Dreaded Parent Session

My partner and I had one of those dreaded parent sessions with our kids’ therapist. They tend to be kind of uncomfortable because in order to be successful you need to be brutally honest about what you are doing as the parent.

The therapist really wants to help, but they cannot do it if all they get is the kid’s perspective on things. They will ask you if you have tried different things and then they want to hear how it went. The more truthful you are the more helpful they can be.

It was not a big surprise what we talked about. Our kid has complex childhood trauma. We know this. The kid knows this. The therapist knows this. It makes it hard for her to open up. It makes it hard to trust. Dealing with the fear of rejection is so incredibly overwhelming for her.

Therapy has been an incredibly slow process for her. Only in the last couple of years has she felt safe and secure enough to acknowledge what things are hard and why. She has had some incredible breakthroughs in the last couple years as she discovers things about herself. (She is a little annoyed that we already knew these things about her.) She is feeling a bit more empowered about the control she has over herself.

Now, while she has made progress in therapy and in talking about her trauma in theory, she is still struggling in her day to day life. All things that we are aware of. The therapist helped us identify specific goals that we want to work towards now. These goals include encouraging her to self regulate and to not rely on us entirely for her own emotional regulation. The other thing she wants us to work on is as usual, building connection and trying to minimize the amount of time she negatively responds to her own need for connection.

Remember, my kid is now legally an adult. Anyone who has gone through the kinds of things she has gone through are going to be behind the curve on controlling themselves. It is what It is. This is why adoption is not for everyone. Your kid’s needs are going to be greater and more complicated than a biological kid. It is normal for this to be true. The most important thing to remember is if you have people in your life that match this scenario, it is not their fault. It is not the kids’ fault if they do not act their age. It is not the parents’ fault if their kids do not act their age. The people at fault are not in the picture anymore. What they need now is support and understanding, not blame.

If your kid’s therapist reaches out to you, please meet with them. They want to help. Tell them the truth and be open to their suggestions. I will tell stories and honestly say that I screwed up during this interaction. I admit I am not perfect, but nobody is. The therapist knows we care and that we want to do better. They cannot help us if we are not honest about our shortcomings.