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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

#151

Post by unityByFreedom »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #129
unityByFreedom wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I appreciate your response and I apologize for the brevity of this one, but I worry that pretty much everything in the second half of your comments is based on a highly-idealized perspective of the situation. What if you try and be fair with a kid and they just never understand fairness ? What do you do if you need the kid to follow rules so they don’t get in trouble? What are the “natural consequences” for a kid who…

> What if you try and be fair with a kid and they just never understand fairness?

If that's your kid, speak to a therapist. There's definitely more to good parenting than a single concept, and more than anyone could relate on HN. By mentioning natural consequences and positive discipline, I'm only introducing topics which are described in more detail in books. I mentioned natural consequences specifically as an alternative to punishment which I don't think works. Adlerian psychology suggests misbehaving kids subconsciously want to be punished because that's how they learned to get attention. By the time they're adults, they act out all the time as a matter of habit.

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

#152

Post by AussieWog93 »

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?…

Found this within two clicks after searching "Troubled Teens Australia":

https://teenchallenge.com.au/our-program

Seemed scary at first to me (for example, they only allow a single 10-minute phone call per week to friends and family during your stay, and religion + teens makes me think of the Christian Brotherhood shit), but people swear by it on Reddit.

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

#153

Post by IIAOPSW »

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…

>it describes the perspective of a student, a client.

The student is not the client. The student didn't pay for it. The student didn't ask to be there. The student isn't the one for whom incentives and interests align.

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

#154

Post by kayodelycaon »

thrashh wrote: post #56
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…

One thing I’ve learned at this point is that almost l no kid or adult is actually irrational. If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). And you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior because everyone only lives one life and they rarely know i…

I’m probably a rare person because I can and do understand other people and myself to the level they aren’t foreign to me.

What I’ve noticed is all humans seem to operate on the same frameworks. It’s just filtered through their nature and experiences. Mental illness is just another filter.

Maybe it’s because my bipolar brain has a lot of hard, untreated mileage in it. I’ve experienced so many emotional and mental states that there is little I find difficult to relate to.

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

#155

Post by noduerme »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #63
thrashh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I’ve learned at this point is that almost l no kid or adult is actually irrational. If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). And you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior because everyone only lives one life and they rarely know i…

> you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior Yeah I think that's best done with a therapist who will take time to guide someone through their past. Asking a kid why they acted out, or an adult why they did something crazy, is almost rhetorical. They're not going to know the answer without a deep dive into how they grew up.

OTOH it's a little shocking if you actually ask people and get them to think about it. Like, my friend's 8 year old kid was always hitting his 6 year old sister, so [my friend, the mom] would hit him and punish him when he did it. I said did you ever ask him what he thought his sister felt when he did that to her? So next time he hit his sister, my friend sat him down and said "What do you think that felt like to her, being hit by her older brother?" And didn't let it go, she demanded an answer. The boy was dead silent for about a minute and then buckled and apologized, and apparently hasn't hit his sister since then. The mom thanked me when I saw her and says she never would have thought of that approach. Far be it from my childless ass to give parenting advice. She's a very, very smart woman. But I think we too often think of self-reflection as some kind of adult thing we can't do on our own, or need deep therapy for, when sometimes someone just holding up a mirror to you can do it in an instant.

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

#156

Post by unityByFreedom »

dahfizz wrote: post #150
hef19898 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming they really are troublesome, that justifies torturing them into compliance? On which legal ground are they basically imprisoned? If they are so troublesome that they are a continuous threat to society (e.g. murders or serial sex offenders), there are legal ways to get them into psychiatric clinics (those means are easily abused as well so). If they are not, well, in a free society you cannot prevent people f…

You're creating a false dichotomy. Obviously these abusive camps are bad. That doesn't need to be said. Irrespective of the camps, OPs parenting advice is bad, insulting, and deserves to be called out.

Your solution sounds like we should try nothing,

> There are kids who cannot be reasoned with.

Are you familiar with an approach that can help?

The approach I mention has been around for over 70 years.

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

#157

Post by hef19898 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #156
dahfizz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're creating a false dichotomy. Obviously these abusive camps are bad. That doesn't need to be said. Irrespective of the camps, OPs parenting advice is bad, insulting, and deserves to be called out.

Your solution sounds like we should try nothing, > There are kids who cannot be reasoned with. Are you familiar with an approach that can help? The approach I mention has been around for over 70 years.

Are you a parent? And if so, did you use your approach? It would just be anecdata, but at least some real world experience.

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

#158

Post by mensetmanusman »

moffkalast wrote: post #135
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…

> 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.

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

Unless you don’t believe self surveys of the children themselves, it is unequivocally worse now.

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

#159

Post by unityByFreedom »

noduerme wrote: post #155
unityByFreedom wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior Yeah I think that's best done with a therapist who will take time to guide someone through their past. Asking a kid why they acted out, or an adult why they did something crazy, is almost rhetorical. They're not going to know the answer without a deep dive into how they grew up.

OTOH it's a little shocking if you actually ask people and get them to think about it. Like, my friend's 8 year old kid was always hitting his 6 year old sister, so [my friend, the mom] would hit him and punish him when he did it. I said did you ever ask him what he thought his sister felt when he did that to her? So next time he hit his sister, my friend sat him down and said "What do you think that felt like to her…

That was nice of you to ask him to reflect.

Some psychologists suggest that kids fight because they subconsciously know it gets their parents' attention. So when a parent breaks up fights it can unintentionally reinforce that behavior.

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

#160

Post by Cthulhu_ »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #153
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…

>it describes the perspective of a student, a client. The student is not the client. The student didn't pay for it. The student didn't ask to be there. The student isn't the one for whom incentives and interests align.

It's an interesting doublespeak to use for someone who is effectively interred - a prisoner, basically, but extralegal in that they weren't convicted to them. I think anyway, I'm sure there's plenty of these camps that actually are court mandated.
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