There are few things more challenging, more painful than not knowing how to help your child. We are…read moreso grateful that our journey led us to the team at Kolob Canyon RTC. Our daughter spent 18 months there and she will unabashedly share that it was the worst experience and best experience of her life. (Hashtag dialects! ) Let me be clear; this is a FAMILY experience. What we learned as parents during her time at Kolob is arguably more important than what she learned. Do not expect your child to heal if you are not prepared to acknowledge your part in your child's suffering and to relearn how to respond to your child's needs. Even the most well meaning parents are unwittingly reinforcing patterns, overfunctioning, validating and accidentally exacerbating a thousand other unhealthy habits. I considered myself a well-read, engaged, GOOD parent. But I wasn't parenting in a way that actually helped my child.
Kolob's milieu is focused on safety, growth, reflection, and accountability. Our daughter entered the program at the end of her rope and graduated a healthy, resilient young adult ready to begin her life. We entered the program as terrified, exhausted parents and graduated as an empowered, prepared, better-informed team. To be clear, one does not drop their child off in Utah then pick them up 'fixed' a year later. Our daughter came home ready and prepared to continue her therapeutic journey that may very well be lifelong. We welcomed her home ready to continue our family journey with a continued commitment to family- and individual therapy, to regular, honest communication, to holding each other accountable and a perpetual openness to feedback and growth. No RTC is a panacea but rather an opportunity to hit the reset button, to safely begin the course toward a meaningful, fulfilling life. It's an expensive button to be sure. But worth every penny.
There's a lot of talk about 'trauma' experienced in treatment centers. THIS IS UNAVOIDABLE. But there is a serious difference between trauma *experienced* in treatment vs. trauma *inflicted* in treatment. Our daughter definitely experienced trauma while at Kolob. She spent her 16th birthday in another state. We moved to a different state while she was at Kolob, bought a new house without her input. Most kiddos spend a holiday there without their families. Our daughter witnessed the breakdowns/breakthroughs of other residents. In group therapy she heard first account experiences of unthinkable pain. She faced her darkest emotions head on, dredged up her own intensely painful memories while there. This is all traumatic. All these traumas were experienced in a safe, structured environment surrounded by competent, committed, capable staff. This is VERY different than *inflicted* trauma. M worked hard at Kolob. She rose in the dark of bitterly cold winter mornings, lugged buckets of water for horses, shoveled hay, mucked stalls. She did dishes, cleaned bathrooms, helped prepare meals, washed her clothes. She also kayaked, skied, painted, camped, hiked, volunteered, traveled, laughed, and played a thousand games of wii Dance, Dance Revolution. Seriously. A thousand.
Kolob functions under the simple premise that effective behaviors get us what we want, ineffective behaviors don't. We are responsible for identifying which is which and we are entirely in control of which we choose. Every single check, balance, reflection, activity, consequence, reward drew a clear, concise, consistent line back to this principal. And it is a principal our family applies to our life every single day.
I said at the beginning, there are few things harder than considering residential treatment for one's child. The *hardest* thing, however, would be burying a child, which is exactly what our family, all the families we met and love from Kolob, would have endured without it.
