If you already have placed your child outside your home

I have placed my child in a program and now I have received a confession about the use of drugs etc.

So in short term: Do not trust a confession obtained in a level system, if you consider your child able to think.

Communication and visitation

Manipulation claims

 

Category	Statement from the child	How to handle
Claims about denial	“I can’t believe you did this to me.”	Of course you have to discuss the placement in advance with your child in order to prevent these statements. You have to perform an intervention with help from family and friends. If you are not in denial, you will know at least one former addict in your family or among your friends. Get some help from them about the intervention, but let them not choose the strategy of treatment. If you have not done an intervention, you need to do it in order to speed up the process. Collect trusted family members as well as friends and go to the facility, so the intervention can be done properly for both the well-being of your child and a shortening of the process.
	“I don’t belong here.”
	“I’m not learning anything; all they do is baby-sit me.”	That is correct. Qualified staff is expensive and often the workers, who are watching the children during the orientation or intake phase of a program can not solve any problems. They are only present because the nature of a lockdown is to prevent the detained children from running from the facility. You have to remember that the process of creating the product you have ordered by the program - Stepford son or daughter - in fact demands that the staff break the sprit of your child. In order to achieve that without violence which could hurt your child, they need time were you child is not allowed to talk or in any other way interact with his or her surroundings. So basically your child is just sitting and waiting without treatment. It is necessary!
	“The kids here have problems much worse than mine.”	Your child is fooled but he or she is not lying. Due to the nature of level system were children has to confess to sins in order to move up in the levels, false confessions about more serious issues will occur. So of course your child is fooled to believed that he or she is staying with children with serious problems. Give it some time until the rules of the game is learned. Just expect your own child to come forward with such confessions in due time.
	“They have criminals, kooks, and drug addicts here.”	It should be investigated. Either you have not chosen the right program or it is the same as with the previous claim about problems. Children have lost their lives because some program mix children with domestic problems with children with a criminal background who rightfully should be in juvenile hall instead. (Peninsula Village is normally a treatment facility for privately referred clients.)
Guilt trip claims	“If you really loved me, you would bring me home.”	You have not done your intervention good enough. You need to redo it. Invite trusted family members to a new intervention at the facility.
	“You don’t know how terrible it is here, or you would get me out.”	You have of course visited the program together in order to prevent such a claim. The photos of buildings in brochures are often improved by marketing firms, but even in cases where you have been at the facility before placement, you may have missed to see the conditions new arrivals live in. In most program living conditions are something to be earned. Sleeping in a unheated basement on concrete floor in order to speed up the necessary intake process is not uncommon.
	“I’m going to starve, the food is disgusting.”	Of course you have actually tasted the food at the facility when you visited it before placement, so you know that certain minerals like salt are missing in the food. The reason for that is that the staff needs to weaken the body of your child in order to break the spirit faster. In most cases missing these minerals have no long-term effect on your child.
	“No one cares about me; the staff does whatever they want to me.”	Well. It is in-patient treatment. Your child can not leave the facility. It shares the nature of a prison. Of course you can minimize the risk of abuse and the feeling of abandonment by actually visiting your child like relatives can visit their family member in prison. A visit every week or 14 days can reduce these problems.
	“I’m treated like a prisoner.”
	“You can’t believe the staff; they will tell you anything in order to keep me here.”	In some way your child could be right. A family therapist have a large number of clients in order to keep the program having a profit, so there is a chance that some information have mixed up.
	“The kids here are a totally bad influence on me; you should hear what they talk about.”	See above ("The kids here have problems much worse than mine.”). The other children are talking strategies about what they are going to confess about in order to earn a higher level. The subjects sounds bad. Because everybody is in some way playing a confession / achievement game, your child can be scared by these claims of wrongdoing. You child needs to see them for what they are: A part of the psychological game in the program.
Claims of an anger phase	“If you ever want to see me again, you had better get me out of here.”	Get out - No, if you have done the intervention properly, but in order to avoid a suicide, you better have to visit your child at once and conduct a longer conversation without therapists present. Something is wrong when your child is stating it like that. A lot of parents are sorry that they did not take this statement serious, because their child committed suicide shortly after.
	“You’ll wish you had never done this to me.”	Yes, you will find many parents, who will confirm that your Childs claim will be real, but actions have consequences. It is in a way only fair that you also experience the same lesson you are about to learn your child.
	“I don’t want to be your child anymore.”	Serve the child with emancipation papers. If your child truly wants to quits ties with you, you will waste money on treatment. It is called tough love. In many cases it ends up with the same result after months of treatment. If your child risk being 18 before the treatment is over, most programs will advice you to use an "Exit Plan", which basically is the same as emancipation, but you will have use a lot of money of wasted treatment. Consult a lawyer and sit down with your child as discuss how life are going to be after treatment. (A room in the garage, relative or in a shelter.)
Claims about a Negotiation Phase	“If you bring me home, I promise there won’t be any more problems.”	Maybe it can, but if you worry that it would not be the case, offer to come to the program for a while and monitor your Childs motivation to change for yourself. Family therapist are overworked and underpaid and you are the decision maker when it comes to your child.
	“We can work out our problems better at home as a family, we can all go to therapy together.”	Your child is right and therefore you should reach out to your child and offer that you come to the program for a while, so you all can speed up the process of healing. You have to remember that the time will come when your child return home and therefore you need to be a factor of the treatment in the facility, so you can use the newly learned tools when your child has left treatment.
	“If I work hard, will you take me home by ….”	There is no crueler sentence that a banishment without timeframe on it, but of course you need to ensure that your child is not just "serving time". You can be the difference by involving yourself heavily in the treatment. Go to the facility and discuss every single task one at the time to ensure that your child constantly moves forward in the process. If the program reports of setbacks regularly, maybe it is not the right program for your child.
	“I’m willing to work on my problems, but can’t I do it at a different school, one that will help me?”	An old saying is that the pixy will move with you to the new house. No new school will fix the problems your child has, because he or her carries them with them at all time. But you can reach out to your child. If you surely believe that the facility  you have found is the answer to his or her problems, aid your child by going to the school and mentor your child with intense family therapy at least one time per week.