klmno
Active Member
We had our first session this morning. therapist (difficult child's individual therapist, too) started by asking each of us what we wanted to accomplish in family therapy. difficult child said he wanted us to get along better when he came home and said that he wanted me to give him more priviledges. I said I wanted to get to a reasonable comfort level that we wouldn't be in the same situation as we were before- leading to another catastrophy- and that the situation was really giving difficult child what he needed to help him stay on a good track. I brought up how it all isn't just difficult child, or just me, but there are other forces to consider, such as parole requirements.
She said she couldn't do anything about parole requirements, which I understood. difficult child and I both brought up the repetitive depression he goes thru and she said that since difficult child has done well there she doesn't think this is an issue (never mmind that we haven't reached the time of year yet when difficult child has repetitively been unstable). She said she thinks difficult child just needs to learn better coping skills and we won't be working on how things will be when difficult child comes home. She wants to stay focused on how to help difficult child with coping skills in his current situation. I will be going for family therapy about every 2 weeks and she will see difficult child individually on the weeks between.
I'm all for doing whatever I can to help difficult child but he's doing very well in there so I'm not sure what I can do to help him improve coping with incarceration. I'm also not too thrilled about the problems difficult child and I see, although from different perspectives, being blown off again. The mental health profs "out here" and in psychiatric hospital's have all said the things difficult child and I brought up today need to be dealt with while difficult child is out of the home. It seems like no one really wants to get into that though. I'm so discouraged. Every person I talk to leaves me believing that difficult child would just be coming home with us in the same type of situation we were in when all this happened last year except this time it would be even worse because he's already had a committal to state Department of Juvenile Justice so the stakes are higher and tolerance lower.
She said she couldn't do anything about parole requirements, which I understood. difficult child and I both brought up the repetitive depression he goes thru and she said that since difficult child has done well there she doesn't think this is an issue (never mmind that we haven't reached the time of year yet when difficult child has repetitively been unstable). She said she thinks difficult child just needs to learn better coping skills and we won't be working on how things will be when difficult child comes home. She wants to stay focused on how to help difficult child with coping skills in his current situation. I will be going for family therapy about every 2 weeks and she will see difficult child individually on the weeks between.
I'm all for doing whatever I can to help difficult child but he's doing very well in there so I'm not sure what I can do to help him improve coping with incarceration. I'm also not too thrilled about the problems difficult child and I see, although from different perspectives, being blown off again. The mental health profs "out here" and in psychiatric hospital's have all said the things difficult child and I brought up today need to be dealt with while difficult child is out of the home. It seems like no one really wants to get into that though. I'm so discouraged. Every person I talk to leaves me believing that difficult child would just be coming home with us in the same type of situation we were in when all this happened last year except this time it would be even worse because he's already had a committal to state Department of Juvenile Justice so the stakes are higher and tolerance lower.
