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STORIES
BY LOU KILZER
The 'exit plan'
Now came the "exit plan," Teen Help's final step for a child who has "graduated."
Until a teen reaches the age of majority — 17 in Texas — the procedure for handling "non-working behavior" of a graduate is to do what Laura did with Corey: send him back to Teen Help.
But after the age of majority, a more severe remedy is recommended.
Teen Help encourages parents of children who remain defiant to have little personal contact with them and to offer them almost no financial support for a set period of time.
It suggests that parents keep health insurance on the teen for six months and give their child $30 and three nights' lodging in a motel. Otherwise, teens are on their own.
The "exit plan" spells out the rules of banishment and the conditions, if any, for the child's return to the family.
The only way of re-entering the home is for the adolescent to agree to abide by the parents' rules.
David Gilcrease, who designed Teen Help's behavior modification seminars, hit upon the exit plan after he noticed that some kids in the program were merely going through the motions, trying to hold out until they reached adult age, when the program no longer could legally confine them.
" ... If you have a set of rules in your home, and if that kid, if they are not living by the rules and if their behavior is really threatening to themselves and to others, you have to take drastic measures.
"Sometimes the only thing that you can do is tell them that if you are going to continue this behavior, that's up to you. You're a big boy or a big girl now. But you can't live in this home while you do it."
In the months before his death, Laura and Corey often talked about the "exit plan," Laura told the News.
Back from Spring Creek Lodge last summer, Corey still had a way to go in Laura's eyes.
Last October, a month before his 17th birthday, Laura was contemplating kicking Corey out of the house.
She told fellow Teen Help parents that Corey was "wavering ... His ability to walk the straight and narrow is still in question for me. He's walking close to the edge. If he ever makes the decision to jump over, he's gone from my house and he'll have to take what the world gives him with no help from me."
In another post, Laura wrote: "I've made it really clear to my son that if the law gets involved and he's back on the dope, I won't even bail him out — he'll take the fall. The good thing is that he KNOWS I mean it."
When Corey turned 17 Nov. 23, Laura wrote:
"It's been a LONG haul through his teens (of course, they aren't over yet), but today is the day that I am able to insist that the STATE make Corey take his own responsibility," she wrote. "Today is the day whereby, in the great state of Texas, a teen is considered old enough to be accountable and no longer drags parents into 'juvenile' concerns.
" ... I take my son to dinner tonight to celebrate his 'majority.' And to celebrate my freedom to be involved — or not — as my parental judgment tells me is appropriate when my kids ask me to do something ... like help them out of a jam of their own making. Yaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!"
Desperate Measures: Home
| Epilogue: Lost Boy
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