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This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that

This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of control despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme emotional neglect from a very early age, and visiting a “troubled teen” facility is that it catalyses and forever imprints a childhood completely filled with trauma. It destroys forever the possibility of a relationship with the parents. Kids are often not told where they were going or being rushed away in the middle of the night, with drill sergeants and harsh punishments and rural facilities designed to present escape. It’s psychological torture to “break” a child as one would a farm animal. Parents are sacrosanct in this country and there is no actual community to give much in terms of help. Peoples suburban homes are their castle and nobody knows how much neglect or abuse is going on behind closed doors until the kid shows up at school with a “behavior disorder”. Simply put: people who are completely incompetent to care for another human being much less an immature one’s emotional or physical or developmental needs get full legal protection. I think this is underappreciated in society since everyone who is a parent experienced many difficulties and they imagine all the ways things could go wrong. They are usually being charitable to the other parents though - the bar at which a child develops a secure emotional attachment is not that high.

slibhb 5y ago
> I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. It seems wrong to single out environmental causes as dominant. There are parents with multiple children who all did fine except one. Anyway, we know it's a complicated mix of genetics and environment and either factor can be decisive. > Parents are sacrosanct in this country and there is no actual community to give much in terms of help. Peoples suburban homes are their castle and nobody knows how much neglect or abuse is going on behind closed doors until the kid shows up at school with a “behavior disorder”. Simply put: people who are completely incompetent to care for another human being much less an immature one’s emotional or physical or developmental needs get full legal protection. I think this is underappreciated in society since everyone who is a parent experienced many difficulties and they imagine all the ways things could go wrong. They are usually being charitable to the other parents though - the bar at which a child develops a secure emotional attachment is not that high. Parents are much less sacrosanct in the US/UK than anywhere else. No one actually knows how to raise children. We have decided to let parents experiment on their children and this seems correct to me. The more we mandate certain parenting techniques, the more it will become clear that the "science" behind child-rearing is not reliable. We'll be screwing up children uniformly instead of haphazardly. I think it's better to let parents do their best. This leaves us with some children who were over-disciplined and some who were under-disciplined and this is a better outcome than everyone being screwed up in the same way.
- taurath 5y ago
  > Parents are much less sacrosanct in the US/UK than anywhere else. By what measure? Cultural relevance or actual legal authority? > No one actually knows how to raise children. We have a much better idea now about how to meet the developmental needs of children than ever before, I think almost anyone would argue. We have studies on the outcomes of things like corporal punishment. We have the ACE study and it’s effects. So many other foundational developmental science has been done in the last 30 years. > I think it's better to let parents do their best. This leaves us with some children who were over-disciplined and some who were under-disciplined and this is a better outcome than everyone being screwed up in the same way. I certainly won’t argue against that but I would argue that having people have at least a cursory education on child rearing might be something that would help. As a survivor of abuse it’s very difficult to allow for the idea that nothing further could be done for kids in similar positions.
  - slibhb 5y ago
    > By what measure? Cultural relevance or actual legal authority? Both. Wales made corporeal punishment illegal recently. That would be unthinkable in most of the world. In most Asian cultures, children have a lifelong obligation to their parents. In the US, once you're an adult, you're on your own and it's not uncommon to have limited contact with your parents. > We have a much better idea now about how to meet the developmental needs of children than ever before, I think almost anyone would argue. We have studies on the outcomes of things like corporal punishment. We have the ACE study and it’s effects. So many other foundational developmental science has been done in the last 30 years. We might know more than we used to but we know very little. I suspect the vast majority of these studies have no predictive power. > I certainly won’t argue against that but I would argue that having people have at least a cursory education on child rearing might be something that would help. As a survivor of abuse it’s very difficult to allow for the idea that nothing further could be done for kids in similar positions. I think your experience ("survivor of abuse") probably informs your views more than supposed advances in science of child development. And the same is true for me: the fact that my parents were/are wonderful and my father hit me occasionally explains my views here. There is such a thing as abuse, it should be illegal, and it's a serious problem. But we're in danger of demonizing discipline and reasonable physical punishment. My experience is that discipline and love aren't opposites, they should coexist and when you don't have one, you're going to have trouble.
unityByFreedom 5y ago
> This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I didn't get that from the above comment. They were just asking people to listen to the stories individually, and to consider that culture can influence the choices parents make. Parents' choices can be misguided, and as you say, they need guidance too. > My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme emotional neglect from a very early age, and visiting a “troubled teen” facility is that it catalyses and forever imprints a childhood completely filled with trauma. That may be. I don't think that disagrees with the above comment.
- taurath 5y ago
  > I didn't get that from the above comment. They were just asking people to listen to the stories individually, and to consider that culture can influence the choices parents make. Parents' choices can be misguided, and as you say, they need guidance too. I suppose I felt like it paints a fairly rosy picture of the "trouble teen" industry. "Resorts" with ski passes and mountain biking would seem to be the exception (and an extremely well heeled one at that) rather than the norm. I feel like in some ways the narratives that conservative "tough love" industries foist on parents is that their childrens emotions are unmanageable intrinsically rather than a relatively predictable outcome from parents who themselves were raised in a cycle of abusive and nullifying behavior. That said there is a percentage of the bell curve of "troubled teens" who really did have a better than average upbringing in terms of getting physical and emotional needs met. The problem is that for many parents there's a self-perception that that number approaches 100%, when in fact its quite clear from the children's own experience that they were experiencing extreme levels of neglect. There's a vast gulf between the self perception of incompetent/traumatized parents and the actual needs of children, and I wanted to highlight that.

slibhb 5y ago

> I’ll even give that in some cases there is just some condition that makes a kid incredibly out of despite actual loving supporting parents, but I would wager you can find environmental causes in most cases. It seems wrong to single out environmental causes as dominant. There are parents with multiple children who all did fine except one. Anyway, we know it's a complicated mix of genetics and environment and either factor can be decisive. > Parents are sacrosanct in this country and there is no actual community to give much in terms of help. Peoples suburban homes are their castle and nobody knows how much neglect or abuse is going on behind closed doors until the kid shows up at school with a “behavior disorder”. Simply put: people who are completely incompetent to care for another human being much less an immature one’s emotional or physical or developmental needs get full legal protection. I think this is underappreciated in society since everyone who is a parent experienced many difficulties and they imagine all the ways things could go wrong. They are usually being charitable to the other parents though - the bar at which a child develops a secure emotional attachment is not that high. Parents are much less sacrosanct in the US/UK than anywhere else. No one actually knows how to raise children. We have decided to let parents experiment on their children and this seems correct to me. The more we mandate certain parenting techniques, the more it will become clear that the "science" behind child-rearing is not reliable. We'll be screwing up children uniformly instead of haphazardly. I think it's better to let parents do their best. This leaves us with some children who were over-disciplined and some who were under-disciplined and this is a better outcome than everyone being screwed up in the same way.

taurath 5y ago
> Parents are much less sacrosanct in the US/UK than anywhere else. By what measure? Cultural relevance or actual legal authority? > No one actually knows how to raise children. We have a much better idea now about how to meet the developmental needs of children than ever before, I think almost anyone would argue. We have studies on the outcomes of things like corporal punishment. We have the ACE study and it’s effects. So many other foundational developmental science has been done in the last 30 years. > I think it's better to let parents do their best. This leaves us with some children who were over-disciplined and some who were under-disciplined and this is a better outcome than everyone being screwed up in the same way. I certainly won’t argue against that but I would argue that having people have at least a cursory education on child rearing might be something that would help. As a survivor of abuse it’s very difficult to allow for the idea that nothing further could be done for kids in similar positions.
- slibhb 5y ago
  > By what measure? Cultural relevance or actual legal authority? Both. Wales made corporeal punishment illegal recently. That would be unthinkable in most of the world. In most Asian cultures, children have a lifelong obligation to their parents. In the US, once you're an adult, you're on your own and it's not uncommon to have limited contact with your parents. > We have a much better idea now about how to meet the developmental needs of children than ever before, I think almost anyone would argue. We have studies on the outcomes of things like corporal punishment. We have the ACE study and it’s effects. So many other foundational developmental science has been done in the last 30 years. We might know more than we used to but we know very little. I suspect the vast majority of these studies have no predictive power. > I certainly won’t argue against that but I would argue that having people have at least a cursory education on child rearing might be something that would help. As a survivor of abuse it’s very difficult to allow for the idea that nothing further could be done for kids in similar positions. I think your experience ("survivor of abuse") probably informs your views more than supposed advances in science of child development. And the same is true for me: the fact that my parents were/are wonderful and my father hit me occasionally explains my views here. There is such a thing as abuse, it should be illegal, and it's a serious problem. But we're in danger of demonizing discipline and reasonable physical punishment. My experience is that discipline and love aren't opposites, they should coexist and when you don't have one, you're going to have trouble.

unityByFreedom 5y ago

> This all pretends like there’s somehow no causality to many of these kids being “difficult”. I didn't get that from the above comment. They were just asking people to listen to the stories individually, and to consider that culture can influence the choices parents make. Parents' choices can be misguided, and as you say, they need guidance too. > My experience with friends who have gone to places like this is that the kids by and large were under extreme emotional neglect from a very early age, and visiting a “troubled teen” facility is that it catalyses and forever imprints a childhood completely filled with trauma. That may be. I don't think that disagrees with the above comment.

taurath 5y ago
> I didn't get that from the above comment. They were just asking people to listen to the stories individually, and to consider that culture can influence the choices parents make. Parents' choices can be misguided, and as you say, they need guidance too. I suppose I felt like it paints a fairly rosy picture of the "trouble teen" industry. "Resorts" with ski passes and mountain biking would seem to be the exception (and an extremely well heeled one at that) rather than the norm. I feel like in some ways the narratives that conservative "tough love" industries foist on parents is that their childrens emotions are unmanageable intrinsically rather than a relatively predictable outcome from parents who themselves were raised in a cycle of abusive and nullifying behavior. That said there is a percentage of the bell curve of "troubled teens" who really did have a better than average upbringing in terms of getting physical and emotional needs met. The problem is that for many parents there's a self-perception that that number approaches 100%, when in fact its quite clear from the children's own experience that they were experiencing extreme levels of neglect. There's a vast gulf between the self perception of incompetent/traumatized parents and the actual needs of children, and I wanted to highlight that.