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General Parenting
New therapist - what to expect?
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<blockquote data-quote="slsh" data-source="post: 482081" data-attributes="member: 8"><p>It can be difficult doing therapy with- young kids, from the parent's perspective. It's not like working with- an adult, who by virtue of being in therapy in the first place is obviously is invested in getting better. In my experience, it's hard to get kids invested in their treatment. </p><p></p><p>Our very best therapist would touch base with- me before taking thank you in, then would see thank you. They would play chess or whatever and talk during. Then he'd meet with- me again, give me some insight/suggestions, and we'd do it again the next week.</p><p></p><p>I cannot say that therapy from ages 5 to 17 really had any noticeable impact on thank you's day-to-day behaviors. With our good therapist, it absolutely helped husband and me just because we had someone who got thank you, got us, and was involved and aware of our daily struggles with him. Just not feeling like we were out there alone helped a lot. And therapist was able to give us strategies for dealing with- some of the behaviors. </p><p></p><p>My hope then was that the cumulative effect of years of therapy would someday click for thank you and that the tools that he was learning (sometimes by osmosis) would someday become useful for him. Here we are almost 16 years after first therapist, and I think it worked to some degree. I can't think of a single instance where what thank you learned in therapy was immediately applied, but the kid now definitely is using some of the tools.</p><p></p><p>Having had some atrocious tdocs along the way, my criteria became pretty firm. therapist had to be willing to communicate with husband and me - not specifics of what he/she and thank you discussed, but broad strokes of his mental state, discussion of behaviors we were dealing with-, and suggestions. therapist and husband/I absolutely had to be on same page in terms of general expectations and appropriate behaviors. While husband/I were open to private discussions with- therapist about changing rules, any therapist who undermined us in front of thank you got fired on the spot. </p><p></p><p>Just my experience, but if you're looking for concrete results in the near future, you're going to be disappointed unless you have a remarkably self-aware kid who is able to use therapeutic tools now (which I think, developmentally, most kids can't do until at least their teens, if you're lucky). If you look at therapy with a good therapist as laying the foundation for a healthier kid in the future, I think you might be happier with- the results, but the payoff is going to be sometime down the road.</p><p></p><p>I know this sounds discouraging, and I really don't want it to be - this is just based on my experience with- thank you, who was an extremely resistant kid. He thought he was fine, thought his behavior was totally reasonable, and the rest of us were out of our minds. And I did want to add, that in his most stable periods (rare as they were), we were occasionally able to help him use some of the therapeutic strategies (breathing exercises, visualization, wrapping himself up in blankets, etc.), so it wasn't a complete wash at the time - he would very rarely be able to try to use some of the tools; it was just very inconsistent at the time.</p><p></p><p>If I had it to do over again, I'd still go thru the years of therapy for him.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="slsh, post: 482081, member: 8"] It can be difficult doing therapy with- young kids, from the parent's perspective. It's not like working with- an adult, who by virtue of being in therapy in the first place is obviously is invested in getting better. In my experience, it's hard to get kids invested in their treatment. Our very best therapist would touch base with- me before taking thank you in, then would see thank you. They would play chess or whatever and talk during. Then he'd meet with- me again, give me some insight/suggestions, and we'd do it again the next week. I cannot say that therapy from ages 5 to 17 really had any noticeable impact on thank you's day-to-day behaviors. With our good therapist, it absolutely helped husband and me just because we had someone who got thank you, got us, and was involved and aware of our daily struggles with him. Just not feeling like we were out there alone helped a lot. And therapist was able to give us strategies for dealing with- some of the behaviors. My hope then was that the cumulative effect of years of therapy would someday click for thank you and that the tools that he was learning (sometimes by osmosis) would someday become useful for him. Here we are almost 16 years after first therapist, and I think it worked to some degree. I can't think of a single instance where what thank you learned in therapy was immediately applied, but the kid now definitely is using some of the tools. Having had some atrocious tdocs along the way, my criteria became pretty firm. therapist had to be willing to communicate with husband and me - not specifics of what he/she and thank you discussed, but broad strokes of his mental state, discussion of behaviors we were dealing with-, and suggestions. therapist and husband/I absolutely had to be on same page in terms of general expectations and appropriate behaviors. While husband/I were open to private discussions with- therapist about changing rules, any therapist who undermined us in front of thank you got fired on the spot. Just my experience, but if you're looking for concrete results in the near future, you're going to be disappointed unless you have a remarkably self-aware kid who is able to use therapeutic tools now (which I think, developmentally, most kids can't do until at least their teens, if you're lucky). If you look at therapy with a good therapist as laying the foundation for a healthier kid in the future, I think you might be happier with- the results, but the payoff is going to be sometime down the road. I know this sounds discouraging, and I really don't want it to be - this is just based on my experience with- thank you, who was an extremely resistant kid. He thought he was fine, thought his behavior was totally reasonable, and the rest of us were out of our minds. And I did want to add, that in his most stable periods (rare as they were), we were occasionally able to help him use some of the therapeutic strategies (breathing exercises, visualization, wrapping himself up in blankets, etc.), so it wasn't a complete wash at the time - he would very rarely be able to try to use some of the tools; it was just very inconsistent at the time. If I had it to do over again, I'd still go thru the years of therapy for him. [/QUOTE]
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