your child freedom formula - has anyone tried it?

[lu9months]

ive seen adverts for this on fb. they claim to be able to cure anxiety in young people. im suspicious - and nowhere does it tell you the cost. however im fairly desperate since my 16 year old is very disabled by anxiety. thanks

You haven't been foolish. I think the reason this has got to a few of us here is that we understand how desperate you can feel as the parent of a child suffering with anxiety, and that does make you vulnerable, which is what this company is using to make money.

Or, if relevant, 'alarm bells should have rung when they started offering discounts to be a mentor before we had even started on the scheme'

Or more detail on what you expected / were promised v what they delivered?

Factual things will be harder to counter perhaps.

If all ' Mums' here can email BBC Panorama to investigate or Channel 4. It will out there nationally. Let's all do that individually- Power to the People. We cant be threatened by these scammers there are everywhere now, but they cant touch our teenagers- NO
[email protected] and [email protected]
Please email as many of you can and send the Facebook link. It has to be investigated and the whole country warned and if they can be found guilty that's what they deserve. Why exploit young people its criminal.

It looks as though they've made their own category on TP - Psychoneurological Specialized Clinic.
They are nothing of the sort. No qualifications apart from a basic 'anxiety recovery' course at college. No professional memberships or accreditation. Any scientific research published regarding their methods?
How can it be legal, that they can charge 5k plus by claiming to cure vulnerable young people? Where is the regulation of this sector?

There are two names on the FB page - one claims to be a psychologist but looks as though she has just got her degree? No sign of being a practicing psychologist or any actual experience. The second person - no information at all.
I will Google!!
It's all too cagey.
1.9k followers at £5k each is £950k - estimate, clearly.

I really think reviewing it calling it a pyramid scheme isn't the way to go, because there is seemingly a product/service. (have just seen new review posted and pointing people here).
Much better to be very specific with criticisms. Otherwise they could legitimately argue against the claim of pyramid rather than addressing the issues of limited formal training, offering discounts, whatever.

... After all MLMs have a recruiting angle, and they aren't pyramid schemes either.

I contacted the trading standards people and they have asked me to call them. I see these people have taken the '100% cure rate ' off their website...

My child is also on this programme and until you try it you can’t give an informed opinion. Explaining the physiology of an anxiety disorder to a teenager helps them feel more in control instead of feeling like they’re going mad. It gives them back some control. My child has struggled for 5 years and we've paid for private therapy on numerous occasions. She is 3.5 weeks in and the change in her has been remarkable. She is learning how to control her adrenaline and because she believes she is getting better she is happier and so much less stressed. We have also learned t how our behaviour towards our anxious child has made her worse by no fault of our own. By not discussing every worry and problem with her she is resolving things on her own a d feels more like a normal teenager rather than an unwell child. You have to put in a lot of time and effort as a family. Loads of homework for both you and your child and time commitment of joining group zooms so that you don’t feel you are coping alone. So far worth every penny.

Noodle
May I please ask:

• how are you meant to react when she shows anxious behaviour?
• what sorts of things do you have to do in the homework?
• why do you think the only users posting are relatively new?
• why were you willing to commit paying such a large sum (£5.5k?) upfront rather than a weekly amount

By constantly asking her if she’s ok abd worrying about her and her coming to me to resolve all her issues she has become so over reliant on me as a parent which feeds into her feeling fearful of the world. I ha e stepped back and we have all stopped obsessing about her anxiety. When I say homework there’s lots of videos to watch explaining how anxiety feels and how we as parents take need to create a calmer house etc etc. On the programme you can log into zooms through the website. When I googled the website today on my phone to join this really negative thread came up in my google search so I went on as I dealt it was really unbalanced. I am very well informed and have tried everything for my daughter. We are paying in 3 payments x

I think what people are struggling with is so little information on the website, such a large upfront fee (even if you can make payments in installments), the lack of visibility & academic papers on the method, limited qualifications, the claim (now removed I believe) of 100% success.

It's the nagging feeling that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is unlikely to be a tiger.

We have a ridiculously calm household, doesn't stop my DD being anxious.

No I agree I was worried at first but it is working. And we also thought we had a calm household but it’s not as simple as that. I’ve realised that her anxiety over the years has made me so worried and stressed even if I think that’s well hidden. She was so relieved to here that she wasn’t really mentally ill and that the difference between being anxious and having an anxiety disorder is that the adrenaline has become “stuck” at a very high level. Last night was the first Sunday night in ages that she wasn’t crying and stressed about school work and going to school today.

Noodle2571 I can see how having the support there 24/7 could be be really helpful for some children and families.

I don't think anyone on this thread is trying to be negative for the sake of it. We are all parents of anxious children, and I think it's safe to say we would give anything for our children to be better, which puts us in a vulnerable position.

A few of the early positive posts about the program were clearly written by the same person and the writing style was very like the written content on the website, which raised suspicions.

Some people on this thread noticed that children's personal details and situations were discussed on videos that were publicly available on the website.

I think it's going to be hard work to convince some of us now that this company can be trusted with our children's health and wellbeing, and so far no-one seems to be able to answer the questions that TeenMinusTests asked:

• why do you think the only users posting are relatively new?

• why were you willing to commit paying such a large sum (£5.5k?) upfront rather than a weekly amount

I completely understand all of the above but it is frustrating that some people are so opinionated when they don’t know the facts. I agree the programme probably needs to sort out its initial sign up procedures but it is genuine and it is working for us. We have paid out thousands over the years for 1:1 therapy but in our situation she was getting worse not better. We weighed up that if it made her 20% better for that money it was worth it.
This thread was only created this month I think so other parents who are on the programme will see it if like me if they google the programme’s name in order to log on to the parent portal page. That’s why I contributed today and logged on.
As for the cost I can only presume they want you committed by paying up front, it would be easy for parents to just leave it to the child to have their sessions (like with therapy). and think it’s not about us. They don’t want families dropping out or giving up. The amount of support and contact you get is pretty impressive over 8/10 weeks and if you think one session of therapy is £60 + it doesn’t feel that outrageous. Anyway I think there are obviously some families that it hasn’t worked for as with most things but it doesn't mean it’s not a legitimate.

To my mind, even if they had a sliding scale e.g
wk1 - £1000
wk2 - £800
wk3 - £600
wk4 - £500
wk5 - £400
wk6 - £300
wk7 - £200
wk8 - £150
wk9 - £100
wk10 - £50
(which totals £4.1k but you get my drift)

Then there would be less 'risk' to new people up front but enough 'commitment' from them. People would be less inclined to drop out because it would be getting 'cheaper' every week and presumably they would be seeing benefit.

Anyway I think there are obviously some families that it hasn’t worked for as with most things but it doesn't mean it’s not a legitimate.
And yet until this week they were claiming 100% success.

How do they judge whether someone drops out as 'not committed' (despite paying very high fees) v someone who drops out because the program isn't working? (rhetorical)

(real question) How long are you told at the start it might take before you see noticeable benefit?

How are you getting on? I’m struggling to decide on next options and would like to know your experience in the first couple of weeks.

I think if you think of the analogy of a diet or even rehab you have to stick with the plan and try and stay positive with it to get results. We’ve had bumps along the way. I have no intel on other families who it hasn’t worked for but it isn’t easy. They suggest by half way you should be noticing positive changes which we have. Someone in this thread said why would you comment positively after only a couple of weeks instead of 6 months but the fact is when your child can hardly get out of bed they’re so fatigued and sad and then 3 weeks in they are laughing and chatty and seeing friends, it is huge!

This sounds like an advert for parents to try, pay £5.5K then make their judgement. How does explaining physiology to a teenager make the anxiety disappear & worth this amount. There are a lot of self help breathing exercises that reduces adrenaline in anxiety. Nothing worth £5.5K that's the point. I am not denying desperation by some parents, please be cautious.

But continuing the analogy the real success of a diet can really only be measured by whether the weight stays off. No point losing a stone in a week if by 4 months it is back on again.

I’m not really sure what you mean. I’m not advertising anything. The anxiety doesn’t disappear. Her feeling like she has a whole team behind her trying to make her well, 3/4 mentor sessions a week explaining how to bring down her stress and therefore her adrenaline. Parents who are not walking around looking worried sick all the time gave all contributed to her feeling like there’s light at the end of the tunnel and therefore happier. I’m under no illusion that it’s a magic wand but it’s done more in 3 weeks than anything else we e tried. Nothing else to say.

Noodle Put a note in your diary to pop back in 3 months or so to update. It would be really interesting to know if progress can be sustained.

Sounds like pyramid therapy, which is a thing now. You go through the ‘life coaching’ and at the end they tell you you are so perfect now that you can teach others! What an achievement! So you go on to teach the same steps and your tutor gets the kickback.

But we have absolutely no interest in being involved in any of that and even if we did it would a choice. Why is that relevant to whether it is effective in reducing your child’s physical symptoms of their anxiety disorder?

A huge issue is the time-share-like hard sell tactics. Come to this webinar before we’ll even show pricing, or details of the course materials, or a breakdown of what the ‘method’ is. No qualifications, no coherent overview, no ‘money back guarantee’. And all served up with a side order of parental guilt - if it doesn’t work for you, you’re the problem. Lots of praise of ‘good parents’ who commit etc.

Therapy should never be based on a hard sell.