I know this is an old thread, but just last night I was reading a first person account of a guy’s experience in a “troubled teen” type of place. It wasn’t a boot camp, but more of a residential home type of thing. Anyway, his experience was absolutely terrible and now that’s he’s grown he is working to expose abuses in these types of places. I found it very shocking that there are so many of these places that are privately run with very little oversight. They pretty much do whatever they want and no one can stop them. There are survivor groups all over for victims of these different places.
I realize there are probably good ones, but this guy’s story was quite bleak. He’s a filmmaker now and has written and directed a movie called Over the GW that’s based on his, and other people’s, experiences. Here’s a link to the thread he started about it: Reddit - Dive into anything
Link to trailer for the movie: - YouTube
And a link to his movie: http://vimeo.com/28493462
It’s scary that the people running these places essentially lie to parents to get them to trust them and put their kids there, and then the kid is just sort of stuck. I can only imagine that parents of a very difficult teenager would be desperate for help and easily convinced that a place like this is the thing to do. You all will have to tell me what you think if you watch this film.
Yeah, find out who’s paying.
And then try not to let her go - you have no idea the kind of staff that will be there. You don’t know what kind of girls she’ll be with and what she’ll learn when she’s there. I see boys who get locked up in the Foot here for a month and come back rougher and angrier.
I am begging you. If there is ANY way she can turn it around without her being completely out of your care…do it.
edit: a zombie. DAMN IT.
Here’s a link to a messageboard that has a lot of information about these different places. I’m anxious to share this because it has disturbed me deeply since I started looking into the abuses at these places. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of all the kids locked up, their parents thinking they’re doing a good thing while the kids get treated terribly.
I don’t mean to be negative in your time of crisis, but a good bit of my criminal justice masters thesis was on the effectiveness of teen Boot Camp type programs. Long story short, they don’t work. The children who succeed in these programs would likely have succeeded without it, and would have done even better if given some of the other alternatives, such as intensive Cognitive Behavioral therapy. Some boot camps actually had a negative effect, and made the kids worse. If you like, PM me and I’ll dig up some of the citations for that.
hopefully the crisis is over. if not then it won’t last much longer, stepdaughter will be an adult within a year. though a lot more has happened since then i believe, this being a zombie from 08.
I pm’d Foie and asked him to update this thread. Thanks, mods, for not locking it.
Wow. A lot has changed in some respects. Suzie is in foster care again and her mom and I are getting divorced (should be final any time now). Suzie is 17 now and while she’s in state’s custody yet again, she actually seems to be doing better. In the intervening three years since I started this thread, we went down the road of heroin and pill abuse, sexual activity, more of the same behaviors, etc.
Her mom and I decided that we weren’t meant to be together (and that is a whole other long story, suffice to say that its a better situation for everyone now) and we had what I’d say is an amicable divorce agreement. She just wanted out of the marriage, didn’t go after me for the equity in our home, etc. We legally have 50/50 custody, no child support either way, etc although I am the primary custodian of the boys and Suzie wants to live with her mom after she finishes her latest stint as a ward of the state. Suzie has a job now that she seems to like, wants to get her GED and go to a local community college (progress!). I hope things work out for her.
Her brothers are doing well, but we as co-parents are still struggling with maintaining the same sets of boundaries from one household to the next. Its been a process. The ex and I remain on friendly terms and I have moved on and I simply work and be Mr Mom to my sons as without the ex around, there’s no help with laundry, cooking, cleaning, yardwork etc except for the little bit that my oldest son can assist with. It’d be nice to have more frequent breaks from parenting as Dad would like to start dating again and have some semblance of a social life but I wouldn’t trade that for my boys in a pinch though.
I know they are going to be at worst well-mannered miscreants and at best well-adjusted human beings!
I think your boys will be just fine- they obviously have a strong and sane role model in you.
Thanks for updating! Did you guys ever end up sending Suzie to the boot camp? And… heroin!!?
Suzie never ended up going to the boot camp…she narrowly avoided that with the judge by just eking by doing the bare minimum to keep her from having to do so.
And yeah, heroin, booze, weed, oxycontins and any other pills her loser boyfriends were getting her to do with them. She’s been drug free during this latest stint with DCS but as she’s been regularly tested, it remains to be seen whether that takes hold once they release her case and send her home with her mom for good.
She’s only recently been allowed unsupervised overnight visits with her mom, and even more recently for her to do the same while her brothers are there. She seems to have a better handle on her life from what I can tell, but I am not a part of her life anymore really as she hasn’t lived in my house since the beginning of this year.
I have to say its been much calmer and stable here with just the boys and I without her or her mother around.