posted February 06, 2009 09:05 PM         

I'll use Saturn as an astrological example of tough love. A lot of people dislike Saturn because it's hard, cold, unyielding, and heavy among many other symbolic suggestions; however, Saturn is NECESSARY. So in the tough love realm of Saturn it represents respect, truth, boundaries, business, work, honesty. When you give your child tough love by using the word "No" a lot, it's necessary. Our society has lately told us that saying no to our children limits them, etc. It's a very "new age" "positive thinking" attitude. I'm not against it, but it doesn't deal with the reality that when you tell your children "no" it teaches them necessary boundaries and limits. It also teaches them to respect themselves and to not allow others to cross their healthy boundaries as well.

Tough love doesn't feel good or romantic or idealistic, but when the winds of life begin to blow, the hurricanes, the tsunamis and cyclones, you'll be glad for the stability that tough love has instilled in you, for the backbone it strenthened in you, for the courage to face the fact that your marriage isn't just a romantic reverie but when the business of your marriage is properly taken care of, if one of you is suddenly gone, the estate you've built doesn't have to die along with your mate. If one of you becomes ill, the other must be tough in order to sustain and maintain decent care for the ill partner while still taking care of themselves in the process.

These are just a few examples of tough love. So many people neglect thinking about it, don't want to think about it because it's not the "high" of love, it's the mundane structuring of relationships, whether with children or family or romance, it's necessary.

One last example: The woman who just had Octuplets. The focus has been on her "obsession" with having children. Many other people are the same way about children and pets. They want them when they are cute and cuddly, but you never hear them talk about wanting to have children in order to raise decent human beings to adulthood who may be able to contribute to mankind in a positive manner. Many people talk about having puppies or kittens but when they outgrow the cutsey childhood "looks" they are stuck with an adult dog or cat.

I think I've gone off on a tangent, but I appreciate the question and just wanted to offer my version of tough love and would like to end by saying that tough love does not have to be abusive. That's very important.

Geocosmic Valentine
Professional Astrologer
geocosmicvalentine@yahoo.com
. www.myspace.com/geocosmicvalentine

posted February 06, 2009 09:21 PM         

The Trouble With Tough Love
full article can be read at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012800062_pf.html

quote:

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Over the past three years, I have interviewed more than 100 adolescents and parents with personal experience in both public and private programs and have read hundreds of media accounts, thousands of Internet postings and stacks of legal documents. I have also spoken with numerous psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists and juvenile justice experts. Of course there is a range of approaches at different institutions, but most of the people I spoke with agree that the industry is dominated by the idea that harsh rules and even brutal confrontation are necessary to help troubled teenagers. University of California at Berkeley sociologist Elliott Currie, who did an ethnographic study of teen residential addiction treatment for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told me that he could not think of a program that wasn't influenced by this philosophy.

Unfortunately, tough treatments usually draw public scrutiny only when practitioners go too far, prompting speculation about when "tough is too tough." Dozens of deaths -- such as this month's case of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who died hours after entering a juvenile boot camp that was under contract with Florida's juvenile justice system -- and cases of abuse have been documented since tough-love treatment was popularized in the '70s and '80s by programs such as Synanon and Straight, Inc. Parents and teenagers involved with both state-run and private institutions have told me of beatings, sleep deprivation, use of stress positions, emotional abuse and public humiliation, such as making them dress as prostitutes or in drag and addressing them in coarse language. I've heard about the most extreme examples, of course, but the lack of regulation and oversight means that such abuses are always a risk.

The more important question -- whether tough love is the right approach itself -- is almost never broached. Advocates of these programs call the excesses tragic but isolated cases; they offer anecdotes of miraculous transformations to balance the horror stories; and they argue that tough love only seems brutal -- saying that surgery seems violent, too, without an understanding of its vital purpose.

What advocates don't take from their medical analogy, however, is the principle of "first, do no harm" and the associated requirement of scientific proof of safety and efficacy. Research conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Justice tells a very different story from the testimonials -- one that has been obscured by myths about why addicts take drugs and why troubled teenagers act out.

As a former addict, who began using cocaine and heroin in late adolescence, I have never understood the logic of tough love. I took drugs compulsively because I hated myself, because I felt as if no one -- not even my family -- would love me if they really knew me. Drugs allowed me to blot out that depressive self-focus and socialize as though I thought I was okay.

How could being "confronted" about my bad behavior help me with that? Why would being humiliated, once I'd given up the only thing that allowed me to feel safe emotionally, make me better? My problem wasn't that I needed to be cut down to size; it was that I felt I didn't measure up.

In fact, fear of cruel treatment kept me from seeking help long after I began to suspect I needed it. My addiction probably could have been shortened if I'd thought I could have found care that didn't conform to what I knew was (and sadly, still is) the dominant confrontational approach.

Fortunately, the short-term residential treatment I underwent was relatively light on confrontation, but I still had to deal with a counselor who tried to humiliate me by disparaging my looks when I expressed insecurity about myself.

The trouble with tough love is twofold. First, the underlying philosophy -- that pain produces growth -- lends itself to abuse of power. Second, and more important, toughness doesn't begin to address the real problem. Troubled teenagers aren't usually "spoiled brats" who "just need to be taught respect." Like me, they most often go wrong because they hurt, not because they don't want to do the right thing. That became all the more evident to me when I took a look at who goes to these schools.

A surprisingly large number are sent away in the midst of a parental divorce; others are enrolled for depression or other serious mental illnesses. Many have lengthy histories of trauma and abuse. The last thing such kids need is another experience of powerlessness, humiliation and pain.

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posted February 06, 2009 09:34 PM         

I haven't read through all of the information you linked above, I perused the first 2 links and I can't claim to know the answers, but I found it interesting what one of the parents was saying that she kept thinking that if she said, "I love you." to her son and that if she was very permissive that he would behave. That's kind of like what I was referring to, that people want the "artful postures of love" to quote Shakespeare. What I mean is, they want the easier parts of the love realm to work when the Saturnian forms of love are necessary. If she had started earlier in his childhood by firmly letting him know what kind of behavior is acceptable and what isn't, it may have helped. Parents don't do their children any favors by being permissive. It doesn't properly prepare them for being functional in life. When children learn boundaries early in life, they will build strong and stable boundaries for themselves and their families and they will learn how to respect others and demand healthy respect for themselves.

As for the organization "TOUGH LOVE", thanks for those links. I'll read up on it. I suppose that as a last ditch effort to help your child or should I say "teenager" to be disciplined and behave in a more socially acceptable manner that is helpful to them, it may help some of them but not all of them, which is understandable. No system is perfect. Each situation is different and doesn't respond to the same processes.

I read a little bit of the link that said they have family therapy, I sure hope they have parenting classes for the parents who send their teens to this program. I don't believe that it's the teens fault, the parents need to learn how to parent which can be tough.

posted February 06, 2009 09:40 PM         

Geo,

posted February 07, 2009 03:40 AM         

I think it can go a few ways with Tough Love (the kind which was a fad back in the 80's from what I recall, or maybe earlier)...structure is important, yes, but I think certain adults can have issues with power and can use it to manipulate a kid and say 'it's for your own good'. So I think it's important whose hands it falls into, because there's a real difference between setting down boundaries and discipline for a child so they could be civilized, decent human beings, and simply expecting to bend the child's will for mere authority (regardless of that authority's true intention)...power games, etc...

posted February 07, 2009 05:27 PM         

Kids or anyone else.

posted February 07, 2009 05:31 PM         

quote:

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****wanders in****

I heard there was some tough love here?

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posted February 07, 2009 07:17 PM         

quote:

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Many other people are the same way about children and pets. They want them when they are cute and cuddly, but you never hear them talk about wanting to have children in order to raise decent human beings to adulthood who may be able to contribute to mankind in a positive manner. Many people talk about having puppies or kittens but when they outgrow the cutsey childhood "looks" they are stuck with an adult dog or cat.

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