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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

#181

Post by denton-scratch »

noduerme wrote: post #144
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, often the reasons why kids act out in ways that adults don't understand is that those kids have suffered abuse. A kid who's been abused may end up being violent, suicidal, addicted to drugs or all the above. The schools and parents may not know about the abuse, so their answer is to use extreme discipline. This just makes things worse. I brought it up because it is usually an underlying reason for kids doing craz…

> You think your kid hasn't been molested. There's a good chance he has.

This.

If they get therapy, there's a slim chance that that therapy will lift the repression and expose the trauma; but it's usually repressed for good reasons, and exposing it will just lead to more trauma. But if you can make them feel safe and loved, you have a reasonable chance of addressing the unwanted behaviour.

Consigning them to a coercive regime in another state isn't going to make them feel safe and loved.

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

#182

Post by rajin444 »

hef19898 wrote: post #179
rajin444 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My guess is that his behaviour was a rational response to being brought up in a home where he was denied love and affection. I wish this were always the case but statistically this would be a miracle. There is a non zero number of humans born that no matter what we do they will not work with the society that works for the rest of us. That’s the root of this issue. How do you help the ones that can be helped, and wh…

You know who else tried to predict future compatibility of certain people based on genetics? We are as much a product of our genes as we are of our environment. Nothing justifies any of those measures described in the NYYT article and by others in this thread. Nothing, period. If people commit crimes, we have a justice system (no matter how fucked up those can be, not even talking about prisons). For those truly havi…

> We are as much a product of our genes as we are of our environment

Don’t our genes dictate how we respond to our environment?

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

#183

Post by hef19898 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #176
hef19898 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kudos, then, I try and fail at being the parent I want more often than I care to admit. What ever makes our children human beings able to show compassion with others, and stay safe as soon as they have to live their lives on their own feet, is good parenting. Everything else is secondary. Same as the most important thing with new born toddlers is "are they healthy?".

Haha right, failure is part of parenting. Admit it! Even to your kids. You're a better parent for it, and it doesn't mean you're giving up. It just gives you a way to backtrack and avoid painting yourself into a corner. And yes, if you already have a parenting style that works, stick with it. I mention Positive Discipline because it works for me and there are a lot of resources for it.

Fair enough! Positive Discipline wouldn't be my go-to approach (no formalized, available in book form would be by the way), so. I stick with Space Cowboys: "Lord, don't let us screw up." Not screwing up your kids is already high enough a bar. if they come out on the other end as decent human beings able to live their own lives that's all I can hope for.

So far so good, but then the rough teenage years are still ahead of us!

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

#184

Post by Clubber »

hef19898 wrote: post #179
rajin444 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My guess is that his behaviour was a rational response to being brought up in a home where he was denied love and affection. I wish this were always the case but statistically this would be a miracle. There is a non zero number of humans born that no matter what we do they will not work with the society that works for the rest of us. That’s the root of this issue. How do you help the ones that can be helped, and wh…

You know who else tried to predict future compatibility of certain people based on genetics? We are as much a product of our genes as we are of our environment. Nothing justifies any of those measures described in the NYYT article and by others in this thread. Nothing, period. If people commit crimes, we have a justice system (no matter how fucked up those can be, not even talking about prisons). For those truly havi…

>You know who else tried to predict future compatibility of certain people based on genetics?

Jesus, a Hitler reference? Lots of organizations that aren't Hitler diagnose behavior based on genetics, including alcohol and drug abuse prevention and modern medicine. Your parents have cancer? Well predictively you might have a higher chance of getting it too. Your parents are smart? We should test you for the gifted program.

>Nothing justifies any of those measures described in the NYYT article and by others in this thread. Nothing, period.

Nobody is justifying it, read what you are replying to.

>As a society we have to accept that some people don't want to cooperate. As long as nobody is harmed (up to the justice system to decide) we have to accept that too.

Most of the time people are harmed, not just the troubled individual but the family of 4 they crash into and kill on a drunken joyride. What tools do parents have to prevent that? That's the whole point of the discussion.

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

#185

Post by kevinmchugh »

rOOb85 wrote: post #85
vonseel wrote: post #55

I was sent to one of these schools and attended from late 2005 - early 2007. The school was called Excel Academy about an hour north of Houston; it has since been shut down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Academy_(Conroe,_Texas) My reasons for being sent there are similar to the author's. I didn't take my dad's car without permission, but I did drink a lot, skip school, was generally rebellious and refused to be…

I was in elan and yea, a lot of similarities. elan had a pretty extensive class system. Shot down was the lowest, worker was standard entry level, then expeditor, then something else, then guru, and I can’t remember the rest. Anything lower then expeditor weren’t allowed to talk to one another without a higher up “being aware” or couldn’t use the bathroom without an escort(who could deny you if they were busy or just…

Most of the Troubled Teen industry in the US spun out of Synanon, so it comes from a very particular religious background. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon

It seems like Elan comes from there, but I can't be sure.

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

#186

Post by elliekelly »

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.

This begs the question: Is everyone who is labeled a “trouble teen” actually a troubled teen? I sincerely doubt the system is 100% accurate in assigning this label.

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

#187

Post by taurath »

slibhb wrote: post #177
taurath wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of control despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme em…

> I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. It seems wrong to single out environmental causes as dominant. There are parents with multiple children who all did fine except one. Anyway, we know it's a complicated mix of genetics and environment and either…

> Parents are much less sacrosanct in the US/UK than anywhere else.

By what measure? Cultural relevance or actual legal authority?

> No one actually knows how to raise children.

We have a much better idea now about how to meet the developmental needs of children than ever before, I think almost anyone would argue. We have studies on the outcomes of things like corporal punishment. We have the ACE study and it’s effects. So many other foundational developmental science has been done in the last 30 years.

> I think it's better to let parents do their best. This leaves us with some children who were over-disciplined and some who were under-disciplined and this is a better outcome than everyone being screwed up in the same way.

I certainly won’t argue against that but I would argue that having people have at least a cursory education on child rearing might be something that would help. As a survivor of abuse it’s very difficult to allow for the idea that nothing further could be done for kids in similar positions.

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

#188

Post by denton-scratch »

droppedframe wrote: post #79
droppedframe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the Leys school in Cambridge as a border, and it was by far the worst experience of my life. I was burnt out for a decade and I turn 40 this year, only recently having gotten over the resentment. Much of this article rang familiar. Those British boarding schools are intended for upper class misbehaving teens who won’t conform. There’s no intent to educate, they’re trying to ‘break’ the pupils. A common tact…

and I’m not going into the sex stuff, but yes that was going on as well. Less with myself but it was all the way criminal. Shame on me for not going to the police. But as a young teenager you just don’t know.

> the sex stuff

I don't know about The Lees; the boarding school I went to was full of homosexuality, both between the boys and between certain teachers and boys. It was treated very casually; "boys will be boys".

I was a victim of (mild) abuse. I never told anyone, until my father died, a few years ago (my mother died 40 years ago). I had read an article by another victim, which named my abuser - at a different school. After my father died, I finally felt able to report my abuser to the police.

The way it works is that sooner or later, some boy reports the abuse to their parents. The parents complain to the head; the head explains to the abuser that he has two choices; he can stay and be prosecuted, or he can leave, with a clean reference. So he just gets a job at another private school.

The head absolutely doesn't want a scandal.

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

#189

Post by hef19898 »

slibhb wrote: post #177
taurath wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of control despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme em…

> I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. It seems wrong to single out environmental causes as dominant. There are parents with multiple children who all did fine except one. Anyway, we know it's a complicated mix of genetics and environment and either…

>> There are parents with multiple children who all did fine except one.

Isn't that highly subjective? I know of cases in which children literally broke with their parents. Two siblings turned out "fine" (social and parents definition), the one that broke with them didn't (parents' definition again). turned out the "troubled" one finished school on top of class (not that I would take that a true measure so) after leaving home aged 16, that kid actually did turned out more then fine IMHO. Working and helping kids with similar, and even harder, backgrounds is tough and valuable work.

The terms "troubled" and "fine" are highly subjective. And shouldn't be basis for any abusive measures. Unless they are illegal, in which case there are laws (which have to be revisited every once in a while. Also prisons seem to be better places then some of those tough love programs).

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

#190

Post by unityByFreedom »

taurath wrote: post #168
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…

This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of control despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme em…

> This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”.

I didn't get that from the above comment. They were just asking people to listen to the stories individually, and to consider that culture can influence the choices parents make. Parents' choices can be misguided, and as you say, they need guidance too.

> My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme emotional neglect from a very early age, and visiting a “troubled teen” facility is that it catalyses and forever imprints a childhood completely filled with trauma.

That may be. I don't think that disagrees with the above comment.

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