Posted on 03/03/2007 7:02:14 PM PST by gcruse
That is what I was thinking..
I haven't seen any posts yet that provide any actual REASONS for believing this kind of therapy is crazy.
How abaout common sense?
Common sense says that the earth is flat.
Who's common sense says that the earth is flat? Certainly not mine!
Just look out the window.
Actually, I see hills and valleys and a big lake. Nothing looks flat out of my window.
How about the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that it works?
That adopted kids are not supposed to be "attached" to you because you are not their parents?
How about the fact that making a 14 year-old boy drink milk from a bottle while he "gazes lovingly into your eyes", or strapping him to his bed and leaving him a puddles of his own urine is just plain perverse?
Just say no, kids. Chalk this up as another idea that sounds good when one is dropping acid or smoking hippie lettuce...
I apologize. I should have said "many". Reactive attachment therapy centers or camps also tend to be concentrated in places like Boise or Waco, rather than places like Berkeley or Ithaca.
More than one poster here on FC has requested help because his family was on the run from Child Protective Services over the treatment. They were all of the "spare the rod, spoil the child" school.
Don't get me wrong, I spanked my daughter when she was little, and nothing disgusts me more than listening to some moonbat parent trying to explain how running into the street could get them killed, or how something they have done has "made mommy sad."
Two year olds simply don't have the mental abilities to understand such things. Better that they associate the thought of running out into the street with a sharp stinging sensation on the behind than that they pit their under-developed cognitive abilities against a speeding automobile.
That being said, after around age 7 or so, spanking really shouldn't be necessary.
Perhaps because the philosophy that dictates trying to explain to your two year old why something they have done has "made mommy sad" is so deeply entrenched there that nothing else can get a foothold. Not even the perfectly rational swat-on-the-behind-to-get-their-attention philosophy.
More than one poster here on FC has requested help because his family was on the run from Child Protective Services over the treatment. They were all of the "spare the rod, spoil the child" school.
I recall one such FR series, actually posted by a friend of the family in question. They had literally driven off with the kids minutes ahead of a visit from CPS workers who were planning to take them. However, they finally did end up in court, and even after their run, the court determined that their children weren't being abused and should stay with the parents. The outcome made me think it probably really was a case of overzealous CPS workers who were simply opposed to any form of firmly drawing the line with unruly kids. Sounded like CPS had jumped to the conclusion that the therapy the child in question was in, was of the RAD scam variety, when it actually wasn't.
But I see a big distinction between the RAD therapy scams and traditional beatings-are-good-for-kids philosophies. The RAD scams basically require parents to buy into a huge web of irrational psychobabble which rarely has any element of traditional religion woven in, beyond reassurance from the scammers that "Of course this is consistent with your religious beliefs" when that is needed to make the sale. The beatings-are-good-for-kids stuff is usually based on fundamentalist beliefs that boil down to "I'm doing this to save you from burning in hell for eternity" and that view fathers as authorized stand-ins for a perpetually angry God It's usually the fathers, rather than the mothers, actually perpetrating the worst abuse in the latter, while the RAD scams seem to revolve disproportionately around the mothers.
The basic hook for the RAD scams often seems to be an overwhelmed stay-at-home mother of an adopted child, who had very unrealistic notions of what raising a child was all about (i.e. imagined perfect peace and harmony in the home and a child who loved obeying mommy's every word). These mothers are stuck at home all day with one or more real children, and are easy prey for the purveyors of the fantasy claim that the "normal" attitude of a child is one of unwavering attention and obedience to parents, done joyfully due to a tremendous bond with and love for the parents, and that such an attitude can be achieved through "therapy". The fathers (when present in the home) seem to be on board with the program, but are not the ones who who took the initiative to sign on with it, and are not the ones carrying out the bulk of the home "therapy".
I realize that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but I have an uncle who is firmly of the "not sparing the rod" school. Of his four kids and one neice who grew up in the household one boy is now a registered sex offender, one has the maturity of a 19 year old (though he's pushing 50), the neice is still institutionalized and the daughter (who wanted nothing more as a teenager than to become a home bound mom and have lots of children) has gone through life childless.
Oh well, one out of five isn't bad.
I'm serious. Every day I'm wondering if real news stories are from The Onion.
"No, but for some reason foster parents who practice "Reactive Attachment Therapy" tend to be fundamentalist Christians."
Oh, you meant fundamentalist *Christian* foster parents.
This idea just totally sucks. Now I know for sure that I have lived too long.
Maybe that what all those female schoolteachers that have been arrested were doing? Reattachment therapy.
at CPAC.
Yikes! I hope you didn't have to spend much time with that charming uncle!
LOL!
No, only holidays...
How do you know that there's no evidence that it works?
Adopted children are not "supposed" to be attached to their parents??? Do you KNOW any adoptive parents and children??? Did you ever hear of "failure to thrive" on account of lack of attachment???
There was nothing in this article about urine. That was mentioned in some other posts.
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