Anyone who has paid tithing or has considered sending a child to one of these behavior camps from hell, should listen to this former abductee interview.

I don't think I am allowed to link it,

It is on Mormon stories by John Dehlin specifically--- 1:29:29 to 1:41:14. Rebecca Loveless is the interviewee. Second from last podcast.

It makes me sick to my stomach knowing that tithing money is running these kinds of sick businesses.

I knew a male teenager who was sent to Provo Canyon School in Utah back in the 70s. Mormons sent their children with behavioral problems there. Discipline was severe. In the long run it didn't help him at all. He had problems that Provo Canyon couldn't help him with - problems that severe discipline and punishment didn't help. He had a lifetime of getting into trouble and then committing suicide.

Sometimes what is needed is a good therapist and medication, not severe discipline and punishment.

I was surprised that the church pays most of the bills--- kind of like Jodi Hildabrant was paid for her work by the church.

I knew these places existed but I didn't know they are kept in business by Mormon tithing money.

Maybe the head guy has a place in Kayenta St.George.

Paris Hilton and Provo Canyon School:

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/03/14/heres-what-paris-hilton-says-about/

It's behind a paywall; I posted an edited version at
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2503875,2503971#msg-2503971

These kinds of places are outlawed in most States. Many in Utah are run by mormon lawmakers, their families and their cronies. My ex-LDS friend, who is now 40 and the Black Sheep of his 7 kids mormon family, was sent to Boys Ranch in West Jordan. They were forced into hard labor, prayers 3 times a day, reciting mormon scripture, malnourished and physically abused. He ran away 3 times and it made things worse. He eventually figured out to lie and pretend. He was released after a year when he was 15. He didn't speak to his father for 10 years after.
"The beatings will continue until morale has improved" is not an effective system.

One point that John Dehlin made at the end of the video was that child psychology should be focused on the parents because it's the parents who need the tools, education and therapy to be able to parent their child.

Troubled teen centers like lifeline aren't interested in therapy, just harmful treatment. They don't include the parents in the treatment or have the parents go to therapy, so the parents fail to learn how to change their behavior or learn the tools and skills necessary to help their child.

Also from the video, the treatment centers are focused on making the children obedient to and dependent on authority, which helps to ensure that the teens will eventually be obedient tithing paying morgbots. There is no real therapy. No wonder LDS Inc. pays for and recommends the treatment.

The teen I knew who went to Provo Canyon School learned how to be obedient...for a while. His parents were nut cases though so soon the problems started again. Provo Canyon did nothing for him or his parents. His parents needed therapy as much as he did. They ended up divorcing and their child ended up committing suicide.

Society imposes many types and degrees of Stress / Pressure on people, it's a XXXXXXX shame too few parents have the skills and love / loving to raise children.


I would love to attach a % of pre-teen, teen/adolescent & adult problems to assign blame/responsibility to all the social, moral, and criminal problems we see often, but I don't have any data to be a basis.

(me) Being a parent is the heaviest responsibility in the world.

Dallin H. Oaks, who will be president before long, supported brutal gay conversion therapy while at BYU. That's a storm a-coming.

Can you give us a summary of what these are? Summer camps?

They are residential "homes," or so-called treatment centers with a residential aspect. Given how the youth are treated, it can be surmised that oversight is somewhere between inadequate to non-existent.

I am reposting my reply that I posted a couple of days ago on another thread on this forum that is also talking about this. There are a few small edits. Please excuse.

My cousin, who was in his teens, died on one of these wilderness treks of bubonic plague in the 70’s. I was also in my teens at the time. His parents sent him to one of these camps to get his behavior shaped up and back on track. I vaguely recall it was for something like smoking pot. The camp had set up way out in the Utah desert and were doing the wilderness survival thing. I was told that they believe he picked up the plague from a flea that jumped from a small animal they might have trapped or something. Anyone with basic medical training would likely realized that his symptoms suggested a rapidly progressing bacterial infection and gotten him somewhere for medical treatment. Even if they did not test for plague they'd have likely given him a broad spectrum antibiotic, and in most cases this does the trick. Bubonic plague, unbelievable.

I'm very sorry that happened to your brother. He paid a very high price for a minor infraction. These behavioral programs clearly do not know what they are doing.

> These behavioral programs
> clearly do not know what
> they are doing.


...Then how do they know how much to charge?!!?

Thank you. It was a cousin, not my brother. He was several years younger, and growing up far away from Utah, I had not yet had the chance to get to know him well. I was not able to go to the funeral, and it was only years later that what happened started to sink in.

Probably a marmot or even a squirrel. There was an outbreak in Inner Mongolia a few years ago from a marmot.

Squirrel was the best guess at the time. I had no idea that bubonic plague was even a thing anymore.

It seemed they started after I had just graduated from high school and there were a lot of talk shows about them like, YOU KNOW, Oprah and Dr. Phil. I know Dr. Phil sent kids to them, but I assume he had checked them out?????

I would think sending a kid to something like this would make them worse than better and they would forever feel betrayed by their parents. (All the rebellious kids in our family would have been worse after they got out. They'd SHOW US.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2024 07:16PM by cl2.

That is what I've seen. I'm not sure if I know of any relationships that were ever fully repaired after that. But I only know a couple of people who have done that to their kids.

Do Mormons do Fat Camps?

Read this book "Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began" It will make you so mad! She is sent to live in a LDS home in St George, one of these "rehabilitation" homes like the camps.
https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Alex-Fifteen-Parents-Nightmare/dp/0062374605

That's why the most common advice on this board to minors is to go with the program, keep their own council, and save money to eventually establish their own life. For many Mormon minors, telling the entire truth can often be a terrible error.

If anyone has some spare time, it's worth reading up on the effect that boarding schools have on children. I think camps like this may be similar since they involve sustained periods away from home and a double bind where the child feels duty bound to participate even though they hate it.