My Roller Coaster

When I started the program I was in resistance.  I didn’t want to work because I was determined to prove to my parents Darrington Academy didn’t work and that they were idiots for sending me here.  There were times I would try to get my Mom to hate my Dad because it was easier to […]

DIVING

My journey through the program has been a roller coaster.  I have had many ups and downs in many areas of my life and my denials have been just sputters on the tracks of my roller coaster, pauses in motion, a view of the now, and through my program, it has been the most powerful […]

What Leadership Means To Me

The actual definition of leadership is the position to lead.  The definition of a leader is a person who had commanding authority or influence.  While this is great, I have a different perspective.  I say a leader is a positive working role model who holds their standards.  It doesn’t matter who you are, you can […]

HINDSIGHT’S 20/20

My husband and I returned from our first seminar, Discovery, on January 28th.  We had many feelings upon flying to Houston, most of them having to do with fear.  We also had excitement, but the overriding feeling was fear.  I think I felt we would be singled out as “being bad parents”, because after all, […]

NEW ADVENTURES

Today is not the ending but the beginning of another chapter in our lives.  It is wonderful to be here today knowing that graduation of not only the program but also high school has been fully accomplished.  The way I see it is everything we do is to make it somewhere else.  Graduating High School […]

HARD TIMES

A few days ago, I had some “hard times” because of disciplinary action due to my grades.
And guess what? It didn’t kill me!
I had some things going on with me and I ended up getting my priorities all out of whack. I wasn’t so focused on school anymore and I just didn’t get […]

TRUST

Having trust with your parents and yourself is one of the most important things to have in your everyday life. It is a tool that allows us to grown and learn with ourselves and our parents. While it is one of the most important things, it is also one of the hardest thing […]

WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT

When we send our children to a school to get themselves back on track we must remember that even though we have placed them in a place we know they need to be, the time it takes for them to turn things around is different for all of them.
These kids have been doing things that […]

SHE WAS ALMOST 18

Out of shear desperation and fear for her life we took our daughter to Darrington Academy on September 15, 2006. We knew very little about Darrington, or the program, only what we had learned over the past couple of weeks when it became apparent that we had lost control of our daughter’s life and […]

CHOOSING IN AT 18

It has been nearly a year since I was taken from Juvenile Detention to my new school sic hours away in Blue Ridge, Georgia. My parents had enough of my desperate attempts to be independent and in control.
September 15, 2006, I took the plunge into a life I never imagined I would have. […]