it's all in your head, part 1

Before I post, I'm going to link you to one of my favorite videos. Yes it's Napoleon Dynamite-esque at first but just keep watching.

OK, so it's time to tell y'all about something nutty that's happened to us. Read on and you will probably think I'm making it up.

My older kids, Tater and Bean, were "selected" for an outreach program. The principal of the school came to me herself and said she thought the girls would benefit from the program as it would teach them "coping skills" or something like that. They would also do equine (horse) therapy. Given that said program gave them four days worth of excused absences from school (they do hate school), I signed the permission slip and that was that.

Tater attended the first four-day session. Kids were shipped off by van at the beginning of the school day to another facility off-campus and returned at the end of the school day. Tater had no comments about her stint other than "It was OK."

So Bean went. Bean is my tough kid so I was surprised to find her crying when I picked her up from school on the third day. "Please don't send me back there!" she begged. I finally got out of her that she had been groped by another student. When I asked if she'd told the person in charge, I was told, "The same thing happened to 'Laura' but when she told the teacher, she was told to handle it herself."

To get her mind off of her distress, I asked how the horses were that day. She replied, "Oh, they were fine but we weren't allowed to touch them." Given that equine therapy usually involves touching, I was a bit surprised so I asked, "Really?!" Bean clarified, "Oh we WERE allowed to touch them. But only after we'd asked them in our MINDS."

This has since been confirmed with other children that they were told to stand there and say nothing but hold their fingers to their temples (as in concentrating hard) and say nothing. They were to use their thoughts to ask the horses something like, "Can I enter your space and touch you?" and if the horse turned around, they could pet it. Bean, of course, just faked it.

Then came the alarming revelation (since confirmed with other children): The kids were told to tell NO ONE what happened at the center.

More tomorrow otherwise this'll be too long. Besides, I've got a Mates of State video to watch again. Cause it's allllll in my head.