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Confrontational method 'devastating, absolutely uncalled for' For Barbara Baker, the worrying began when her 15-year-old son Scott's grades nose-dived in 1996.
Baker was divorced and living with Scott in a small town in southern Oregon. When he began struggling in school, Baker thought Scott might fare better with his father in California and sent him there. It didn't help.
Increasingly worried, Baker took Scott to a hospital. During a therapy session there, another parent gave her a videotape touting Teen Help's ability to rescue young people from a downward spiral of destructive behavior.
It sounded promising and, after Scott failed in another program, nothing else was working. So Baker sent Scott to live at Tranquility Bay, Teen Help's facility on the southern coast of Jamaica.
She felt sure she'd made the right decision -- until she walked into a conference room at a Holiday Inn near San Francisco for a free Teen Help seminar for parents.
During the next three days, Baker and about 100 other parents got a soul-searing taste of Teen Help's behavior modification techniques.
The mothers and fathers were subjected to peer pressure, screaming, sleep deprivation, fear, anger, loneliness, self-criticism and various forms of group piling on -- weapons aimed at unlocking the adults' inner selves, Baker said. This "magical child," seminar leaders taught, is a vibrant, spontaneous person not encumbered by false reasoning or beliefs in right and wrong. In-your-face style appalled one mom
It's not enough to put troubled teens through a tough regimen in a remote compound to break them of inappropriate behavior. Teen Help believes parents also must change.
Few details of the TASKS (Teen Accountability, Self-esteem, Keys to Success) seminars for either group are widely known. Teen Help discourages participants from sharing them with friends or the public.
But Baker has no reluctance describing what she experienced, convinced that no parent should attend the seminars without an advance warning of what they're likely to experience.
Here is her account:
To get things started, a Teen Help facilitator explained the rules. No talking, no food, no coffee or sodas. No leaving to use the bathroom without permission.
A form of musical chairs followed, set to the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The parents had to find a seat before the thunderous music stopped -- or face ridicule.
The facilitators began singling out certain parents, Baker said. Among the recipients were Karen Lile and her husband, Kendall Bean, of Clayton, Calif.
The chief facilitator began berating Karen. He edged closer and closer to her. A couple of feet from her husband, he stuck his face inches from hers and said menacingly:
"I could rob you. I could take away your womanhood. I could kill you."
"I had no clue," Lile said, referring to the verbal assault she endured. "This is not an issue of informed consent. We weren't informed of any of the controversy surrounding these techniques and processes." |
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In-your-face
style appalled one mom
