Run-aways
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den ...@arabia.uucp (Denise Difilippo)
I had a bizarre experience a few days ago. I'll describe it briefly. Then maybe you can offer some suggestions along the lines of "What should I do now?" and "How could I have handled it better?" My daughter is 12 years old (she'd say almost 13). Her best friend of the last couple of years has been behaving strangely for the last few months. Recently it got much worse. Her mother tried to get her into counseling; the situation still got worse; about two weeks ago the child was admitted to a childrens' mental health center.
Last Thursday evening I answered the phone, and this same girl was calling for my daughter, collect. I accepted the call, then talked to her for a few minutes. She admitted that she and three others had run away from the center; she was calling from a bar just a couple miles from the center. The children were tired, hungry, cold, scared. Their original plan, to sleep under a highway bridge, was losing its appeal. They were adamant about not going back to the center, but agreed to tell me where they were if I would keep their secret. These children were all between 12 and 15, and the other three were strangers to me.
I told them to stay put and drove to get them. We went to get something to eat. I tried to talk sense, like "You know that people are worried about you", "What do you hope to do?", "Is there a family friend who will take you in for the night and talk to your parents?", "If they didn't love you they wouldn't be working so hard to help you", and on and on and on . . .I got back adolescent confidence that if they just stuck together they'd get along.
There was no way I was going to let those children back on the street.
I took them to my home, called their families (under watchful eyes and ears; they were ready to bolt if I said where we were) to tell them the kids were safe, made up a couple of spare beds and prepared to let them spend the night.
By morning, one child had gone home with her dad. The other three, including my daughter's friend, had plans. Someone was going to pick them up and drive them to the home of another child they knew from the center. That child was due to be released that day, and had ***ured them that his parents would take them in. Right.
My daughter's friend's mother came over, but her daughter refused to talk with her or leave with her.
At that point I called the police department and reported that I knew the location of three runaways. (The kids had relaxed some, and weren't watching me so carefully, so I was able to make the call privately.) Eventually, the sheriff came to take them back to the center. I have not heard anything since.
My daughter is confused, scared, angry with me and appreciative at the same time. I know that I was manipulated by these kids, to some extent, but I do not know what I could have done differently. I am glad that I kept them safe, but I hated sending those confused children off to the police department.
So--what should I have done differently, and what do I do now?
den...@aio.jsc.nasa.gov
gr ...@genome.stanford.edu (Gregg L. Kasten)
(Ms. Difilippo was hospitable toward the children in order to keep them from going back out on the streets) It sounds as if you handled it quite well. There were many points at which you could have made different decisions, but it seems to me that all would have had equally good and equally bad effects. The fact that your daughter had a friend who was institutionalized is, in itself, enough to confuse her. You were indeed manipulated by these children because they knew you wanted to help them. In turn, YOU manipulated THEM so that they would not escape to the streets again. They manipulated you not out of malice but out of fear. You manipulated them not out of malice but out of concern for their well-being.
The children were at an age such that they probably did not fully understand the reason for which they were institutionalized. They were probably confused. You did your best to help them. I only hope that others who might be faced with a similar situation can make such clear decisions as you did.
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pa ...@meaddata.com (Paul Marchant)
Hey Rich. Are you a parent? A teenager? You do a good job of raking Denise over the coals for her actions and decisions. Let's here how you would have handled the situation differently. Then, we can extrapolate what kind of results that would have had. Denise did not 'con' them to come to her house so she could call the cops and send them back to jail. Her attempt was first to provide safe shelter and prevent the bad things you list from happening at least that night.
Give them a chance to rethink their positions and perhaps convince them to work things out with their parents. As a parent, I would be extremely grateful if Denise or some other parent would do the same for my son if he were in the same situation.
Unfortunetly, not all the kids decided to work things out with their parents. What other choice did she really have? Let the kids leave on their own? Would you then condem her if something bad had happened to the kids. Saying that she could have prevented it if she had called the authorities? She did the best she could under the situation, and I applaud her actions.
But since your note seems to imply another and better solution. Please share it with us so that we don't make the same mistakes that you think Denise made.
___________________________________________________________________________ Paul Marchant | The other FINAL FOUR! | (513) 865 - 1637 Mead Data Central | April 2-4 Albany, NY | Data Technology P.O. Box 933 | The BEST OF THE BEST in | pa...@meaddata.com Dayton, OH 45401 | NCAA Hockey | ...!uunet!meaddata!paulm
den ...@arabia.uucp (Denise Difilippo)
I agree completely. A couple of days of being uncomfortable puts an entirely new light on how bad your current situation is! But, I also agree that this is not really a safe option.
This was suggested to me several times during these events. I tried hard not to let it drive my decisions, but I am still worried about it. No matter how good my intentions, I don't know how it looked to the police, the center, or the parents. And I have no control over what the children *told* other people about how they ended up at my place or why they stayed.
Believe me, I asked! As near as I can tell, the food was awful, they had to use plastic utensils, they had to go to bed on time, or early if they got in trouble, girls and boys were separated except during the school day, they had to do their homework, and there was no Coke (as in Coca-Cola). They were only allowed to call people on a list that had been pre-approved by parents and doctors. I took this to mean that they were angry, rebellious, and sick to death of being confined. It may sound like they were overreacting, but don't we all feel that way sometimes?
Well, so far I haven't been served with any lawsuits. My daughter doesn't want to talk about it much. She admits that this is because she'd probably get really angry with me if we talked, and she is sure I don't deserve that but not sure she could control it. Meanwhile, she is working very hard at being sweet and cooperative. We are both pretty frightened at how fast and far family communication can deteriorate, as illustrated by these events.
I have only heard from one family (my daughter's friend). This girl returned to the center and spent 24 hours in isolation.
Afterwords, she spent several hours talking to her parents.
Within a couple of days they had come to some agreement about changes each of them would try to make, and she went home.
One of the changes they agreed on is that the girl will transfer to a different school. The school they chose is the same one my daughter attends. There is no transportation from their house to this school, so her mom will drop her off at my home each morning to catch the bus.
den...@aio.jsc.nasa.gov
den ...@arabia.uucp (Denise Difilippo)
I agree. This is a very important lesson to learn. At my home, they were warm, fed, and unmolested while they learned it. I hope it sunk in.
den...@aio.jsc.nasa.gov
c ...@tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski)
Your writing is somewhat difficult to follow. Is it correct that your choice would have been to keep them overnight and then tell them to leave in the morning, without notifying their parents or the institution?
What if they returned the next day, how long would this continue? Or would you just let them stay indefinately, until they made up their minds?
I'd have to say that IMO Denise handled the situation very well.
You just can't go kidnapping other people's kids, this isn't Nazi Germany, the institution isn't a concentration camp -- and so long as the kids are neither adults nor emancipated minors they are going to have to accept the direction of their parents or guardians, unless these become abusive or neglectful.
That's not to say I care for all those nice, shiny-new adolescent psych treatment centers. While there may be a very few kids who really need this sort of heavy-duty service, I suspect a great many kids are being tossed into these places just because there are few other resources available for parents who have reached their limits. Medicalizing what is often not a particularly medical problem just seems like the wrong way to go.
Last year my wife and I went to the high school because we received an announcement that a parents' group was to be formed to discuss some common problems in raising teens. Instead we got a pitch for a residential adolescent psych facility. The pitchman, who represented himself as a licensed clinical psychologist, told us some of the behaviors that were suppposed to indicate that a teen was in need of residential psychiatric treatment: "talks back to parents", "messy room", "disrespectful attitude" etc.
We walked out, but it looked as though many parents were taking this stuff very, very seriously ... and we wondered if perhaps there were a few less kids in school the next day.
shede ...@vix.com (Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.2b)
*pitchman, who represented himself as a licensed clinical *psychologist, told us some of the behaviors that were suppposed to *indicate that a teen was in need of residential psychiatric treatment: *"talks back to parents", "messy room", "disrespectful attitude" etc.
This is really distressing...I mean...if my daughter didn't exhibit these traits at the age of 13, *that* would cause me to worry that there was something wrong with her!
I personally can't *imagine* institutionalizing my child for "inappropriate behaviour" (as opposed to a disability..and even then I'd have to be convinced that it really was best for my child)..that isn't to say that people who do are wrong...I just can't imagine it.
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j ...@locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer)
In the parenting cl*** I just finished, the psychologists (who are parents of a teen-ager themselves) claimed that if teen-agers were adults they would be diagnosed as extremely neurotic, but this neurotic behavior is normal for teens. SHe used mood swings as an example, but there are other behaviors as well.
I think it is very important that we NOT judge teen-agers by adult standards in the same way we don't judge 2 YO by adult standards. One prominent child care expert refers to the terrible twos as "the first adolescence". I think it helps to remember that.
One other thing that came out of our discussion that I think can help (it helped the parents of teens) is that the teen-age years are the time when the children and parents are preparing for separation. It's sort of like the ninth month of pregnancy. If everything was wondeful, you'd HATE the separation. But the teen years make parents ready to let their children leave home. ANd it makes teens ready to go out into the scary world on their own.
Maybe if we could look at the turmoil as a postive rather than a negative thing it would help in the long run. Of course, I'm just starting to handle the bratty 4s so I'm no expert ;-)
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n ...@NeoSoft.com (John Lightsey)
(I haven't been reading this goup before now, and I don't have time to keep up with it....) I'm 18, and fortunately for me, I made it through the mental-health blitz without being caught up in it. (Probably due to the fact that my parents were divorced and my mother simply could not ever hope to afford such a trip.) Anyway, I live in a relatively rich suberb of Houston, and about 1 in 4 of the people I know have been to various Mental-Health clinics. Some realy needed help, some obviously didn't. Let's see.....
Stacy: (Ex Girlfriend) She was sent to a mental-health clinic for about 3 months because she was depressed and took up self-mutilation..
She was diagnosed Manic-Depressive and put on lithium. When she was finally able to convince her mother to release her the doctors decided that she was 'Cured'. (I believe that she was/is supposed to be on some perscriptions to control a chemical imbalance, but she refuses to take nearly all medications.) I knew her before and after her trip. The only difference is that now she loses all control over herself when she is upset, and dislikes her mother.
Trina: (Close friend) I met Trina after she had gone through the mental-health scene.. She also had a problem with self-mutilation, and attempted suicide numerous times (She has ENORMOUS scars from the time she tried slicing her wrists with a steak-knife). She spent 2 years of her life drifting from one hospital to another. Finally her insurance ran out and she was 'cured'. (The two nearly allways coincide) I met her about 1 year after she had left her last hospital. She was a run-away at the time. About 1 year after we met she had moved away and begun an intense cocain habit. A few months ago a firend told me that she was a single parent now, and had moved back in with her parents. (I think she's 20 or 21 now) Kyle: (Close firend) Kyle and I were long time friends. We experimented with different things together when we were younger. When he was 16 he was smoking MJ 5 or 6 times a week. His parents finally caught on and sent him to Lauralwood for 2 months. He got out and began smoking again after 2 weeks. About 6 months later his parents sent him to Utah (A survival/boot-camp type thing) for a summer. He started smoking again after 1 week of being back. A year later he quit on his own. (His reason was that he was getting tired of being stoned all the time) Kyle resents his parents sending him away, and often tells stories about the ***holes that ran the camp. (For example.. On one hike a girl p***ed out from exhaustion.. One of the counselors told her to get up and keep going.
When she didn't he dragged her by her hair <Leaving cuts all over her face>) Jana: (Firend) She was sent to a mental-clinic when her parents found out that she was taking acid. She never realy spoke to me about what went on there, but during the time I knew her (After the trip) she dropped acid like it was going out of style, and went on a sexual rampage so to speak.
One night we were talking about relationships and she broke down crying over her sex life. I think she was feeling better though after we talked.
Matt: (Close Friend) Smoked MJ from begining of High-School. Sent to Lauralwood for 2 months. (Didn't quit for a second, but did get straight A's in the hospital) I can go on and on.. Lauralwood (The local mental-clinic) had a counselor who sold Acid to the patients.. (Lauralwood BTW is discontinuing it's mental-health activities due to lawsuits, bad publicity and ongoing investigations) No-one I know has had any dramatic changes as a result of visiting one of these places. The only changes to take place were 1) The kids were not as open with their parents afterwards.. 2) The kids found better ways of hiding their activities, or simply ran away from home.. 3) The kids resented their parents actions (Though they will not admit it to them)..
4) The kids learned to kiss *** and question their parents with less frequency.
(Almost forgot.. The most violent person I know was sent to a Military Academy in his teens. His parents simply did not want the responsibility of raising him) Anyway.. I'm shure you allready know that these places are out to make a profit.....Helping people is secondary to that.. I'm shure you know that the Mental-health industry is on the verge of a shake-up.. I'm shure you realize that many parents are abusing the system to get rid of their responsibilities as parents.. I'm shure you know that the real victims in this mess are we the children... I'm shure you realize that the kid you sent to the hospital will never ever tell you that he hates you for doing it (Doing so would be like a convict calling his judge and telling him to **** off after getting probation). I'm shure you realize that we ARE the lost generation...........the people who are now 15-25 are going to be the major burden on society for the next few decades.. and most of all I'm shure you realize that all these kids who have been sent to Mental-Health clinics (wether justly or not) will forever bear the mark of it on their records.
Enough ragging/bitching/whatever for now though.. It's late.. I used to have faith in people.. I used to think that people did (on average) the right thing. I don't know any more.. I realy don't know.. The future is screwed.....because WE ARE THE FUTURE..
(Of cource there are still decent people out there.. I know quite a few.... ) John/Narcosynthesis..
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n...@sugar.neosoft.com n...@taronga.com <John Lightsey/Narcosynthesis> "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -Tacitus
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