Anyone familar w/ Outward Bound?
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Anyone familar w/ Outward Bound?
| Sat, 11-04-2006 - 6:32am |
Seriously considering putting my dd in an upcoming Outward Bound program for 28 days. The cost is $6,000. Has anyone heard anything about these programs? They have been around since I was a kid, but I do not know anyone who has ever gone to it. Any feedback? I'm getting desperate. DD is getting out of control with attitude, mood, drugs, alcohol, anger, etc. I found a private program, through the Pinnacle Schools but they wanted $17,000 for 56 days. I don't make that much in a year!!! So, although I would pay anything to help my kid.... I don't have $17,000!!! $6,000 is more my speed, but I don't know how much *therapy* she will receive, just survival type skills?? Help!!

I agree with Pam that you might want to post this on the tt board, where parents have had some experience with these programs. But I felt the need to add a warning: my 17ds has a friend who has just been sent to one of these programs. I do agree the teen needed some serious help and I know the parents (divorced) were desperate to send him there. He was heavily involved in drugs, truant, and physically beligerent. The way he was headed, he was going to wind up being arrested, or killed.
He was placed in an out of state program in Arizona (we are in California) and I don't know the name. However, he has been in touch with some of his friends over here and reports that the parents are fed a load of c**p about what is actually going on in there. The kids are literally pairing up in "gangs", smoking, and carrying on sounding very much like a prison system. I'm afraid this kid is going to come out much worse than he went in. I'd be very careful placing my kids in one of these programs. Just be aware they are going to be thrown in with some kids who may be even worse off. Think of the prison mentality, and you've got a good picture.
Instead of spending all that money (which you don't have) why not spend it on intensive therapy? I watched the video Misunderstood Minds (about undiagnosed learning disabilities) and one father of a troubled teenage boy actually had him committed to a mental hospital to get the help he needed. That is pretty drastic, but I think I would do that before I'd trust one of these wilderness programs. Good luck to you...