Posted on 12/26/2022 10:31:50 AM PST by Morgana
At 2 a.m., teenagers are woken up to strangers in their bedrooms. Then, they’re driven hours away, often to the midwest. What awaits them is abuse, hard physical labor and sadness– all paid for by their parents.
This is the story of many children in the troubled teen industry. The troubled teen industry is a name coined by survivors for the system of underregulated residential youth treatment facilities. Many parents send their children to these programs for drug and alcohol use, mental health, eating disorders, disabilities, conversion therapy and more.
These programs promise to rehabilitate teenagers from their troubles. Instead, the facilities pocket most of the payment, and force the children to endure hard physical labor and verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
It is estimated that between 120,000 to 200,000 young people reside in some type of group home, residential treatment center, boot camp or correctional facility, according to the American Bar Association. At least 50,000 of these children are placed there by their parents, and stay there for a year or more.
A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office “identified thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which resulted in death, at residential programs across the country and in American-owned and American operated facilities abroad.”
Despite this abuse, the industry receives an estimated $23 billion dollars of annual public funds, according to Breaking Code Silence. Yet, most of these facilities are not regulated by the government. They receive even more money from parents who send their kids to these facilities.
In the past few years, survivors of this industry took their stories to social media, especially TikTok. There are thousands of stories under the hashtags #BreakingCodeSilence and #ISeeYouSurvivor. These stories range from those of wilderness therapy, where children are forced to hike for miles and live in the wild with a lack of basic hygiene and food, to stories of sexual abuse.
Paris Hilton is the most famous of these survivors. The reality star turned DJ became a face of the movement against the troubled teen industry, opening up about her parents sending her to a therapeutic boarding school in Utah in the 1990s.
In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Hilton discussed being sent to “obs,” short for observation.
“It was solitary confinement in a tiny cinderblock room with nothing but a drain and a roll of toilet paper. The room was freezing cold, and I was almost naked. I paced until I couldn’t stand up anymore. Then I huddled on the floor and rocked back and forth, forcing myself to think about the life I would create for myself after I got out,” she wrote.
Hilton also discussed being sexually, physically and mentally abused. Tik Toker Dasogoloff, known as Dasha, stated that as a 14- year-old in a facility, she was frequently dragged by staff members from one building to another, leaving bruises on her arms. She was forced “to sit and listen to my peers and staff berate me for incredibly insignificant things, and would often get called vile names for doing something such as rolling my eyes or daring to point out how screwed-up their treatment of residents is.”
If kids tried to tell their parents what was going on, there was usually a staff member sitting right beside them on the phone. Then, the child would lose phone privileges while the parents were convinced that their child was manipulating them.
Grown up survivors are using the internet and social media to their advantage to bring awareness to these unaccountable facilities. While the industry takes profits, parents and children lose money, and their humanity.
You waited too long...need to start at 2 years old, when just a love-tap makes them cry. Even a few years after that and they’ll both be more resistant and also know you’re not serious.
Really no different than parents who IGNORE us conservatives, enroll their kid in public schools, and 6 years later decide to home school and do not realize the results that other home schoolers are claiming (and backing up).
It’s important to identify who is on your side EARLY, and those who do, know that Dr. Spock, and the Public Schools, are simply NOT on their side.
“wilderness therapy, where children are forced to hike for miles and live in the wild with a lack of basic hygiene and food”…
Also known as Basic Training.
Where do you think a lot of the human trafficking comes from?
Same with women’s shelters.
Predators go to the prey.
Your comments are well presented and illustrate the other side of the problem.
My mom was a " knock it off right now" . if it did it again, I got paddled.
When my mom spoke , I LISTENED.
We raised 5 kids. Time outs worked. But it does depend on the parent, child and situation. My kids had a mother who is a child therapist and school social worker. She was also a stay at home mom as long as she had children in the home. And both parents agreed to support the other in every single case. If we disagreed we did not do it in front of the child.
Parenting techniques work only within the limitations of the parents and situation. A parent who can’t outlast a child is doomed. I child will learn this early and thats it. You will lose the waiting game forever more. All punishment can work if the parent has the knowledge and ability to follow through. Parents can never lose, or they will always lose.
Occasionally I watch The Dog Whisperer.
The reason the dogs are behaving badly is because the owners are trained wrong.
I am reasonably assured the same principle applies here in most cases.
I know what site this is. I also know survivors of this school
They were a sleazy lot of about 3 guys, although guns were highly forbidden at the time, I started carrying a small pistol because I was in a relationship with the top guy’s girlfriend who owned the house, and he was my size and an ex-heavyweight boxer.
If I hadn’t thought so little of them I probably would have accepted some of the mission offers.
We got three verbal warnings which upon reflection was incredibly fair. Then my mother would reach over the top of the washing machine, grab the fly swatter and beat the tar out of us. After the third warning nothing short of the second coming of Jesus could stop the punishment. Words I never heard, “wait til your father gets home”.
And that is assuming that the treatment is done by honest and good people which is not something you can assume.
Mostly, with a child that is acting out, the entire family needs work, not just the child.
My (all too) personal experience as a step dad to teen kids is this. If a teen is hell bent on out doing his last fk up regardless of consequences, there isn’t a damn thing a parent can do about it. The kids live in an alternate reality that they believe is defined by rap music lyrics, video games, and utter disrespect of anything resembling a civil society and right/responsible behavior. My advice...never, ever, EVER marry someone with kids. EVER! Emancipate em and give em an early calculated inheritance and file a restraining order.
“Also known as Basic Training.”
Except for one thing, and any of you in the military should know this as I know this. The military does not take everyone. Not everyone can go through basic training so why would you expect that every kid can?
I know. I tried out for the military when I was 18 and I was rejected because of my asthma. I know a kid who was rejected because of something called “flat feet” what ever that is.
These programs try to push every kid into this, lying to parents saying there are doctors on site, there are not, and every year several kids die just like at Diamond ranch academy last week. Mind you that was the second in Utah this year.
Now if you want to send some of these kids to “basic training” then clear them by army recruiting doctors and the send them to an actual army base for six weeks for boot camp with Sargent Carter. Not these fly by night ponzi schemes with rejects from MacDonalds as coaches and no medical staff on sight.
This type of “school” was commenced on me back in 1969 through 1976 Cincinnati OH and I escaped being trapped for life in a psychotic inmate system possible for life by the skin of my teeth. As I grew to about 15-16 I was getting VERY violent and strong and staff could no longer control me. My parents decided to turn down the offer to have State of Ohio take control and they got me home. My violence and rage of rape, beatings and psychotropic injections was a very long way from stopping. Took a stretch in a state prison to square me away to a life as citizen rather than inmate. Today I am 62 and the bitter rage is a distant memory yet still there buried deep.
“Where do you think a lot of the human trafficking comes from?”
Mexico and Eastern Europe, but I get your point.
“Same with women’s shelters.”
I did some electrical work outside of one, and “had to sign” a NDA stating I wouldn’t divulge its location. (which I never would)
Before I knew what it was, I was wondering why I was getting such weird looks by people.
A muscular 6’2” 220 lbs, “lurking” outside an abused women’s shelter clarified that...(looking at electrical wiring)
You didn’t get backlash from me.
Maybe you meant to post that to ALL.
Merry CHRISTmas.
Again, thanks for posting.
It should be illegal. But in todays day and age how are they going to reconcile these methods while schools and politicians basically kidnap children to give them “gender affirming care.”
Valid point, and I honestly don’t have a clue.
Scrolling down to just one thread lower, and I saw an alternative to these programs. Perhaps you’d prefer this?
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4119004/posts
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