One of the most important ways that therapeutic boarding schools and residential treatment centers help struggling kids is through the therapeutic milieu. The mileau is the atmosphere or environment of the program. It includes the modes and schedules of individual and group therapy, as well as dormitory life and recreational activities. But more than the schedules, activities, and classes, the milieu is the feel of the program, the somewhat intangible culture of it. What are the people there like? What do they care about? How do they care for one another?
It is often difficult to characterize precisely a program's milieu and even more difficult to describe the importance of it. Many times, you have to feel it. That is difficult for parents to do, especially in short visits. Like visiting a foreign country, you often have to live there for awhile to really get a sense of the culture.
While it is difficult to get a handle on a particular program's milieu, you can get a feeling of its importance by watching the movie "Lars and the Real Girl." This 2007 film starring Ryan Gosling provides a moving, funny, and sweet immersion in a therapeutic milieu, even though it is never identified as such. This despite the decidedly off-beat and initially off-putting premise of the film.
The premise is that Lars, a troubled young man, deludes himself into thinking that a life-sized doll purchased on a pornographic web site is a real girl. Yet, Lars isn't interested in sex with the doll, whom he names Bianca. In fact, so chaste are Lars's intentions that he persuades his brother and sister-in-law to put Bianca up in the guest bedroom and look after her. When his brother takes Lars and Bianca to see the local doctor (played by Patricia Clarkson), she recommends that everyone, even Lars's co-workers and neighbors, play along with the delusion. The doctor slowly builds a relationship with Lars, attempting to discover the roots of his delusion.
While the sessions with the doctor look like therapy, the main therapeutic event is the interaction of the townspeople with Lars and Bianca. Despite initial doubts and some derision, the townspeople accept Bianca and Lars's obsession with her. More so than the therapy sessions, these sweet and loving encounters with his friends and neighbors buoy Lars in his troubles and set him on a path toward healing. You can get a sense of the passion that drives the caring for Lars in this scene with his sister-in-law, played by Emily Mortimer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9OxnHj43uE&feature=fvsr This clip gives you a sense of why the town is willing to help Lars, but only seeing the whole movie can show you how they do it.
The movie is a fable, of course, and the small town is a fabled setting. (Think "It's a Wonderful Life.") But the feeling of being supported and accepted as Lars is provides an approximate sense of what good programs are able to do with milieus--and why they can be so effective.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Allowed to Fail
Today's Wall Street Journal (Dec. 26, 2011) carries yet another article on "Tiger Parenting" from Amy Chua, the celebrated and much criticized author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The occasion of the article was her oldest daughter's departing for college and the many questions she's received about tiger parenting from afar. How does she drill and monitor her daughter from miles away?
Mom's short answer: She doesn't. The long answer is more interesting. She begins by drawing a comparison between tiger parenting and helicopter parenting. Tiger parenting, she says, assumes strength, not weakness, in children, an assumption "not that different from the traditional parenting of America's founders and pioneers." Helicopter parenting, by contrast, is characterized by parents "hovering over their kids and protecting them, carrying their sports bags for them and bailing them out." Helicoptering assumes weakness, not strength.
From our perspective as educational consultants to parents, this a crucial distinction. Because many of the students we work with have learning disabilities or emotional and psychological problems, we see many parents who have been struggling with school and home issues for years. Teachers, doctors, day care staff and others have helped parents identify in excruciating detail the weaknesses in their children. Faced with such diagnoses, the parental temptation is to protect and shield them from hurt and failure.
While some support and scaffolding may be necessary, of course, protection as a growth strategy is perilous. Often protection leads to bailing out to stave off failure: Difficult homework is done for the child, sick notes are written to avoid taking tests, curfews are overlooked. Unfortunately, failure is often our best teacher, so when we stand between children and consequences, we deprive our children of a chance to learn. I fear we also send a darker message that we don't think they are strong enough to learn. We tell them they are too fragile to fail.
A parent we worked with once told me when he knew it was time to send his struggling daughter to a therapeutic boarding school. They had tried everything to help her, but finally realized that she "didn't have any skin in the game." By that he meant she didn't really feel responsible for trying to solve her problems. She needed to be allowed to fail, so she could see her role in the solution.
Mom's short answer: She doesn't. The long answer is more interesting. She begins by drawing a comparison between tiger parenting and helicopter parenting. Tiger parenting, she says, assumes strength, not weakness, in children, an assumption "not that different from the traditional parenting of America's founders and pioneers." Helicopter parenting, by contrast, is characterized by parents "hovering over their kids and protecting them, carrying their sports bags for them and bailing them out." Helicoptering assumes weakness, not strength.
From our perspective as educational consultants to parents, this a crucial distinction. Because many of the students we work with have learning disabilities or emotional and psychological problems, we see many parents who have been struggling with school and home issues for years. Teachers, doctors, day care staff and others have helped parents identify in excruciating detail the weaknesses in their children. Faced with such diagnoses, the parental temptation is to protect and shield them from hurt and failure.
While some support and scaffolding may be necessary, of course, protection as a growth strategy is perilous. Often protection leads to bailing out to stave off failure: Difficult homework is done for the child, sick notes are written to avoid taking tests, curfews are overlooked. Unfortunately, failure is often our best teacher, so when we stand between children and consequences, we deprive our children of a chance to learn. I fear we also send a darker message that we don't think they are strong enough to learn. We tell them they are too fragile to fail.
A parent we worked with once told me when he knew it was time to send his struggling daughter to a therapeutic boarding school. They had tried everything to help her, but finally realized that she "didn't have any skin in the game." By that he meant she didn't really feel responsible for trying to solve her problems. She needed to be allowed to fail, so she could see her role in the solution.
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