Without Restraint with Ryan and Robert DeLena

In a Study in the January 2022 issue of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Clinics of North America. The study found that, overall, 21.8 percent of U.S. children ages 3 to 17 have one or more of the
common mental, emotional, and behavioral health conditions assessed. For
Ryan DeLena: “As a child, I had difficulty
controlling my emotions and was placed in therapeutic schools that relied on
detrimental methods of behavior modification such as physical restraint. Nothing
helped from a team of doctors to heavy medication. Then in 2010, I was
voluntarily committed to a mental hospital for further evaluation. My parents
Rob and Mary Beth were counseled to place me in a group home. They refused.

Two years earlier, after an impulsive decision to take my
skiing, my dad discovered a different child than the version experts were so
sure about. By my second day of skiing, I was executing advanced runs, and with
each conquest in the winters that followed, my dad began to question the path
laid by the professionals paid to judge me. He later convinced my mom to fight
the medical and educational complexes over my care and school placement, and
together they fostered the freedom I needed to pursue my dream of becoming a
professional ski mountaineer.



Written in two voices, our book Without Restraint is a joint
father-son memoir told with both pain and levity, struggle and strength,
adventure and heart. It is the story of a misunderstood boy, a father’s growth,
and a shared love of the outdoors that formed their unbreakable bond.”  He joined me this week to tell me more.

For more information: https://without-restraint-book.com/

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