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Rio Rapido:
Lessons in Parent/Child Ecology
(Academy at Swift River)
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Anita Deeg, Program Director,
800-258-1770
www.swiftriver.com
[Visit on August 6-10, 2003 by Loi
Eberle, M.A.,
Educational Consultant& Editor-in-Chief, Woodbury Reports]
I think I arrived at Rio Rapido in a condition similar to
the other Academy at Swift River parents who were there –
we weren’t sure what we were getting into, but we had already
been on quite a journey! The same could be said for the ASR
students, however they had already been there for four and
half weeks prior to our arrival. On the final day of our
time together, one of the parents admitted to me that she
had been very put out at first that they had been strongly
advised to spend the additional time and expense to go to
Costa Rica for this final phase, after all they had already
been through. Surely, she said, there must have been some
other place in the states with a culture so remote and isolated,
that it could have served the same purpose. However, by the
end of her time there, she realized how absolutely essential
it was to have joined the ASR students in Costa Rica, and
why she “wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
The Rio Rapido is the final phase of ASR’s
15-month emotional growth program, focuses on helping the
students prepare for the world after ASR. By teaching about
the biology of the natural world, Rio Rapido helps students
understand the impact they have on the ecology of their
family. Learning about the various kinds of relationships
in nature helps the students discover new ways they can
interact with their world. As students become aware of
new ways to relate, they are more likely to abandon their
old patterns of behavior when they return home.
The parent and student materials for this
phase of ASR’s program spoke of the “ABCs: Awareness, Balance,
and Communication.” They had many opportunities to learn
this during their various activities while in Costa Rica:
the adventure days, the community service projects, time
with the Costa Rican homestay families, and the classes.
Other aspects of the ABCs were learned during the actual
parent/student workshops, in which I participated during
the final week of Rio Rapido. It was there that parents
and students began to talk about their hopes and fears.
They dealt with the same issues that all parents encounter
when welcoming their children back home after any program.
How much do they dare trust each other? What should they
do if agreements are broken? Is drug testing a sign of
lack of trust? What about the car?
The unique slant that the Rio Rapido program
lent to these complicated issues was the role of ecology,
which is essentially a study of the relationships between
various forms of life. For example, ASR program staff discussed
symbiotic, parasitic, and opportunistic relationships,
then asked families to view their potential areas of conflict,
that is, points of fear, in terms of the kind of relationship
they represented. They described a spectrum of relationship,
ranging from dependent to independent, with “interdependent”
somewhere in the middle. Once they became aware of how
each person was affected by a decision, they could then
also explore the benefit and challenge of learning to listen
to each other, even when people don’t agree.
 A major issue for everyone was how to rebuild
trust, which the ASR staff pointed out it could only go
as far as parents were willing to go. Parents had to risk
“exposing” their fears, their weaknesses and mistakes,
as well as their strengths, revealing who they are, in
order to gain trust. ASR Staff described how this level
of openness involves letting go of fears, looking at
who they are “blaming” in a situation, exploring how it
affects
the family, and what are the hidden agendas that stand
in the way of expressing their true selves. Letting go
was seen as part of adaptation, learning to co-create
a new situation.
 One
of the metaphors I found to be extremely helpful was looking
at a “disturbance” as an opportunity
to create a “light gap.” Once again the metaphors found
in ecology have relevance to how this same process happens
in human relationships. When a disturbance, either natural
or man-made, occurs in a primary forest, it creates a light
gap, which results in new plant forms being allowed to
emerge that can only grow under the new conditions the
light gap creates. Some seeds in fact, like the mahogany,
can lie dormant for eighty years until touched by sunlight.
When I was talking with one of the counselors about how
I’d always looked at the only benefit of a human “disturbance”
or hardship in terms of its galvanizing effect, he pointed
out that this often could become a way of hardening oneself.
Instead, he suggested looking at disturbances as new opportunities
and growth.
The ASR counselors talked to the families
about how the students have been in a program, but that
it doesn’t end with graduation – the real task is to keep
the communication channels open. Everyone can learn about
themselves, regardless of their age. Communicating about
themselves and listening to each other is the way families
can continue to build their relationship over time. Experiencing
the communication that was possible as a result of the
work that these families had done was very inspiring to
me. The parents reported this as well. One mother talked
about how seeing the difference in her child from when
first enrolled, to the present day was “almost like science
fiction.” One staff member used the expression, “giving
is receiving” and I could watch this in the parents’ eyes.
 All too soon the week came to an end. We
had experienced wonderful adventures in the rain forest
around the ecologically diverse Osa Peninsula, second only
to the Amazon in terms of biodiversity. We had attempted
to communicate in faltering Spanish to the very kind and
beautiful Costa Rican families where the students had stayed
for a few days while doing service projects in previous
weeks. I had ridden by horseback to Finca Miramar, a lovely,
well-maintained farm and biological preserve and looked
at the ocean from on top of the mountain. In a land where
time seemed to move very slowly, suddenly it was time to
take the group picture, and for parents to make preparations
to soon return to the Massachusetts campus for graduation.
The pickup-truck taxis hauled the eleven students back
to Llante Picante, the retreat center where the workshops
took place.
As the group began to leave, I sat at the
shore, looking at the fishing boats floating on the quiet
waters of agua dulce, reflecting on the depth of communication
I experienced with these families during our relatively
brief time together. As part of their newly-acquired communication
skills, they saw the benefit of maintaining a support network,
and they kept in touch through a private web site and email.
They intended to continue to support each other in this
way after their students graduated, and perhaps the students
would as well. ASR also had followup phone calls with counselors
planned over the next year to continue to assist students
in their transition.
 Soon a small airplane took off overhead,
leaving with a large portion of the parents. I wondered
if they felt ready for the next step. Even the night before,
during the fiesta celebration with the local service-project
families, I watched the emergence of a new issue: appropriate
conduct in more relaxed, less structured settings. In one
family this triggered old behaviors, causing hurt feelings.
The very skilled ASR counselors helped them began to identify
the triggers, and talked about ways to create future agreements
about not detonating these triggers.
It would be easy to wonder whether having
this occur so late in the process was a sign that they
are still not ready. Did this process miss its mark? Perhaps
that could be one interpretation. What it illustrated to
me, however, was that this work is about a process, not
a magic wand, nor a silver bullet. Old patterns can always
be triggered, old wounds re-opened, but now, it seems,
there is an element of awareness – if not before the words
have been uttered, then at least, soon thereafter, along
with an acknowledgement of the need for an apology. It
seemed to me that both students and parents had developed
a greater understanding of the impact of their words as
a result of their enhanced communication. Also, they now
have the tools for beginning to rebuild the trust; the
same tools that will help them talk about and apologize
for their mistakes. Mistakes will probably occur, and they
will not indicate a failure of the process. Their lack
of practice in using their newly learned skills will of
course engender less than perfect results. But these parents,
I feel, have learned to start trusting the process. They
have learned that it’s better to risk the discomfort of
acknowledging the pain of each other’s mistakes, than to
withdraw, isolate, and to resort to old ways of masking
the pain. Perhaps they are beginning to see that masking
the pain also masks the healing power of dialogue, which
is what is needed to open the doors that will allow the
love to flow. It is waiting on the other side of the emotional
armor.
Yes, it is frightening and frustrating, time
consuming and hard for families to talk – hard to develop
trust - and painful to have one’s expectations disappointed.
Hopefully this process of building trust will not be based
on the unrealistic belief that mistakes will never be made.
The goal instead should be to build trust based on the
willingness to communicate in order to reach a mutually
agreeable plan.
The lessons of Rio Rapido have illustrated
how the disturbance in these families’ lives, that caused
them to send their children to a program, created a light
gap. Although it initially caused devastation, it has created
the circumstances for a new kind of growth and closeness
in the relationships in these families. Any dialogue about
who is to blame for causing the disturbance perhaps only
has relevance for preventing another disturbance.
Understanding of the continuum of dependence
and independence helps to show how each person’s actions
affect everyone else. The families acknowledged that it
was unrealistic to expect their children to call them on
their cell phone to ask for support in resisting questionable
behavior. Even so, checking in with one’s inner knowledge
of the interdependence of the family system and the impact
of one’s behavior on everyone else might help avoid making
poor decisions. Developing awareness of one’s inner state
can also can help adolescents identify when they are struggling.
The enhanced trust and the love that can be revealed through
this process of paying attention can provide both the adolescent
and the parent the courage to ask for help and support.
After all, as pointed out this week in Rio Rapido, it is
one’s own responsibility to ask for help, it is not the
fault of others for not knowing or asking. And yes, giving
is receiving.
Rio Rapido is a remarkable and unique adventure
that helps families verbalize and practice the skills they
have learned together while their child was attending Academy
at Swift River. In a broader sense, it can provide all
families with metaphors that can be used to learn how to
live in better relationship with each other.
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