[cameronfraser]

I went to a similar school called CEDU, same protocol for getting students there, same abuse. Elan school was actually actively contacting current students parents of CEDU right when it closed down to get them to come to Elan. Most of the people I went to CEDU with are broken or dead. There are more schools like this, they just close down and start again. I'll plug Daniel Yuen's name here, he was at the facility with me at the same time and ran away and is still missing 18 years later

[revscat]

What justification was used by your parents in sending you there?

[cameronfraser]

They lie to parents and misrepresent the school usually. When parents go to visit everyone is acting to some extent. That being said it's usually narcissistic parents with money who are looking for an easy solution. There were quite a few fairly famous children there. Most of the kids there had issues for sure, including myself, but it was still in the realm of normal teenager issues.

[erdos4d]

> That being said it's usually narcissistic parents with money who are looking for an easy solution.

After reading this and the previous thread on these programs, I really get the impression that this is the fundamental driver behind it. Some people in comments try to paint a picture of desperate parents at their wits end taken in by the program's lies, but these kids didn't wake up one day and decide to have a lot of problems. I strongly suspect that most were simply neglected and abused by horrible parents that had them and didn't want them and did a shit job being a parent to them because they are narcissistic assholes, the sort of shit people that American society churns out with ever increasing frequency. That sort of people believe things that sound like easy fixes for their years of failure to actually be a good parent, and the child suffers even more for it.

[rictic]

That's a comforting narrative, that good parents couldn't end up with terribly behaving and out of control children. I think that good parenting probably does greatly reduce the chance, but it would be surprising if it totally eliminated the possibility.

[manmal]

Brain disorders (like fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which can be caused by drinking moderately before becoming aware of pregnancy) can do that to children of well-behaving and loving parents.

[tempnow987]

One challenge parents face is they don't feel there are other options.

They often cannot get services locally, cannot get kids into anything in patient, cannot get discipline going.

It's a weird dichotomy. You let your kid walk to park alone, you could face jail time. You send them to one of these camps, no issues.

In addition to criticizing these program's I'd love to see better suggested options for often desperate parents, especially for kids who are a bit older.

A lot of bad actors, but these schools have an opening sometimes where other systems are not stepping up.