३ सप्टेंबर, २०२२

"I don’t care if you like me, I am not raising you for YOU to like ME. I am raising YOU, for ME to like you."

Said Julio Sandoval, telling parents what he says to his own kids, quoted in "‘Literally kidnapping’: Teens taken against their will to boarding schools across US" (Kansas City Star).
[P]arents hire Sandoval’s company – Safe Sound Secure Youth Ministries – to remove their so-called “troubled teens” from their homes and transport them to the schools. Sandoval also is former dean of students at Agape Boarding School and current leader of another unlicensed facility, both in Missouri....

[Agents of t]ransport companies... often show up at homes in the middle of the night — with the parents’ consent — dragging scared youth out of bed...

“These guys came in my room in plain clothes,” [Niles] Short told The Star. “They handcuffed me with real handcuffs and threatened me with a taser. I got into survivor mode, told them I had to (go to the bathroom). They made me leave the door open and watched me.... I was cornered in my bedroom — it was a shocking thing.... My sister had warned me about it but I didn’t believe her, because Mom always threatened me with boarding school.”

Sandoval's quote caught my eye because it's reminiscent of the 5th of Jordan Peterson's "12 Rules for Life": "Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them." 

२० टिप्पण्या:

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

Gotta be better than government school...can't be worse.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

It's kinda like keeping a dog. If the dog is nuts, they got it from the owner.

Children are no different.

Trust me as my name is NOT Biden. I've seen this first hand.

Pettifogger म्हणाले...

Very extreme. But I can't without context say it was inappropriate. For a time, we threw a high-school-aged daughter out of the house. She was physically bigger than her mother and had threatened her. My wife was afraid and insisted.

gilbar म्हणाले...

literal.. You keep using that word.. i no think that word means, what you think it means

Buckwheathikes म्हणाले...

Why are "newspaper reporters" sooooo fucking ignorant. (Answer below).

It is not "literal kidnapping."

"Literal kidnapping" would be taking a child WITHOUT their parents permission.

The Kansas City Star got the definition of this term 100% incorrect. So you can understand their outrage and confusion. Had they bothered to actually THINK about what they were saying, they wouldn't be outraged. They would fully understand the world around them and how it works. And all would be well, except they wouldn't sell any newspapers or get clicks.

The answer to the question I posed at the beginning is: Newspaper reporters aren't this ignorant. They know precisely that this is not "literal kidnapping." They're just hoping YOU are ignorant. And sadly, for the large majority of "mainstream media readers" this is true. You cannot blame the newspapers though. They're writing what their idiot audience will pay for. And the idiot audience won't pay for the truth. The truth is free and available everywhere, after all.

Don't be a "mainstream media" person. They're lowest-common denominator morons.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

A school friend was told that she was going to summer camp. She arrived at military school. Who knows-- perhaps it was a good thing.

Sean म्हणाले...

Sounds a lot like Janet Reno. Somehow it was good when she did it.

Howard म्हणाले...

Driving for Jesus, driving for Jesus. Making all the lights.

who-knew म्हणाले...

I never snet my kids off to boarding school but the headline quote reminds me of what I would tell my kids when they hit the "I hate you" stage of their teens. I'd just say "OK, fine but I don't really care. If you still hate me when you're thirty I'll rethink this situation but until then...I don't care"

Blair म्हणाले...

I raise my kids because I love them. There's no fucking end goal benefit for me. It's an act of service to them and to God. Whomever likes whom is not remotely the point.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne म्हणाले...

Buckwheathikes said...

Why are "newspaper reporters" sooooo fucking ignorant.

Ignorance or on purpose? Which one helps further their agenda?

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

'Ignorance or on purpose? Which one helps further their agenda?'

They're probably just evil, but a potted plant could get a journalism degree these days...

Josephbleau म्हणाले...

I am interested, in an academic way, how a minor child got a restraining order against her mother.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) म्हणाले...

I live in far eastern Kansas. The KC Star is a low-quality, hard-leftist rag which has been worsening steadily for the quarter century I've been living here. I have no problem with what these parents are doing, because late is better than never.

a) Our job as parents is to raise responsible adults, NOT children. Far too many parents and schools are producing near-perpetual "children" with no real skills, internalized bad attitudes, unwillingness to expend effort or delay gratification, and an almost pathological sense of self-entitlement and victimhood.

b) Character is CAUGHT, not taught, and if parents finally realise that they've come up far short in that regard, good on 'em for attempting a purchased correction before it's too late.

c) If you're doing the job right, sometimes they're not going to LIKE you, but in learning to respect you, they learn respect others. My children learnt young that they could "challenge" parental directives for everything but safety, which was an instant and absolute order. But their "challenge" had to be calm and rational, not defiant. We either explained, rationally, in which case they agreed; or we said "You know? You're right. Forget it. Sorry. Good point."

I could say more, but you get the point. But I need to share that I spent several years on the teacher side of the "boarding school" equation. Many years ago my wife and I abandoned our doctoral work in Geochemistry to go teach science and maths at a residential [=boarding] school in the Canadian Arctic -- students 12 to 22. Some were from small northern towns too small for any secondary institution, and the Yukon government paid us to do the job. Others were hard-core Social Welfare cases from across western Canada, but making no progress in foster homes with intensive assistance. Others were sent by parents from across southern Canada and the northern States. either for an adventurous experience, or for the same reasons described in the article.

Students and teachers, called Parent Members of the community, lived and worked together in an often-unforgiving environment. Sixty-below [F] gets your attention when your job from midnight until 8 was to heave wood into the two boilers keeping everyone else warm for the night. But you knew that others were up at 5 to make sure everyone had breakfast; and that your Chemistry teacher, Bart, a farm kid, was out in the barn at 4, milking and collecting eggs for breakfast, and feeding the pigs which would be supper in a few weeks. And that other students would volunteer to be out there with him, shovelling manure and making it all work.

Nearly all of those kids went on to be solid, productive adults, and good parents themselves. My wife and I each went on eventually to earn our "D" -- though neither of us in Geochemistry -- and these decades later we are still close with some of our students, and consider those years to have been some of the most joyous and valuable of our lives.

Most of the students do as well.

Narr म्हणाले...

My older brother managed to saddle himself with a choice between living at home on probation and finishing high school or joining the Army. To his credit--and he amassed very little of that in my eyes in his 55 years--he joined the Army.

For the next few years the only really effective disciplinary threat my mother could make to
me and my little brothers was to sell the house and move somewhere cheaper.

Different schools. Different friends.

I don't think she would have, really, at least until the youngest was out of school; she certainly should have in the many decades left to her, but that's another story.

Matt म्हणाले...

It seems few here are reading the story. This Sandoval guy has been indicted by a federal grand jury for transporting kids. It’s awful what he and his transport company are accused of. Snatching teens from their beds in the middle of the night, zip tying their hands and in one case driving 27 hours to some school. YES that is very much like kidnapping. It doesn’t matter if the parents are okay with it. There are parents who lock their kids in closets. Is it okay since they are the parents and just want to discipline the kids?

The techniques used by Sandoval are illegal. Period. There are better ways to discipline kids than this.

Joanne Jacobs म्हणाले...

A friend of mine did this because he feared his teenage son would die or hurt someone and go to jail. It was incredibly awful. It worked. After a year (or maybe a bit less) at a school/detox/camp -- very expensive -- his son returned as a functional young man.

I saw the son recently at his father's memorial service: He gave a moving and funny speech about what he'd learned about parenting (he has a wife and son) from his father. He has a decent career too.

Gospace म्हणाले...

madAsHell said...
It's kinda like keeping a dog. If the dog is nuts, they got it from the owner.

Children are no different....


Tough to explain how 1 child of 7 turns out to be a druggie and alcoholic and the other 6 don't by blaming the parents. Why 1 of 7 and not some other number? My in laws...

Parents are not the only influence on children. Just ask all the teachers in the USA trying to turn boys into girls and vice versa...

And as Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said... a) Our job as parents is to raise responsible adults, NOT children. Also for those us who volunteer as youth group leaaders in Scouts and other organizations. In fact I used a similar line on a parent who came rushing out to chastise me after correcting her boys, yelling "They're just boys being boys!". To which I answered "We're trying to raise them as young men, not boys." They were in the troop less then 2 years. And both her boys ended up as guests in the prison system after graduating HS. Surprise, surprise, right?

One of the best ways to raise children is to set a good example yourself. When I worked retail I had more then one parent lament the latest legal trouble their kid was in, or mentioning another out of wedlock birth for their kid (both male and female kids). And most of the time- the parents were setting the example. If you're in your 30's doing coke with your biker boyfriend and your son who you had at 17 ends up in jail on a drug offense- just why exactly are you surprised?

But then, I've known a few kids who grew into responsible adults with truly screwed up parents. They had others around who helped, and provided the good examples they needed.

There are hundreds of ways to raise kids to be good adults. And probably more ways to screw them up for life, even when apparently the parent seem outwardly to be good examples (the prime example- Hunter Biden). But even if you do everything right- sometimes one slips through the cracks. And though I really hate to say it- some people are simply born evil, and nothing will change them. By the end of first grade you can pretty much pick out the most likely candidates to have future jail time.

Bender म्हणाले...

At some point, the children become adults. Then they turn it around on dad and say, "I don't care that you like me. Now you can GFY for the next 40 years of your life."

Aggie म्हणाले...

The layout of the article was great. "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY" says the democratic rep, with a picture of her just below. One look, and honestly I had to agree it was likely.

But in any case, it's a disturbing business model to say the least - ripe for the opportunites for abuse. Troubled teens are just coming into their physical strength, but it's hard to understand a parent so lost and out of control that they can't tell their kid that their being taken to boarding school to correct their behavior, like it or not.

However I would prefer to read a more balanced account, and this obviously is crafted to upset and outrage the readers.