Children hostages in custody fights (BlueFire Wilderness Therapy)

A number of parents do every year see their child exposed to danger when the custodial parent chooses to decide on a dangerous path with the child in the hope of alienate the child against the non-costodial parent.

In a recent tread on Reddit a parent write:

I tried to get custody back , but the Judge won't listen to me and left the custody with Mother, who convinced her ( judge ) she will do anything for the daughter and that the daughter wants to stay with her. The mother also got a psychologist and a psychiatrist to evaluate my daughter without my knowledge and they recommended for "Change of placement" , By the time I learned that this means to place her outside of home and within days, the educational consultants the Mother hired at the advice of the psychologist, placed my daughter into this camp for 8-12 weeks.

What parents need to realize is that both the medical industry as well as so-called educational consultants are not working independent. The medical industry needs to put diagnose on anyone so they can sell their products. Educational consultants received referral fees from wilderness programs and boarding schools in return for a recommendation towards the product of detention and so-called treatment, they deliver.

Wilderness programs are not a recognized treatment method in a lot of countries. Of course the wilderness programs have hired researchers to white-label the treatment approach but in reality the children could be placed in a enclosed box until they became adults and the same result would be achieved.

Second a number of children have died in wilderness programs. The program known from ABC's "Brat Camp" closed after a death and the local sheriff described the operation as a danger to the children and closed it down.

Sending a child into the wilderness means a risk which is far greater than letting them stay in the troubled home, they came from. Out of 4,000 children treated at the Catherine Freer Wilderness program, 3 died before they closed. Calculate on the percentage!

What is the best option? Based on a research paper in Denmark comparing children in need who was not removed from the home to children sent to residential treatment, there is no difference of the outcome for the children. Even when the parents were alcoholic or drug-users! Fact remains that residential treatment is warehousing. Once the regulated and secure environment is no longer there and the now-adult child has to go on without an important social heritage in the luggage, everything seems to be lost.

Denmark have increased the number of children who are placed outside their home. Many of them end up with Post-traumatic stress disorder and an inability to function on the labor market or in the educational system.

It is not good news for parents who are struggling to raise their children. Because the root of the problem is properly not the child. It is the parent or the school-environment the society offers the child.

All that seems to be the outcome of residential treatment seems to be that the owners of the residential solutions - wilderness program or boarding school - will earn a lot of money while the children and their families will suffer both economic and emotional.

Source:
Daughter , 13yo sent to Wilderness Camp BlueFire in Idaho without my consent , What to Do? (Reddit)

Back in the days where people fell for scams

Ok. You are a bit too heavy.

Then you look at your child and you feel sorry. Your child has turned out to be the spitting image of you and is overweight too. Your child will properly not get many friends in school or a good-looking partner due to the overweight you think.

Then you look in the newspaper and find a boarding school that promises weight loss.

It is a good idea and you send your child to the school.

The school is efficient and soon your child loses a lot of pounds. In fact they are so good that your child need some pills to deal with side effects of the sudden weight loss but that is a minor thing and when the school year is over, your child return slim.

Are you then happy?

Yes for 14 days because once you start serving the very same food you as family always have eaten, weight is gained and you start talking about taking another year at the boarding school despite the cost. The child runs off and you cannot catch your child because you are overweight. Now we are talking social services.

10 years ago such boarding schools promising weight loss were widespread. Today we as parents are smarter. We know that the problem is right next to us. It is in the kitchen. The output from the kitchen produces the results shown in both your child's body and your body.

Today we also know that your children do not listen to you. They just observe what you do and do the same. That is the reason that addiction often passes down through generations. It does not matter if we are talking alcohol addiction, medical addiction or food addiction. What we show children that are OK, is what they make a standard of living.

We can blame TV. We can blame the society.

But we are in control of what we put into our shopping bags. We can make the change ourselves. We know what is right. We know that candy, alcohol and sodas destroy our bodies. We know that exercise make a change.

So just go for an hour of walking. Change your diet. Then you save tons of money for boarding schools.

A lot of parents realized that and as result many of the weight loss schools closed. Maybe some remain but why use money on them when you can change the outcome for your child for free?

Seed boarding school suicide - ambitions too costly?

Is is sad to learn that a suicide took place at Seed Boarding School in Washington DC. Even here in Denmark we have worked for more than 4 decade trying to figure out how to prevent certain areas to produce a larger part of the prison population and groups of people with low-income groups from concentrating themselves in urban blocks hard to control by the authorities. In Denmark there are now illegal alternative justice systems and gangs controlling parts of the large cities like they were the police.

In fact the gang war which took a violent turn forcing the United States embassy to warn tourists was only settled by a ceasefire negotiated without the participation of the authorities. Solutions are needed and they are needed right now.

In Denmark they now discuss simply to tear parts of the cities down forcing the poor part of Danish population to parts of Denmark called “The Rotten Banana”. It is parts of Denmark where they now only can afford the maintenance of dirt roads. Parts of Denmark where there are so many ruins that the villages got money from the state to tear buildings down as none are expected to live there anymore.

Some have suggested youth curfews as they have them in other countries. Some state that it was how Iceland fixed it. The problem with curfews in Denmark are that they will not work because the government will not invest the amount of money needed and you cannot mobilize the entire population as they did in Iceland because Denmark is a country where the population travelling in two pace. The difference between rich and poor in Denmark has increased over the last 3 decades. Basically the distance between the politicians and 60 percent of the population is so big that it is almost as they were living on two different planets. Parents only have surplus for their own kids. The time used for work and commuting allows no room for parents to use 2-3 hours every evening patrolling the streets as they do in Iceland.

A youth curfew without massive investment in sports combined with rolling the failed school reform back seems impossible and without those two factors youth curfews are impossible to impose. Iceland is the only country where youth curfews have worked and it was because parents were mobilized on national basis and the government invested massive in sports. Otherwise it would just be felt like Denmark once again was occupied by a foreign power like Denmark was during the second World War.

Then there is the possibility to create boarding schools like Seed. Danish research shows that children who have parents with an academically background are more likely to do something with their high school degree. That is the reason that Denmark now tries to prevent children with poor parents from choosing high school. Instead the government hope that they will be trained to do manual labor or work in shops. According to the government there is no reason to waste 3 years at high school if you do not want to study at universities.

Could you ask parents to let their children live at a boarding school close your home where they will be fed, have fixed bed times and study hard with guidance from well-educated people? That is what they do at the Seed boarding schools. It seems to work.

But there is a limit and I fear that they have bypassed it. What if the child has no motivation and comes from a background where the parents are on welfare or only have part time jobs. Should you then force the child? Should you put the expectation on the child when you know the destiny they were born to live, will not be on the first class?

I say no and I say it based on the research learned over 4 decades. In Denmark we offer student grants and it should make it possible to battle social heritage. Fact is: It doesn’t. Children still grow up for the most part following the social heritage their parents have ending up in the same situation as an adult.

I believe that the option of a boarding school system like Seed should be established in Denmark but NEVER it should be something you force children to attend. It is a question about expecting something from life. If you do not expect something, then you do not get disappointed. If you learn to settle you become happy.

I am sad that the girl saw no other option than death. I do not know whether she was pressured to attend the boarding school nor do I know if she felt unrealistic ambitions on her behalf from her parents. But the risk exist.

So remember: There might be solutions but you do not have to choose them. “Hygge” as we say it in Denmark is what life is about, because we are an entire generation who have learned the hard way that living a life with hard work reaching out for new goals all the time will not secure you early retirement, you can enjoy while your health allow it.

I will pray for the family who have suffered the tragic loss of a daughter.


Source:
12-year-old student found dead of apparent suicide at SEED school in D.C. (The Washington Post)

A conviction with far reaching consequences

In relationship with the dragon boat accident involving teachers and students from Lundby Efterskole the court in Nykøbing Falster has now handed down convictions.

The court fined the boarding school 25 separate fines of DKK 10,000. The accident resulted in the death of one teacher and injury to many of the students after their body temperatures dropped as low as 15 degrees. One of the students is still hospitalized and has lost the ability to speak or swallow.

The headmaster of the school got a sentence of 60 days of prison suspended. He was also banned from teaching activities on the water for 3 years.

The last past is rather interesting as the trial showed that the headmaster was abroad while the accident took place and outsourced the teaching on the water to the deceased teacher who was a former elite officer from the Royal Danish Navy. Whether the school has to refrain from activities on water while the headmaster has his job or the school can continue to conduct such activities outsourcing the teaching to another teacher is disputed so maybe the conviction will be appealed.

However, regardless of the dispute the conviction has resulted in far reaching consequences for the entire boarding school business in Denmark. The reaching for taking the students out that day was to push the students out of their comfort zone. To enable that the students had to experience discomfort and in this particular case a near death experience.

The court’s ruling is a full stop for introducing emotional growth as part of the teaching in boarding schools and also in day schools. The schools have already made press releases that they will stop activities that would push students out of their comfort zone due to this ruling. You have to conclude that while many wants to collect payment from parents and school districts none wants to take responsibility when the activities inevitable go wrong.

And they will. Deaths in Denmark as well as abroad show that wilderness expeditions and outdoor activities will lead to the death of minors when the goal is emotional growth. Deaths are inevitable because no teacher or instructor has the full picture of the student’s emotional and physical history at hand when the students are ordered to do an activity.

Records of deaths at boarding schools, in wilderness programs and any other outdoor activity are now being recorded as they happened due to the wish of guardians and teachers trying to push the individual student out of his or her comfort zone. And the numbers are not few.

The accident involving this dragon boat could have meant the loss of the lives for several students if one student hadn’t swam ashore and ran barefooted for mile because the boat had to radio or other kind of communication equipment. It took 90 minutes before the authorities were alerted. So it is only luck combined with a heroic effort from the students which prevented a tragedy beyond imagination and a doubling of the victim list for Denmark.

So this case had become a teaching tool for parents. You cannot send your child to a boarding school expecting emotional growth without knowing that it could mean risking the life of your child. Not even taken into account that the boarding school association in Denmark has made a press release that they will stop the most dangerous activities. Because where is the limit. Until this incident the rules wasn’t clear regarding boating activities. New rules were introduced after this incident. We have to ask. This was stricter rules regarding water activities. What about the other activities?

Are the safety precautions in sports taken? What about activities along the roads? Many students are from cities where bicycles and cars never meet.

Last but least: Do the teachers know what they are dealing with when they decide what the comfort zone of the students is? They are not educated counselors. They are teachers. In 1994 the Danish government decided that not everyone should be allowed to call themselves psychologists without education which had been the case before this year. Today even group homes dealing with the most troubled youth call themselves psychotherapist which is a title everyone can take in Denmark unchallenged. It is due to the cost running these places. Psychologists are too expensive to hire when we are talking of troubled youth.

The teachers at these boarding schools are doing tasks which would require the assistance of psychologists if we were talking about adults being forced through the same exercises, but when we are talking of students then everyone finds it acceptable that a simple teacher does this job.

Do the teachers realize that they are opening Pandora’s box at some students when they push the students out of their comfort zone?

Even if they were successful with damaging the students, will it benefit the students in the long run? It is not certain. We all remember the famous writer H.C. Andersen. In the end of one of his book a duckling finds out that he is a swan. Many of the students attending these boarding schools enter with a luggage based on a mixture of their social heritage and the upbringing their parents provided them with.

What if they are made to believe that they are swans and decide to reach out for the highest jobs based on that belief? Fact is that it would end poorly for them because Denmark is a society where people choose a line of living and education based on their social heritage. It is a both sensitive and vulnerable society. The development the last 30 years in Denmark has showed that areas where people enter Denmark believing that they don’t have to develop their family over generations from low-income jobs to high-income positions end up being in trouble with the law when they so to say try to skip generations aiming for the highest positions.

So teaching emotional growth can be damaging for the students when they are destined to serve in ordinary jobs by birth. That is why this ruling can be positive for not only future students but the entire society.

Last year 8 schools closed because the parents are realizing the dangers of these schools. Not only when tragedies like the Dragon Boat accident happened but more general when the students return from an enclosed world believing that the swan status has been reached only to discover that isolated in the real world on the lessons learned are unreal. We don’t need that kind of frustration. We need that each and every youth learn to function based on the resources they have been taught at home and not at some emotional growth exercise.

Source:

• Convictions handed down in boating tragedy (The Copenhagen Post)
• Svigtet da behovet var der (Victim list for Denmark - In Danish)

CNN Report about your local faith based boarding school around the corner

For some parents the question of choosing a religious boarding school for their sons and daughters is to obvious that they overlook the possible warning signs that something is very wrong.

CNN Anderson Copper 360 reports about a branch of religious boarding schools in the United States which are built on the teachings of Lester Roloff who ran several boarding schools and shelthers in Texas until he died in the 1970s.

It was boarding schools where discipine was upheld with the paddle combined with isolation and forced prayers.

Once Roloff died in a plane crash several of his leading staff member left and created their own boarding school based on the same strategies and they continue to be in operation today.

The worst about this not that they try to exist as they see it as their mission the have to put their lives on the line for just as suicide bomber want to die for his God. What is actually worse is that a lot of states will not supervise these faith based boarding schools.

We are talking teenagers being imprisoned at these boarding schools and none want to do just a little to secure their well-being.

It shouldn't be so when we are talking 2011 but fact is that it is so.

It is shameful for any society to fail to protect the safety of children. We must all demand that we will not accept it.

Testimonies from a lot of students telling about abuse keep coming

Our Swedish partners over at Minors in residential placement research center told that more than 600 people did view their boarding school blog last month. Hopefully some of the viewers were parents so they will learn about signs of warning before they entrust their children to various programs or boarding schools.

So far 5 blogs have been made. They are:

• Tales from the black school (Boarding school stories)


• Just another hike (Stories from former participents in wilderness programs)


• Asylum horrible (How a stay in a modern residential treatment facility felt like)


• Being Transported (Stories about being picked up by Youth Transport firms)


• Today a child died (Memorial blog about those who didn't make it home from treatment)

If you have a comment or even your own testimony to give, please visit the blogs.

Tell your boarding school story

You are now a young adult. You know where you came from. You know what your story is. But can you tell it?

Minors in residential placement research center has started a blog where you can tell your story.

A stay in a residential setting has its positive and negative sides. You meet a lot of people you would never have met if you had remained at home. Being a part of a peer group 24/7 in a restricted environment means that there is a price to pay. You know that you in order to survive have to fit in. You have to remove some of the personality which makes you an individual.

Then there of course are the rules of residential facility. They can be tough, they can be relaxed. Some of the rules were hard to justify. The reason for them may have been impossible to live under. Some made sense now where you are able to look back at them.

How did the stay impact you? Did it open some doors or did it close some? Does your family understand what you went through?

The Swedish organization want to hear your story and they want you to write one of their representatives on this address: jonase(a)mail-online.dk

The blog itself can you read here:

Tales from the black school