembles the reality. In a way, this is inevitable with a wide variety of schools and treatment centers, and a yet wider variety of perspectives. This particular story tells us little about these schools – it describes the perspective of a student, a client. This is valuable and I'm grateful to read it. However, I caution other readers against…

I have a question. Do these programs exist in other countries? A cursory search (I honestly am not sure what I should be looking for) couldn't find any here in Australia. Is this a uniquely American thing? Surely not, I assume. If it's not, do these programs have the same horrible stories coming out of them elsewhere, and if they don't, does that not paint a picture that the approach taken in the US isn't a good one?…

The latest episode of Darknet Diaries[0] talks about Adam being sent to a Behavior School in Australia, so they do exist in Australia and this is not a US only idea. Therapeutic Boarding School[1] is also a term used to describe them.

[0] https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/113/

[1] https://australian-children.com/therapeutic-schools/

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#139

Post by kaydub »

duxup wrote: post #49

It's hard read these stories and not wonder about the parents. At the same time I'm often drawn to the story of my high school buddy's youngest sister. His family was as normal as you might expect, the kids were perhaps unusually "driven", but in good ways, music, athletics, academics, all three even. But the youngest was driven to rebel in the most distributive ways possible, the usual running away from home, older…

I was a bad kid. Nothing really changed. Kids are uncivilized people. They just grow up at different rates.

Re: When I was labeled a ‘troubled’ teen, I obliged

#140

Post by dahfizz »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #119
Gareth321 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Today, many psychologists suggest using positive discipline" From Wikipedia: >"It is based on the idea that there are no bad children, just good and bad behaviors." Given the fact that we've known for decades now that behaviour is roughly 50% nature (and 50% nurture), this foundational (implied) premise is unequivocally and demonstrably incorrect. Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. Th…

> Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. The title of this post is relevant. OP "obliged" because he was told he was bad. The point is to not do that. > Children certainly need boundaries and rules Rules are paramount in "Positive Disipline". From the section "Creating Rules" [1]: > In her book entitled Positive Discipline, Jane Nelsen emphasizes the importance of not only creating clear ru…

Have you ever interacted with a "troubled" teen?

This comment is not based on reality. It's laughable, really. There are kids who cannot be reasoned with. You try to explain the importance of healthy teeth to troubled teen and they will respond "I don't care".

"Natural consequences" are not sufficient. A troubled kid will drink himself into the hospital over and over. A troubled kid will have run ins with the law over and over.

These kids are labeled troubled because they are.

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