Sandra Dodd

Here's the text of an e-mail I just sent. Below that is the e-mail
to which I was responding. Below that are some stunned comments
(mine).

-=-Let's Face it:

There is not much you can do as a Parent until your Teen is properly
motivated.-=

I've rarely seen anything so diametrically opposed to what my page is
about. So I suppose you send your e-mail to many places in hopes of
getting clients. I don't believe you actually read anything on my
site, but if you truly are interested in learning why I think your
ideas are problematical (and probably school-based) here are a couple
of other pages:
http://sandradodd.com/respect
http://sandradodd.com/spoiled

Sandra
-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: jonathan.dmbc@...
Subject: Similar Content Link

Date: April 27, 2009 12:13:22 AM MDT

To: Sandra@...

Dear Sandra,

I have come across your website http://sandradodd.com/parentingpeacefully
and found that we have similar content and was hoping you would be
willing to place a link on your site. Please consider our humble
request for we feel our link would add value to your site and those
who may be visitors. Thanks you for your time, let me know if this is
possible.

Best regards,
Jonathan

Our Related Site

Website
http://parenttools.org/

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Parent Tools Video Parenting Course

Telephone
1-888-517-9625

Description
A total home based program for you to implement in your own home. Six
different videos that you can watch that will assist you in setting
better boundaries in your home and getting your child to earn what he
receives instead of just receiving it.

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"...and getting your child to earn what he receives instead of just
receiving it."

Like the bar-pressing rats of my psychology lab days in the 70's, I
guess. Think "the Dharma Initiative" and their training cages and
buttons to push. (or if you never watch Lost, never mind that part)

The VIDEO 2 Using Effective Consequences
The description is "Gives parents and arsenal of effective
consequences they can use in practically any situation."

"ARSENAL"? I do understand the use of simile, but arsenal is a very
firepower-heavy word. VERY antagonistic. And people have arsenals in
their own defense. So to use that word, it seems he sees teens as
enemies, to some extent.

I'm still listening to the preview file of "Using Effective
Consequences" and it's irritating me in a very specific way: The guy
is reading aloud, and not reading very well. He's pronouncing "a"
with a long "a" so that it sounds like a kid reading in school rather
than an adult with a PhD imparting important information. He reads
as though he's reading this for the first time, too.

But the content is interesting too. Some quotes:

"Rules are only effective when there are consequences to enforce them."

How different that is from making choices. The rule isn't that Keith
goes to work and I stay home. Keith went to work this morning because
he would rather go to work than lose his job. He would rather have
money than lose our house. I'm home because I want to be; I chose it
again today! I'm thinking now where else I could go. Surely I have
friends and relatives who would let me move in right now today. I
have a charge card and a car. I could walk out of this house and
never come back. But I WANT to be here. I like it here!

This guy who wants me to put a link to his site on my parenting
peacefull page says "Without rules and consequences the family cannot
properly function."

"Properly function"?
That's so different from "live joyfully."


"Home Contracts have been used for years to effectuate change in teens."

That's from Video 4's description. I hate words like "effectuate."
They're bullshit. But who wants to buy videos or personal coaching
from someone who doesn't know big words they don't understand?

Video 5 promises help about this:

"Recognizing specific warning signs is essential to being an effective
parent."

I bet nothing in there will suggest that parents might have done
differently long before the kids were teens, unless it's to shame the
parents for not having had stronger consequences years earlier. And
I suppose this guy could say "Well my daughter never wrestled in
pudding." In the warning signs, in the one minute they give away,
One of the sections is the effect of parents. They seem to be seeing
the kids as a total liability to parental peace and prosperity or
something.

Probably they do well with selling their assistance to families who've
botched the job and just want to make it through the last few years of
the teen years before they can cut them off at 18. It's as though
they're raising wild mongooses and javelinas they don't recognize and
they want an arsenal of tools to control them until they can release
them into society at 18 or 21.

Anyone here who wants a glimpse of an extremely different view of
teens might look at some of those little samples of the videos they're
SELLING that lead up to suggesting kids can be put in "structured
schools" (detainment centers) or boot camps. And if the families
can't afford the low monthly payments, they can be offset by community
outreach (which I figure means they'll be out drumming up more
business for the lock-up programs. It's kinda horrible. (the sixth
video).

One of the stories in that 6th sample is a girl whose dad used to
defend her from her stepmother, but now she's in a lockup.

In the notes below one of the disturbing things is:
" Almost without exception, just a few days or even a weekend at a
highly structured, regimented, disciplined and supervised Intervention
Center and Teens become highly motivated to cooperate with parents,
show them respect, and follow all home rules in lieu of staying longer
or returning. "

Perhaps I have an unreasonable prejudice, but without looking the guy
up, I'm guessing he's from Tennessee or Georgia or Alabama and that
he's Baptist. And if I go and read about him and find that I'm true
is it then "unreasonable prejudice" to think I know some more about
his beliefs and upbringing? And if I say that, then will some people
not say "See? She's saying Christians can't be unschoolers."

Certainly it's jumpy, jittery logic, but so is all of this "worldview"
that considers obedience and being seen and not heard "real world" and
honest communications and loving relationships to be bad and wrong.


Sandra

Jenny C

>
> Probably they do well with selling their assistance to families who've
> botched the job and just want to make it through the last few years of
> the teen years before they can cut them off at 18. It's as though
> they're raising wild mongooses and javelinas they don't recognize and
> they want an arsenal of tools to control them until they can release
> them into society at 18 or 21.


That's interesting! I have recently done a search on teens ditching
school, since that was a recent event at our house. If you do a google
search just on that, you come up with tons of sites like the one this
guy is promoting. They are all geared to parents trying to control
their teens. They have only a few years left and they need them to jump
through the hoops of school and getting a diploma and staying out of
trouble, just long enough to make it to adulthood.

I wrote a little bit about it at my blog
<http://jenniferstar.blogspot.com/2009/04/aww-teens-ditching-school.html\
> and linked another of those horrid sites, with the same kind of
philosophy, selling to scared parents.

Clearly there is a market there for selling to scared parents that have
botched the job of raising their kids and suddenly have teens that
actually have a mind of their own, OMG, and are doing things that, in
light of reality, actually make sense, but go against all parental ideas
of what is acceptable for teens to do. I wonder sometimes if parents
even remember what they themselves did as teens and how they felt about
life.

I'm soooo glad that my kids don't live in reactionary land. They do
things because they want to and it makes sense to do it and they get to
do it with my blessings!



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jenny C

> -=-Let's Face it:
>
> There is not much you can do as a Parent until your Teen is properly
> motivated.-=
>


Hmmm properly motivated to wear button up shirts and ties! Wow! That
really proves that a teen is doin well in life eh? I like how the the
kid is shown all clean cut and stuff, because clearly that is how all
kids must look and indeed all people strive for that ideal! GAG!

Maisha Khalfani

Here’s the part that frightens me:



``It utilizes a simple but powerful Attitude and Behavior Modification
Program.``



Reminds me of movies like V for Vendetta and 1984. Makes me feel like it’s
some kind of brain washing system.



Namasté

Maisha Khalfani
<http://sevenfreespirits.blogspot.com/> 7 Free Spirits

<http://earthspiritreadings.blogspot.com/> Tarot & Intuitive Readings
You cannot worry about someone and love them at the same time. Most people
mistake the emotion of worry for the emotion of love. They think that
worrying about somebody means that you love them.
~Abraham



Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We
are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
~Barack Obama



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

 I think when parents use  a "program" like that  they can then say: "We tried everything and nothing worked"
Its a way of shifting the "blame". It was not their fault the kid turned out that way. It was the kid that was rotten. Nothing they did helped> "We did everything right and I don't know what happened that they became like that"
 
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lyla Wolfenstein

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>How different that is from making choices. The rule isn't that Keith
goes to work and I stay home. Keith went to work this morning because
he would rather go to work than lose his job. He would rather have
money than lose our house. I'm home because I want to be; I chose it
again today! I'm thinking now where else I could go. Surely I have
friends and relatives who would let me move in right now today. I
have a charge card and a car. I could walk out of this house and
never come back. But I WANT to be here. I like it here!
____________________________

but that guy (and lots and lots of parenting "experts" would say - keith went to work this morning *because of the consdequences* if he didn't go. in fact, a dad in our connected parenting class last week said something specifically to that effect - "kids need to learn to live in the real world - to do a job - you don't work if you don't get paid, etc"

i am NOT defending that perspective above, i am just sayin' - "choices" is the cornerstone to lots and lots of really pretty awful parenting "techniques" - but it is the parent offering the false array of choices: do you want to stay at the boot camp, or come home and obey? do you want to eat all your dinner, or sit at the table all night? do you want to clean your room, or 'lose' your ipod?

so when talking about "choices" and "consequences" to most of the parenting world, those words mean something so different....

lyla

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-i am just sayin' - "choices" is the cornerstone to lots and lots of
really pretty awful parenting "techniques" - but it is the parent
offering the false array of choices: do you want to stay at the boot
camp, or come home and obey? do you want to eat all your dinner, or
sit at the table all night? do you want to clean your room, or 'lose'
your ipod?-=-

You're right.

Their consequences are "appropriate" to control. They're not "natural
consequences." They've taken real life and made a sadistic game of it
in which the parent "wins" and wins and wins while the child loses and
loses and loses.

Dip wads.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lyla Wolfenstein

_____________________________

You're right.

Their consequences are "appropriate" to control. They're not "natural
consequences." They've taken real life and made a sadistic game of it
in which the parent "wins" and wins and wins while the child loses and
loses and loses.__________________________



yes, and not just that - even more subtle, i think, are the ways in which parents "allow" the "natural consequenecs" of kids' actions to fall squarely on the kids' shoulders, in the name of "tough love" or "learning a lesson" -

it starts when kids are really little - a 3 year old refuses to put on a coat, so the parent doesn't even bring one along and when the 3 year old is cold, the parent says "see, i told you so - now we need to go home because you were too stupid to listen to mommy" (well - not in those words, but...)

or when an older child mis-judges whether she/he will be hungry and the parent refuses to buy a snack, while out, because the kid didn't eat before leaving, as "instructed"

so even natural, related "consequences" can be used to manipulate, control, and send the message "i am smart, you are dumb, and you'd best learn to listen to me and not think for yourself"

lyla
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

On Apr 27, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Lyla Wolfenstein wrote:

> it starts when kids are really little - a 3 year old refuses to put
> on a coat, so the parent doesn't even bring one along and when the 3
> year old is cold, the parent says "see, i told you so - now we need
> to go home because you were too stupid to listen to mommy" (well - not
> in those words, but...)

Restricted though I was as a child I can see a little difference in the
way I was brought up from the conditioning we're talking about here.
My folks wouldn't have made a point of me not having brought my coat by
letting me be cold. They would have made me wear the coat whether I
wanted to or not because they cared that I not end up cold.

> or when an older child mis-judges whether she/he will be hungry and
> the parent refuses to buy a snack, while out, because the kid didn't
> eat before leaving, as "instructed"

Same with the food. They would have promised no food for x amount of
time and insisted that I eat something not let me go hungry for an
object lesson on obedience.

Ok they were controlling but I still realized that they cared if I were
cold or hungry way way more than if I were obedient. They made it
their responsibility to make sure. Not mine.

As annoying as it is to be controlled and coerced, being manipulated
comes off as frightening, chaotic and irresponsible.

It's amazing the degrees in better or worse ways to relate to people.

~Katherine

Jay Ford

>>>Here’s the part that frightens me:

``It utilizes a simple but powerful Attitude and Behavior Modification
Program.``

Reminds me of movies like V for Vendetta and 1984. Makes me feel like it’s
some kind of brain washing system.<<<

This reminds me of when my daughter and I were taking a long RV trip together, we were somewhere between TN and VA and listening to the radio.  This commercial came on:  Is your child obnoxious?  and went on to describe a 'program' for kids who were rebellious, angry, disobedient, disregarded authority, etc, and guaranteed to get results (ie control over your kid).  Call for an initial consult and they guaranteed some sort of result in 3 minutes or less.

We still laugh about that one.  I've now seen similar ads on TV, and we crack up every time we see it.  It's nice to see my kids growing and making good decisions, because they WANT to, not because they fear me, or because I demand they be obedient.


Jay




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob Collier

--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> Here's the text of an e-mail I just sent. Below that is the e-mail
> to which I was responding. Below that are some stunned comments
> (mine).
>
> -=-Let's Face it:
>
> There is not much you can do as a Parent until your Teen is properly
> motivated.-=
>
> I've rarely seen anything so diametrically opposed to what my page is
> about. So I suppose you send your e-mail to many places in hopes of
> getting clients. I don't believe you actually read anything on my
> site, but if you truly are interested in learning why I think your
> ideas are problematical (and probably school-based) here are a couple
> of other pages:
> http://sandradodd.com/respect
> http://sandradodd.com/spoiled
>
> Sandra
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> From: jonathan.dmbc@...
> Subject: Similar Content Link
>
> Date: April 27, 2009 12:13:22 AM MDT
>
> To: Sandra@...
>




Eew. That website sucks.

I get that sometimes too. The first few link requests, I did write
back myself to suggest that if they'd actually bothered to look at my
website they'd know the answer was "no" before they emailed me. Now I
just ignore them. They're like those internet marketers on Facebook
who send out requests to everybody who shows up in their keyword
searches.

Bob

Sandra Dodd

-= The first few link requests, I did write
back myself to suggest that if they'd actually bothered to look at my
website they'd know the answer was "no" before they emailed me. -=-

This was my first really disturbing one, so it was fun for me to write
in such a way that maybe he will actually look at my page, and maybe
have a bad dream or two. If he's a little disturbed, that's good
enough for me.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob Collier

--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> -= The first few link requests, I did write
> back myself to suggest that if they'd actually bothered to look at my
> website they'd know the answer was "no" before they emailed me. -=-
>
> This was my first really disturbing one, so it was fun for me to write
> in such a way that maybe he will actually look at my page, and maybe
> have a bad dream or two. If he's a little disturbed, that's good
> enough for me.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>


LOL. Yes, that would be worth it.

Bob

Kim Zerbe

<<< I think when parents use a "program" like that they can then say: "We
tried everything and nothing worked" Its a way of shifting the "blame". It
was not their fault the kid turned out that way. It was the kid that was
rotten. Nothing they did helped. "We did everything right and I don't know
what happened that they became like that" Alex Polikowsky>>>

OMG!!! I have a friend like that! She has 4 kids and the oldest is 19. He
just got married to a girl who has a baby from her previous boyfriend, and
he has a baby from his previous girlfriend (the 2 girls were born on the
same day and turned 1 in Feb!), and now (actually before the wedding) they
are pregnant with their own baby due in July! This kid and his new wife live
in his parents' home in a basement apartment. He sometimes has a job,
sometimes doesn't. Doesn't pay rent (or maybe sometimes pays half?) even
though they set it real cheap. He drives like a maniac and I think has
wrecked a car. His mom watches his daughter while that baby's mom goes to
college and plays volleyball (because her parents want her to have a life)
and he doesn't even come upstairs to see her. His mom is raising his baby!
When they get mad at the parents, they talk about moving out, but realized
they don't have any money to afford rent anywhere else so they are still
there.

And she swears she doesn't know what happened to him. No idea where she went
wrong. This kid was just a bad seed from the start. His whole life he gave
her trouble and she just can't figure out why he turned out this way. But
her other 3 kids are fine! So it can't be HER fault, right?! The other 2
teenage boys seem OK, but maybe just aren't as strong willed as the oldest
one. Maybe whatever techniques she used on him (that didn't work) were honed
by the time the next 2 came along. Maybe he was treated differently, maybe
not. Who knows?! Does it even matter? She acts like she did everything
right, but I don't think that attitude is helping her have a good adult
relationship with her son and his wife and kids. I feel for her situation,
but have no idea what sort of advice to offer so I don't!

She homeschools in a loose manner from what I've seen, almost like
unschooling but more like unstructured home "school," which is probably
worse than a stricter type of home school where at least the kids know what
to expect and what is expected of them.

Kim Zerbe



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-This kid was just a bad seed from the start. His whole life he gave
her trouble and she just can't figure out why he turned out this way.
But
her other 3 kids are fine! So it can't be HER fault, right?! The other 2
teenage boys seem OK, but maybe just aren't as strong willed as the
oldest
one.-=-

Maybe he doesn't have the same dad?
Maybe he resented being displaced as the first/only child, and never
recovered (maybe his mom didn't handle that well; my mom didn't).

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]