I went to one of these places when I was 13. Same thing, picked up in the middle of the night, and sent to a wilderness program that turned into 18 months of boarding school.
The school was burnt down by the students a few years after I left and I got a couple thousand dollars in a class action lawsuit when it came out that they were hiring unlicensed therapists and admitting students who should have been in intensive psychiatric care and were an immediate danger to others around them.
I look back on it as one of the most valuable experiences in my life, not because there was any validity to the program but because it just confronted me with a lot of intense challenges at a young age that really developed my critical thinking and mindset at a young age.
My reaction to these kinds of things (see also: the abuse of the Battle School students in Ender's Game) is to think: (1) Perhaps it was the best way to teach certain things; but (2) I don't think the people who do such things usually rule out all the gentler methods first.
It sounds like the "challenges" weren't necessarily intended to teach you what you learned, and you just happened to have a mind and mindset that responded well to the situation, so it isn't even an instance of "competently executed dangerous teaching methods". Nevertheless, do you think there's a safer approach that would have had a high chance of teaching you and the other kids those lessons?
> I look back on it as one of the most valuable experiences in my life, not because there was any validity to the program but because it just confronted me with a lot of intense challenges at a young age that really developed my critical thinking and mindset at a young age.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Problem is, it does “kill”* some people.
(*) Sometimes literally, but probably more often figuratively.
Did you keep in touch with any of the other students? I can't imagine that anyone came away thinking it was pleasant, but I'm curious how their thoughts on the experience compared to yours.
Can you give more detail about the intense challenges and in what way they developed your critical thinking and mindset? Interesting to hear that learning is possible even in such a traumatic environment.
I'd say that's how childhood looks like for the majority of people on this planet outside of the first-world protective umbrella. Imagine growing up in war-torn Africa, drug-ridden slums of South America or fanatical Middle East with daily executions.
My first thought: wow, the US is crazy, I’m glad they don’t have this in the UK! Then I remembered that I was at a famous boarding school for five years, the most miserable years of my life. Thirty years later I’m still coping with the aftereffects. I think of that place as a form of institutionalised child abuse, and frankly if someone pipebombed it, I would not shed a tear.
One simple thing: it wasn’t authoritarian adults or teachers. If anything, they were AWOL. It was the students that really made each other’s life hell. Of course, we were teenagers. Much later, I stopped blaming the individuals and started blaming the institution.
Here’s a tiny anecdote. One guy, who I think was genuinely evil, took psychology as a minor subject. As an experiment, he decided to drive another, younger, vulnerable pupil mad. Gaslighting him, messing with his head, that kind of stuff. And he succeeded!
I was sent to an “emotional growth boarding school” in the ‘90s. I wasn’t kidnapped but many of my schoolmates were. A few years later the department of education (can’t remember if it was state or federal) shut the school down after stories got out about the horrific things that were going on there. Kids forced to sit in corners for days at a time, ambulances not being called for kids who had very seriously self-harmed, strip searches (administered by other kids), physical restraints... I could go on. The place had a cult-like atmosphere that was centered on the headmaster and his weird homegrown therapeutic method.
I had nightmares for years afterwards and still haven’t fully come to grips with what happened there.
It’s insane these are a thing. I didn’t know about them until the recent Paris Hilton documentary. She was sent to something similar and if I recall correctly was taken in the middle of the night, as though being kidnapped.
The "troubled teens industry" definitely has a lot of weird stuff going on. Some of the institutions are are bad-faith operations that were always scams (or worse); some were well-intentioned but were managed in a way that produced abuses nonetheless. Maybe a few actually did a good job helping out troubled kids, but it does not seem to be the norm.
This is perhaps a place where internet culture has been somehow ahead of the curve in a positive way. Former residents have been organizing online and exchanging information for a few decades. I believe the longest-running forum for discussions is the one at fornits.com: https://www.fornits.com/phpbb/. This site has been around for about 20 years, and used to also have a wiki with extensive information about specific institutions. Alas, the wiki seems to be down for several years now, and the discussion board is a few years past its peak of activity too.
A teen I know was committed for anorexia. It's obligatory when you hit a certain body weight. Another teen there slit her wrists with something sharp she managed to pull out of a wall. She didn't do much damage to herself. The nurse patched her up and tied her to her bed, all the while degrading and abusing her verbally. Kids wrote a letter to the doctor in charge, complaining about the nurse, but the nurse was back at work soon after. The number of hours she gets was reduced, I believe. This is a public institution in a first world country. A caring and therapeutic mindset is just too much to ask of some people or places.
In a lot of ways, good faith, "fix people" institutions are the worst. Belief in a system, religious, psychiatric, social or whatnot can allow good people to override their common sense interpretations.
Early modern prisons were designed to help/fix people. Some were designed by moral philosophers, experts in ethics. These became nightmarish, producing more psychological injury than many intentionally punitive models like "hard labour."
I’ve never heard of that fornits site but I found my facility (Cross Creek) on it! The thread hasn’t been updated in over a decade and that makes sense, since last I heard it had “shut down” and been “replaced” by a “completely different” program owned and operated by the same group of people.
In Canada our government ran a program like this for all indigenous people for over a century, the goal of which was to "take the Indian out of the child". The children would be taken, often forcefully, and maybe allowed home for a visit one a year maybe not. They were beaten if they spoke their own language or indulged in their own culture. Often abused, sometimes killed. The goal was total cultural annihilation, and the results is generations of entire peoples with PTSD.
Many of these "schools" were lovingly run by Christian churches in the name of the friendly government. The only "trouble" these kids had before most of them were forced to attend the schools was that their parents were messed up because they were also forced to attend the schools.
That seems to a common thread. Homes for young mothers, and their children, in Ireland. Orphanages in Germany. All the same all run by Christians ignoring love and care for the sake of some higher moral purpose.
I was genuinely surprised to learn this in high school (for me, 2017-2021 or so) - not because it's not a notable event in US history but because I was surprised my history teacher was allowed to teach it.
Similar situation in Australia. They're called the Stolen Generations, children who were removed from their Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent parents by state agencies and church missions. This happened until the 70s. It's nuts how recent it is.
This reminds me of something; I was a “troubled” teen, social outcast, quite insular and probably ADHD; this lead to multiple exclusions from schools and constant harassment, which led to more expulsions (because if harassers > 1 then it’s more expensive for the school to exclude the harasser than the harassee) this was the UK where expulsions are as far as I understand relatively expensive for the school to conduct.
Anyway, at some point when I was 14 or 15 I ended up in some kind of troubled kids training thing, it was ran by two (older than average, maybe 35~) university students and it was about assertiveness and understanding yourself.
The course was only a couple days a week for 6 weeks, but honestly it completely changed my life. I didn’t even realise it at the time but some low level anxiety seemed to get washed away after that and I became a much less awkward, more outgoing person who could handle making mistakes.
I truly wish I had paid more attention to the course itself so I could refer to it now.
It was probably standard assertiveness training, but honestly I can’t put words on how much my life improved as a direct result.
A large part of it was acceptance of yourself, and acceptance of each other in the group, we told each other what we thought of each other, the bad and the good. Most people didn’t get that kind of feedback and never thought about themselves the way they are seen by Others. Or if they did, it was the negatives or the ego. A few people were perplexed at why their ego didn’t match how they were perceived; or that their negatives were barely considered at all or not brought up when discussing negatives.
https://elan.school/ is a deep and artistic comic from a survivor of the infamous Elan School. It really gives you an impression of what these places are actually like.
I spent the last couple hours reading this. It is heart-wrenching and infuriating. It is like the Stanford prison experiment on steroids, but with kids. My gut reaction is everyone involved, and everyone who knew even a single thing about this - including judges, police, social workers, government employees and of course staff - should be in prison. Unfortunately the reality is likely that no one is punished, or it is so meaningless (like fining a multi-millionaire $10k) that it's pointless.
Cynthia remembers her daughter as a bright, thoughtful and athletic young girl who had always done well academically until she began suffering from mental health problems aged 14. Her struggles led her to become suicidal and begin experimenting with illegal drugs. When Erica was admitted to hospital and excluded from school, the family felt frightened and out of their depth.
I am reminded of this piece from a few days back:
A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy
I first began blogging about twenty years ago to write about parenting. That never really gelled and I keep trying and failing.
We seem to have gone wrong somewhere really badly. It seems like you can't talk about the connections between physical health, social stuff and mental health anymore. It's verboten or someone decries it as "practicing medicine without a license" or (insert some other objection) or maybe people just no longer understand the connections.
"A sound mind in a sound body" is a very old saying, yet we seem to now think mental health is some distinct issue from physical health.
I am appalled that the parents thought they could help their child by deceiving her so terribly. I cannot fathom where people get such ideas.
It's crazy making when you can't trust the people close to you, doubly so when they have as much power over you as parents have.
I keep wanting to write about such things but my only real qualification is "I was a full-time mom for a lot of years and I'm a great mom" and how do you prove that? That was a private activity.
My sons think I'm a great mom and say so regularly, but you can't build an audience on that and ...there have been a lot of issues I have been trying to sort out, from how to write well to how to deal with privacy issues while writing about family life.
I don't know how to make the connections I need to make with people in order to get meaningful traction on what to write about, where to promote it, etc. And it just really upsets me to see articles like this and feel like good information on the topic of parenting is desperately needed and not know how to make that happen.
1. There is a connection between physical and mental health and one can ruin the other, but they are not identical. Even a physically healthy person may have mental trouble.
2. If you want to start blogging, the bar today is lower than ever. Choose a name that resonates, and at the lowest and easiest level just get a WordPress blog with a domain. If things go well you can always upgrade to something else.
3. Try rereading your own post and think whether that's something others would want to read. E.g. each (!) of your paragraphs starts with I/my and the entire post is rambling with little coherence. Cut down to what is essential, focus on a single thought and develop it - few authors can pull of an interesting 'stream of consciousness' text.
4. Consider working on your voice and style, e.g. buy the cheap, tiny, excellent & fun Strunk & White book for a great starting point.
You already reach a lot of people with your posts on HN. You are one of the few names I recognise and I always appreciate your comments. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Just want to mention that I recommend the book "Rethinking School" by Susan Wise Bauer. It's a book I recently read that I wish I had heard about several years ago as it discusses the futility of trying to fit a round peg (child) into a square hole (traditional k-12 system) and discusses various strategies for working around that.
The author and colleagues have set up a related website (welltrainedmind I think?) and forum which seems to be fairly active and with a diverse set of viewpoints.
I was at Casa by The Sea in Ensenada Mexico from 2000-2002 [0]. These were run by WWASP (I wish I was making that up). What a trip to learn today that Paris Hilton was at one of the US based programs. As bad as these were in the US, the foreign ones could be very brutal (Casa was raided and shut down by the Federales).
This should be illegal: it is inhumane and weird. Parents sending kids there are weirdos imho. They had (do not know if that is still the case) something similar in France. My cousin committed suicide after being sent there. People are insane sometimes.
Parents do this because on some level they feel resentful of the kid’s needs of them and want to push the hard work of being a parent on to someone else. The parents also tend to be in a narcissistic / enabler dynamic, so it really is all about them and solving their inconvenience, not the kid’s best interest.
Weird shouldn't be illegal, in fact, the opposite should happen. The more weirdness can peacefully coexist, the better. Inhumane, on the other hand, absolutely. The fringes of society are under constant abuse, and it's a sad state of affairs, given that much of this abuse is straight-up illegal already, just not enforced as much on the fringes.
It's bound to fail when you just take any kids and throw them all into an environment like this. And I doubt the kidnapping approach is ever a good idea unless there are mental health professionals involved at every step.
But I think some kids really do need to get away and change environments and do some things on their own at an earlier age. Maybe a small town kid really needs a year in the city, or vice versa.
Maybe there could be more programs to facilitate that without it looking so much like a punishment.
My family got into this "tough love" garbage. It destroyed our family relationship so badly that in my teens I ran away and didn't speak to anyone in the family for 20 years. And even now, decades later, we are still very distant.
I had several friends go through the “Utah programs” back in the aughts and they were abused so badly. It still pisses me off. Paris Hilton did a great job with her documentary, her experience was so similar to the people I knew.
"the world is hard so lemme hit you really hard so you learn fast what reality looks like and can fight back"
this, is one or another form, goes around A LOT still.
Boomer's as an entire generation are addicted to the idea that all problems are solved by just yelling at people or committing violence against them.
Not to say humanity has collectively improved, but the age group which tends to "wonder" if corporal punishment should be brought back has always been very specific when I encounter it.
"When I was your age I got whooped all the time and I came out alright" says the parent who did not come out alright, left with an internalized belief that abusing children is totally fine.
Do you really think that for 5000 years, throughout which physical punishment was the norm, nobody was "alright"? And that only in the last 50 years of human existence have we started to realize how to raise children "correctly"?
We can ignore the swiftly rising depression rates among children for the sake of the argument.
To me, trauma is when your gut tells you something is wrong but your ego/mind chooses to ignore it.
In this case it's impossible to think that you're not safe with your parents and then they hand you over to one of those camps.
In my own case, i've learned early that mum isn't safe and trusted dad more. Something was up, the body knew. When he split and didn't want me, that's when trauma occured.
I'm almost 40 now and only pulled my life together 2 years ago. Be honest with your kids. They can handle the truth, but never lies... it's okay to not love them, but lying about it... really sad.
I went to one of these places in the early 2000's. It's difficult to wrap your mind around it. it was most definitely a cult
Some thoughts
- archive.org has most of fornits
- hashtag breakingcodesilence on pretty much any social media platform. tiktok has quite abit
- a SURPRISING amount of 'counselors' account for their time at these schools on linkedin. some are even licensed now (bravo?).
- this individual who has since passed away did a great job at documenting CEDU - https://survivingcedu.wordpress.com/cedu-documentary/
- at a high level there was a literal cult known as the Church of Synanon which was disbanded in the 70's by the federal government. This cult's purpose/mission was to save people from addiction by brainwashing/abuse/prophets. These principles then created the concept of 'theraputic boarding schools'. It has since hydra'd as it is an unaccountable industry and certain states have laws create conditions for less oversight.
- The school I attended, the headmaster was from a cedu school that was shuttered, his qualifications was a degree in creative writing. There were maybe 6-10 counselors from other schools who then taught the hired 'uninitiated' counselors who themselves were typically 18-25 years old, without any college education. Students that excelled at these schools sometimes became counselors themselves.
[+] [-] anm89|4 years ago|reply
The school was burnt down by the students a few years after I left and I got a couple thousand dollars in a class action lawsuit when it came out that they were hiring unlicensed therapists and admitting students who should have been in intensive psychiatric care and were an immediate danger to others around them.
I look back on it as one of the most valuable experiences in my life, not because there was any validity to the program but because it just confronted me with a lot of intense challenges at a young age that really developed my critical thinking and mindset at a young age.
[+] [-] waterhouse|4 years ago|reply
It sounds like the "challenges" weren't necessarily intended to teach you what you learned, and you just happened to have a mind and mindset that responded well to the situation, so it isn't even an instance of "competently executed dangerous teaching methods". Nevertheless, do you think there's a safer approach that would have had a high chance of teaching you and the other kids those lessons?
[+] [-] bjornsing|4 years ago|reply
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Problem is, it does “kill”* some people.
(*) Sometimes literally, but probably more often figuratively.
[+] [-] havermeyer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextaccountic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spoonjim|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkrubin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tluyben2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitL|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dash2|4 years ago|reply
One simple thing: it wasn’t authoritarian adults or teachers. If anything, they were AWOL. It was the students that really made each other’s life hell. Of course, we were teenagers. Much later, I stopped blaming the individuals and started blaming the institution.
Here’s a tiny anecdote. One guy, who I think was genuinely evil, took psychology as a minor subject. As an experiment, he decided to drive another, younger, vulnerable pupil mad. Gaslighting him, messing with his head, that kind of stuff. And he succeeded!
[+] [-] throwaway_egbs|4 years ago|reply
I had nightmares for years afterwards and still haven’t fully come to grips with what happened there.
[+] [-] throwkeep|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TchoBeer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|4 years ago|reply
This is perhaps a place where internet culture has been somehow ahead of the curve in a positive way. Former residents have been organizing online and exchanging information for a few decades. I believe the longest-running forum for discussions is the one at fornits.com: https://www.fornits.com/phpbb/. This site has been around for about 20 years, and used to also have a wiki with extensive information about specific institutions. Alas, the wiki seems to be down for several years now, and the discussion board is a few years past its peak of activity too.
More recently, I believe reddit is the most active discussion forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/
[+] [-] dmos62|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalbasal|4 years ago|reply
Early modern prisons were designed to help/fix people. Some were designed by moral philosophers, experts in ethics. These became nightmarish, producing more psychological injury than many intentionally punitive models like "hard labour."
[+] [-] newbie789|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cullinet|4 years ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bregma|4 years ago|reply
Many of these "schools" were lovingly run by Christian churches in the name of the friendly government. The only "trouble" these kids had before most of them were forced to attend the schools was that their parents were messed up because they were also forced to attend the schools.
[+] [-] hef19898|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devenblake|4 years ago|reply
I was genuinely surprised to learn this in high school (for me, 2017-2021 or so) - not because it's not a notable event in US history but because I was surprised my history teacher was allowed to teach it.
[+] [-] erklik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ear7h|4 years ago|reply
I haven't checked in a bit but I think he's still releasing new chapters.
[+] [-] dijit|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, at some point when I was 14 or 15 I ended up in some kind of troubled kids training thing, it was ran by two (older than average, maybe 35~) university students and it was about assertiveness and understanding yourself.
The course was only a couple days a week for 6 weeks, but honestly it completely changed my life. I didn’t even realise it at the time but some low level anxiety seemed to get washed away after that and I became a much less awkward, more outgoing person who could handle making mistakes.
I truly wish I had paid more attention to the course itself so I could refer to it now.
It was probably standard assertiveness training, but honestly I can’t put words on how much my life improved as a direct result.
A large part of it was acceptance of yourself, and acceptance of each other in the group, we told each other what we thought of each other, the bad and the good. Most people didn’t get that kind of feedback and never thought about themselves the way they are seen by Others. Or if they did, it was the negatives or the ego. A few people were perplexed at why their ego didn’t match how they were perceived; or that their negatives were barely considered at all or not brought up when discussing negatives.
EDIT: FWIW this sounds exactly like the training I had: https://www.abct.org/Information/?m=mInformation&fa=fs_ASSER...
[+] [-] dannyw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregmac|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|4 years ago|reply
I am reminded of this piece from a few days back:
A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509586
I first began blogging about twenty years ago to write about parenting. That never really gelled and I keep trying and failing.
We seem to have gone wrong somewhere really badly. It seems like you can't talk about the connections between physical health, social stuff and mental health anymore. It's verboten or someone decries it as "practicing medicine without a license" or (insert some other objection) or maybe people just no longer understand the connections.
"A sound mind in a sound body" is a very old saying, yet we seem to now think mental health is some distinct issue from physical health.
I am appalled that the parents thought they could help their child by deceiving her so terribly. I cannot fathom where people get such ideas.
It's crazy making when you can't trust the people close to you, doubly so when they have as much power over you as parents have.
I keep wanting to write about such things but my only real qualification is "I was a full-time mom for a lot of years and I'm a great mom" and how do you prove that? That was a private activity.
My sons think I'm a great mom and say so regularly, but you can't build an audience on that and ...there have been a lot of issues I have been trying to sort out, from how to write well to how to deal with privacy issues while writing about family life.
I don't know how to make the connections I need to make with people in order to get meaningful traction on what to write about, where to promote it, etc. And it just really upsets me to see articles like this and feel like good information on the topic of parenting is desperately needed and not know how to make that happen.
[+] [-] estaseuropano|4 years ago|reply
2. If you want to start blogging, the bar today is lower than ever. Choose a name that resonates, and at the lowest and easiest level just get a WordPress blog with a domain. If things go well you can always upgrade to something else.
3. Try rereading your own post and think whether that's something others would want to read. E.g. each (!) of your paragraphs starts with I/my and the entire post is rambling with little coherence. Cut down to what is essential, focus on a single thought and develop it - few authors can pull of an interesting 'stream of consciousness' text.
4. Consider working on your voice and style, e.g. buy the cheap, tiny, excellent & fun Strunk & White book for a great starting point.
[+] [-] yarcob|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itronitron|4 years ago|reply
The author and colleagues have set up a related website (welltrainedmind I think?) and forum which seems to be fairly active and with a diverse set of viewpoints.
[+] [-] isomnesia|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codekilla|4 years ago|reply
Happy to answer any questions.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_by_the_Sea
[+] [-] sasaf5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tluyben2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wayoutthere|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod600|4 years ago|reply
But I think some kids really do need to get away and change environments and do some things on their own at an earlier age. Maybe a small town kid really needs a year in the city, or vice versa.
Maybe there could be more programs to facilitate that without it looking so much like a punishment.
[+] [-] ksaj|4 years ago|reply
That's how well tough love worked out for us.
[+] [-] werber|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pawelmi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wintermutestwin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gverrilla|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XorNot|4 years ago|reply
Not to say humanity has collectively improved, but the age group which tends to "wonder" if corporal punishment should be brought back has always been very specific when I encounter it.
[+] [-] RobLach|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blindmute|4 years ago|reply
We can ignore the swiftly rising depression rates among children for the sake of the argument.
[+] [-] titzer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aszantu|4 years ago|reply
In this case it's impossible to think that you're not safe with your parents and then they hand you over to one of those camps.
In my own case, i've learned early that mum isn't safe and trusted dad more. Something was up, the body knew. When he split and didn't want me, that's when trauma occured.
I'm almost 40 now and only pulled my life together 2 years ago. Be honest with your kids. They can handle the truth, but never lies... it's okay to not love them, but lying about it... really sad.
[+] [-] CultCEDU|4 years ago|reply
Some thoughts - archive.org has most of fornits - hashtag breakingcodesilence on pretty much any social media platform. tiktok has quite abit - a SURPRISING amount of 'counselors' account for their time at these schools on linkedin. some are even licensed now (bravo?). - this individual who has since passed away did a great job at documenting CEDU - https://survivingcedu.wordpress.com/cedu-documentary/ - at a high level there was a literal cult known as the Church of Synanon which was disbanded in the 70's by the federal government. This cult's purpose/mission was to save people from addiction by brainwashing/abuse/prophets. These principles then created the concept of 'theraputic boarding schools'. It has since hydra'd as it is an unaccountable industry and certain states have laws create conditions for less oversight. - The school I attended, the headmaster was from a cedu school that was shuttered, his qualifications was a degree in creative writing. There were maybe 6-10 counselors from other schools who then taught the hired 'uninitiated' counselors who themselves were typically 18-25 years old, without any college education. Students that excelled at these schools sometimes became counselors themselves.