That’s enough quoting for one OP, but please, read the article. The second page describes the flimsy reasons that parents send their kids to this re-education camp, and the eerie, Stepford behavior of some of the “students”.
It’s not a school, it’s a brainwashing facility. The “teachers” have more qualifications in torture than in education.
How can this possibly be legal? Parents would never be allowed to subject their kids to this here in the U.S., yet apparently they have no legal problem with sending their kids overseas to do it:
Completely absurd. “Forget about leaving the country to take advantage of lower ages of consent or same-sex marriages,” the government says, “but feel free to take advantage of lower standards for education, sanitation, and physical abuse.” :mad:
OK, on to the debate. Should it be legal for parents to hire a company to kidnap their children, escort them overseas, and hold them in one of these camps for as long as it takes to subdue them?
If the allegations of abuse are true, and I think they are, these kind of camps need to be shut down and the operators held accountable, preferably with lots of jail time. Teaching kids discipline is one thing, but twisting arms and forbidding outside contact is quite another.
Reminds me a lot of the Sunlight Gardner Home in The Talisman.
I have no idea how this could be fought, but I think it should be. Seems to me the parents quoted in the article had a big hand in messing up their kids – divorces, remarriages, “workoholism”, etc. Then when the kid doesn’t measure up to daddy’s ideal, he gets shipped off to something much worse than military school (the old traditional option).
Can’t imagine what the long-term consequenses are of having your spirit broken. Can any of the kids even fake it for the time they’re detained there? If it were me, I’d cultivate a false “rehabilitation” and then possibly murder my parents. Or at least, write a book or something. But possibly the “school” does their stuff well enough that no one gets out (psychically) alive.
Interesting too how these are the children of the upper class, and being poor is held over them as a threat and a promise if they don’t shape up.
Absolutely not. Children are human beings, not slaves.
Umm… 13th amendment? Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude Shall Exist within the United States. Hauling them out of the country in chains against their will seems like slavery to me.
It sounds to me like Tranquility Bay (what a misnomer!) ought to be against the law.
There are other tough wilderness camps (my preference) and boot camps that I would hope would not be so sadistic.
Some of the wilderness classes spend over four hours a day on academics. That’s a good sign.
The main things that I would look for in a good camp would be 1)moderate term programs. Less that two months doesn’t seem to have much long term effect.
2. emotional therapy with an appropriately credentialed counselor (one who will not take part in any discipline procedures)
3. academics
4. wilderness survival skills
I’m sure that many parent do send their children to these camps for the wrong reasons. The $200-$400 a day fee should discourage long term “abandonment.”
Other parents see these camps as a last chance to save their children from criminal activity, emotional collapse and drug addiction – including alcohol.
As a teacher, I have never approved the concept of “breaking a child.” I understand that some of these camps break only negative behavior. And the good ones build their spirits back up in healthy ways. I cannot imagine a greater gift to a child that self-confidence. I cannot imagine a more horrible situation than abandoning a child indefinitely to an disreputable camp.
I cannot see how this can promote mental health in the long run. If a kid has bipolar, ODD or ADHD then how will this kind of behaviour mod work to bring them to health?
Actually when I read the article yesterday, I just felt so sad for the teens being consigned to these places. I cannot understand how a parent could see this as the only answer. How could you abrogate your parental responsibilities in such a way? I’ve got insight and direct experience into parenting a kid with similar issues to those described. He’s not yet a teen but I know it’s going to be a rocky road for us all. I can’t imagine thinking that this kind of torture and abuse will help him become a secure and functional adult.
See, now, if parents would just beat their kinds for the smallest, most inconsequential or even imagined infraction, we wouldn’t need these sorts of camps. Abuse begins at home!
In all seriousness, these sorts of things are people trying to bring to bear an entire childhood worth of absent discipline and operant conditioning into an extremely short period of time, well past the viable developmental period. If the people who ran these sorts of “re-education camps” (hoorj! I can use loaded words!) would take a few minutes and study up, they’d see the inherent fallacy in this idea. It strikes me as a totally ignorant response to the direct result of parental ignorance from the get-go. Stupidity caused by stupidity, perpetuating stupidity.
This is another example of parents trying to find a way to “fix” their children. I work as a therapist for troubled teen girls, and I am horrified when I read articles like this one. I have heard of similar “camps” before, and I cannot understand what would make a parent send a child there.
These places do very little in the way of figuring out the reasons for the behaviors, and focus on scare tactics and punnishment. Any trained psychologist will tell you that punnishment does not increase positive behavior. Any behavior can be scared into a child.
It just makes me angry when I see things like this. There are other life affirming ways to change behavior in children and make them productive members of society without putting them into yet another trauma situation. I would not want to look back on my teen years and remember that my parents sent me away for years to be treated as less than human.
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In all seriousness, these sorts of things are people trying to bring to bear an entire childhood worth of absent discipline and operant conditioning into an extremely short period of time, well past the viable developmental period. **
There are also parents who have abused or over disciplined their children. And then there are parents who have done the best that they could and their kids have just fallen in with the wrong crowd or developed totally defiant attitudes. And sometimes the kids are down right dangerous to the parents as well as the community.
Not all of the parents who try this alternative are evil or uncaring.
And I don’t think that “the viable development period” has an age limit. Even adults can benefit from the right kinds of wilderness training.
Actually, although joking, your comment is actually how I was raised. See, while abuse (those actions which lead to permanent damage, and NO, ‘psycological’ damage does NOT count) is intolerable, so is ‘liberal’ childrearing. If your kid acts up, give 'em a bit of the belt. Lying to you? Spank 'em. God forbid they raise a hand to you.
You see, children are like puppies. You have to break ‘em in at an early age or else they go on for the rest of their lives taking craps on your carpet. I was spanked as a child, but in a very precise manner. My dad would tell me what I had done wrong, what the punishment would be (the number of strokes) and what the ‘follow-up’ would be to make sure I had not resumed the behavior. All very precise, and unchanging. I couldn’t play my parents off one-another because that’d get me the same thing but with extra strokes for being ‘sneaky and decpetive.’ Just like housebreaking a dog, children have to be instructed in proper behavior. So long as the punishment is appropriately light to prevent permanent harm, well, why not? Pain is a quick and effective way of deterring behavior. Take for instance my cousin Lucas. Lil’ punk-assed child of eight who I had the displeasure of babysitting once. “Lucas, it’s time to go to bed.” But I don’t want to. “Lucas, I said you’re going to bed.” I’m not! (falls to floor, kicking and screaming) “(picking up child) Yes, you are.” Then the kid bit my cheek and started trying to punch my head. One quick bout of ‘behavior modification’ consisting of me turning him over my knee and popping his bottom ONCE with my bare hand, then explaining it to him as to why, and the next time I babysat him, we wasn’t at all hostile at the thought of going to bed.
Abuse begins at home, but it’s better because you care.
Actually, it’s not sarcasm at all. It’s observation. ‘Liberal’ childraising, childraising which does not allow for the use of acceptable amounts of well regulated physical punishment (as I specifically stated, spankings delivered in a consistant manner with reasoning behind them) does not allow for one basic tennant of humanity, that we are not born with social standards or morals. What human beings are born with are survival instincts. Pain is an ingrained, ‘evolutionary’ (avoiding that can of worms) warning that said behavior or action does not contribute to personal survival. Think about Dr. Abraham Maslow’s hiearchy of needs. Basic physical needs are at the very bottom. Then safety and security. Most parents provide for basic physical needs (or else they’re neglegant.) Then comes security. Pain is an indicator that your security is threatened. It is our bodies way of saying ‘cut it out.’
You have a puppy you wish to housebreak. Do you scold it? Yes. Then what do you do? You rub their nose in it. But is that all? No, then you spank it. It takes a while, yes, but eventually this method will break a puppy of its ways. Now, say instead you simply scold it. No physical punishment nor direction. That puppy will keep on crappin’ and crappin’ and crappin’.
This can be likened to a small child, most of whom (until about age 8 or so) don’t have the congiscant (SIC) ability to comprehend true right from wrong in a sense more than ‘Daddy gets mad when I do this.’ The child seeks, in an instinctual way, to allow itself to survive long enough to propogate. The child steals a cookie. Now, theft is against a social norm. The kid does not have the cognative ability to comprehend ‘social norm’ and that theft violates it. But he does have the physical ability to comprehend ‘pain is bad.’ If the parent is able to associate, through explination, that “theft is a behavior which will lead to pain” then eventually, like the puppy, the kid’ll stop doing it simply because he doesn’t like getting spanked.
As far as your thought that psycological abuse does count, I just have to say “Get over it.” If a person is abused psycologically, then the person can become well psycologically. It is rare that a person, parent or otherwise, who engages in psycological abuse does so in a systematic way which fundementally changes thought processes and leaves permanent damage. Can’t get over it? Then hire a psycologist to help you get over it, or better yet, talk to some friends about your problem. Still can’t get over it? Then go ahead, commit suicide, because you obviously don’t have the basic willpower that comes standard with the package that is being human (humans are resiliant, watch a kid get yelled at and then go back to playing ten minutes later) and I don’t want you breeding and teaching this spinelessness to your kids.
Well, if these kids would just listen to their parents, and not do stupid things, they wouldn’t get sent here in the first place. Of course, quite a few of these kids probably came from homes in which the parents didn’t do a proper job of discipline on their children (proper discipline can be done without spanking or physical punishment, though it helps) . On the other hand, sometimes perfectly good parents have children who are just total screw-ups. In my family, I have done very well, in College on full scholarships, with no problems with the law beyond minor traffic tickets. My other siblings are doing quite well too, except for my younger sister. She completely disregards authority, has broken numerious laws, dropped out of high school, ect. Frankly she seems like the perfect person to send to this kind of camp. Too bad my parents don’t have enough money to do so/She just turned 18 and couldn’t be forced to go.
As long as there is no real physical abuse and the kids get a decent diet, this place seems fine to me. Parents should be able to do whatever they want to their children, beyond physical/sexual/severe pychological abuse, or total neglect - not feeding them enough.
The worst part is, you might not even think of it that way. You might look at it as something that “saved” you from homelessness, death, and even… minimum wage.
You didn’t read the article, did you? How do you come away with the impression that it doesn’t involve physical and psychological abuse?
This is disgusting, and it disgusts me to see people supporting this sort of thing.
Children are human beings. They deserve digity, freedom, and the right not to be abused physically or phsychologically. If you do not believe that psychological damage exists…why does our military train interegators to break their subjects? Why does a rape victim feel pain past the time when their physical wounds heal? Why is slavery illegal and morally wrong? Because those are all ways to destroy a person by fucking with their head. And it’s effective. And it is wrong.
If a teen is a criminal, than let them deal with the criminal justice system. If a parent cannot handle a teen, let them seek out ways transferring custody and responsibility to somebody else. But it is wrong to kidnap, beat and torture anyone, even wayward children. If it is not legal treatment of a human being in the United States (and I believe that in all cases it is wrong to beat someone against their will), it ought to be illegal for a program actively recruiting from the United States. And beyond being illegal, it is wrong. It is always wrong to do this sort of thing to anyone. It is especially wrong to do it for a huge profit. I watched a promotional video for one of these places. They emphasized how the high cost was worth not having your kid around to bug you. It is sickening.
And I think I am going to look in to what I can do about it.