I did not do this at 13 years of age, niether did everyone. You might have, lots of kids do, but it is still something that society has set limits on. Plus, if it’s wrong or illegal and you’re not allowed to do this, then you should suffer the consequences. And we’re not talking about disobeying a rule of the house and getting grounded, among other thing we’re talking about Felony Burglary and Assault and Battery.
We tried. He wore us out.
He made those threats before we thought about sending him away.
And I’m sure you did not mean to imply that you would advocate he murder us because we sent him there?
How can you say that parent who do this are wrong but it’s ok for a child to kill his parents? seems like a double standard to me.
(although I’m sure this is not what you mean.)
i just started looking at this organization that is running this camp and i can’t figure out how htey get away with it. At least 3 other camps in foreign countries have been closed for human rights abuses. The ones in mexico, costa rica & the Czech republic have all been shut down. I hope to christ someone brings Ken Kay up on conspiracy to commit child abuse charges some day.
Who says the people administering the punishment were being reasonable? I haven’t yet had time to read the testimonies, but what I got from the article is that the T. Bay staff is not satisfied until they’ve broken you. If the inmates modify their behavior and start thinking they’ve come up to the mark, then the staff simply moves the mark.
Several people in this thread have mentioned the option of “playing along” until the staff is satisfied and releases you. That doesn’t seem to be an option here. This is the same thing that was done to Winston Smith in 1984, and I mean precisely the same: they keep at it until you are completely unable to think for yourself.
I don’t know about boot camp, but when I started hearing about survival camps, in the mid-'80s, they sounded like a good idea: not a punishment, but rather an object lesson proving that you only get out of life what you put into it; a chance for kids to mature, and prove themselves. Like, “Send me the boy and I’ll give you back the man”. But then in the '90s, I started to hear about corruption in these programs, wherein kids were pushed well beyond their endurance, not adequately fed, not getting proper treatment for injuries, and so on. It shouldn’t be like that…
BMalion, I am glad that you took your other son’s needs into consideration when you sent the 15yo to boot camp. The older boy’s behavior is unexcusable to begin with, and younger siblings suffer from having to live with that kind of crap. I speak from bitter experience. How is the younger boy doing?
At you get something called due process before you get to prison. You can’t be sent there just because your family thinks you wear too much black and listen to bad music. And you get nifty things like a release date.
Hmm. You know, there were a couple years in high school when it seems like some of the people in this thread might have considered me a viable candidate for some sort of reform school/boot camp. If I’m wrong, i sincerely apologize, and I don’t intend to offend, but it’s worth pointing out that for a couple years, I was getting mediocre to poor grades, lying to my parents about them, and yelling at them a lot while locking myself in my room for extended periods - it got to the point where my parents took the lock off my door. I wasn’t violent, nor was I getting laid, but the whole school/lying/disobeying parents thing seems like what a few posters mentioned as justification for reform school.
The thing is, though, that it ended. I got accepted into college despite myself, became a political science major, and at the end of my first year I’m pleased to say I have a GPA of 3.8 and I’m on the dean’s list two semesters in a row. I’m volunteering for a political campaign, holding down a summer job - pretty close, I’d say, to a model college student, and no reform school of any sort needed.
So- am I a fluke? Or not as valid a test case as I think? Or might reform schools, in many cases, simply be not necessary? even counterproductive?
Mr. Excellent: I have a friend (who just graduated from HS, as did I) who spent sophomore year in a drug induced haze and a good part of freshman and junior years in the same state. He had the good sense (and some family intervention) and maturity to shape up in 11th grade. He will be at Vassar next year. He is a wonderful, politically and culturally current kid who happens to prefer hard-core punk. He has a positive, realistic outlook on life and has been like a big brother or cousin to many people. No matter what (even in the heavy drug use years), he was willing to help ppl out and give you a ride home or physics explanation if you needed it. At home, he was difficult for a while and prolly, if his parents had considered it, would have been a prime candidate for these schools. His family could just communicate well enough that when he was 12 or 13 and getting into punk, he could talk to them about why he liked this music and they didnt roll their eyes. So yeah, you aren’t a fluke. You just went through a phase and got out of it, as most kids do if you don’t try to overdiscipline them.
What I am saying is that if you send someone off to a camp for months on end where they are systematicly abused, beaten, locked in “the hole” and beaten with bamboo shoots while little Vietnamese men scream “didi mow!” at them, don’t expect them to be pleased with you when they return.
Am I “advocating” anyone murdering anyone else? Of course not. All I am saying is that if it were I who was sent to one of these camps, I would be very resentful and would probably want to extract some measure of vengence.
Of course, the fact that these places are in Jamaica, Mexico and Eastern Europe and they don’t allow reporters should raise a couple of red flags.
I appreciate your concern for due process, however, your response was in reply to my comment on your endorsement of murder. So we’re kind of spinning our wheels aren’t we?
And as hard as it may be to accept, in the eyes of the law, children, while not slaves, are not able to legally make descisions for themselves. The parents have the authority to make descisions for the welfare of the children, for the most part this works. Most children due not get sent away. However, for the problem children, there has to be some option when all other resources have been exhausted. It may have to be something we don’t have yet, but there has to be something.
I wish that his worst problems had been wearing black and listening to “dangerous” music, I understand that. That’s what I did.
No offense meant, I am regretful that you, as a concerned citizen, were not available to intervene and perhaps be that voice of reason and concern that our son might have listened to. Could have saved him alot of trouble.
It does raise red flags. Abuse doesn’t help anyone, that’s why I decided to bring him home early. I would not have sent him out of the country myself. I am a big fan of accountability and liscensed rules and regulations.
That’s entirely true. I would much rather be in prison for a period of time that is predetermined for infractions that actually merit my worth being there than be sent of some place until I am “cured” of my behavior whatever that may be. Especially when a large part of the cure involves systematic torture and various methods of brainwashing. Either way, if I were your kid, I would work the system, get out, and then press charges against you and the school, and then never see you again.
Except when they apply to you moving your kids off to places where they have the spirit beat out of them. You should have that right, sure. While we are at it, let’s break in some slaves on the ol’ plantation. Nothing is better to see them scream as long as they work for good ol’ massa. He never hurts us. He never hurts us. My precious. Oh my precious. :rolleyes:
Much better, thank you. He was “relieved” (his words) when we told him what we’d done. We had 6 months of normal, happy family life. He and I grew alot closer and had alot of fun. It’s a bit tense now, but we’re all trying hard to adjust. Basically the time I spent dealing with arguments and fights and crimes I could spend with the younger son just being his dad.
Perhaps you’ll want read my earlier posts again. We are speaking of a child here. Had he been allowed to continue on his path, there was a real good chance that he’d have been sent to prison, and despite your opinion, I think it would be worse, not better than where we sent him. Prisoners have a judge in charge of their disposition, not loving parents. Plus, if we decide to take him home early(we did), we just do it. We don’t have to get a lawyer and a court date and a parole board descision. He still kept up on his school work and he had alot more counseling (because we paid for it) than the prison system allows. We could (and did) visit him, take him off-site, and stay in a hotel. He wanted to go back and “finish what he started” . He could have begged to be taken away and told us about any abuse, plus, when the facility was visited by investigators from the state’s attorney general’s office, they told him that if he wanted to leave they’d take him into protective custody immediately. He stayed. He also admitted that he knew why he was sent and sort-of took responsiblity. Prison would have just chewed him up and spit him out.
You say “spirit”
I say “Violent, criminal, sociopathic, tendencies”
Perhaps you are confusing my story with the OP’s story. Simular but different. I don’t see any “slave/massa” mindset in my situation. I honestly do not know what you are talking about. Do you have any constructive criticism to offer? For other dopers who may be in a simular situation, what would you reccomend? It’s all to easy to say “Don’t do this.” But you have to do something. What would your suggestion be?
That is only part of what my inference was. If he was violent, crimanal, and sociopathic, you should have let the law take care of him rather than try to break him. Did you read the court documents from the above link? The place in question is a giant torture chamber. The students did not receive nutritious meals, were tortured regularly, showered in a place that had parasitic worms coming up through the floor, had to worry about their towels and laundry getting splashed with raw sewage, would be put in isolation for indeterminate amounts of time for such small things as cracking your knuckles where they would be forced to lie on their stomach for the better part of the day and periodically having their arms pushed behind their backs so far that they could touch their ears, etc. Those pieces of evidence were corroborated by all of the children who were at the one specific place at varying times.
I see how this is not exactly the same as your situation. You sent your kid to military school. Was this one of the juvenile hall types of military schools where only delinquent children are allowed in? Or is it one of the schools where other kids can choose to go there as well? If it was the previous, you would be better served to let your kid wind up in jail/real juvenile hall. Let him learn from the experience. He will come out with criminal contacts and such but that is no different from the military detention camp from the first example.
Regardless of why he was sent there, I still find it incredibly neglectful of you as a parent to have to send your kid off to some place to have him “corrected.” If he was that much of a problem you should have done counseling before washing your hands of the “problem.” Then if the problem persists talk to the counselor about what to do, then and only then will I not put the blame squarely on your shoulders for having a problem child.
I’m not sure how appropriate anecdotal information is in the GD forum.
However, I was sent off to a strict British boarding school when I was 13.
Obviously, the school in no way shape or form resembled the boot camp juvenile facility in the OP but it existed, in part, like the boot camps, partly as a way for parents turn over their problem children to another authority.
I refer to my experience for one simple reason-yes, I was a rebellious little snot, yes, my parents felt incapable of coping with my lying and my drug use and, yes, they needed a way to gain control of the situation.
What were not examined at the time were my reasons for that behavior.
That would have been far too painful for them because it would have forced them to confront the fact that they had failed me.
Period.
It was much easier to ship me off to be some one else’s problem.
We did counseling. He had counselling since age three. Psychologists, therapists, family and individual counselling. My mom is a retired family counselor with a masters degree in the county juvenile court with lots of contacts and professional friends who gave us advice. I did not “wash my hands” of the problem. That would have been true if I just said “well, kid, you stay out of my face and I don’t care what you do.” That would have been neglect.
**
It was the counselors that advized us to consider this option. Many times the court orders this very thing, if the court feels it would do some good. We decided to do it before we were no longer in control of where he was sent or for how long. I see a big difference.
No offense, but you can put the blame wherever you feel like it. I responded to this thread with trepidation and raw emotions. But, I did it to answer questions from someone who has “been there” . If some people feel the need to call names (not you specifically) and flame me with anger and hatred that’s their problem.
That is very good to hear. There are just too damned many familes where the kid who acts up gets all the attention, and the younger kid just has to pound sand. Or start fucking up like hir sibling. And too many people don’t understand how important it is just to be able to come home to a house where there’s no screaming and yelling, and you can tell about your day, and maybe play a game or watch a video with your parents, or, novel idea, TALK to them, without the whole evening getting derailed…
Well, I say “reversed” because what we had felt like a relentless kid who had unlimited time on his hands, nothing else to do, and boundless energy who seemed to make it his top goal to wear us down and suck the energy out of our lives (I’m paraphrasing).
Reversed: Now he’s the one who has a whole staff of people who work on his attitude day and night and who don’t get worn down. They go home after work and don’t worry about him day and night. They aren’t lying awake all night agonizing and holding each other. So it’s him who gets “worn down” and then… hopefully, built back up. That’s what boot camps try to do.
