09/02/2018
Like any of us bound for the therapy room, we don’t just step through the door “alone”. We are, inevitably, accompanied by our reasons for being there, the expectations and hopes that we have for the therapy, and the emotions we are feeling as we begin the sessions.
Some parents may be catapulted into counselling by an event which has an obvious and significant effect on their child: the death of a family member, friend or pet; a family move; a parent leaving through separation or work (e.g., military deployments); abuse or traumatic events; or a major illness in the family. All of these can cause a child to feel stressed and/or destabilised. In these cases, the parent may know what caused the changes in the child’s behaviour, but not know how to help the child come back to a sense of stable normality.
In other cases, the parent may be well able to describe the child’s changes in mood, behaviour, social or academic functioning, sleep patterns, or appetite, but not know exactly what caused them. “Why has my cheerful son suddenly become withdrawn and fearful?” they ask. “What makes my daughter so worried, anxious, and irritable these days?”
Alternatively, you may receive into your rooms parents that are there involuntarily: for court-mandated sessions in order to continue having custody of their children, or to avoid some other punishment. Their motivations may involve concern for the child, but such parents also have a healthy dose of looking to avoid legal trouble for themselves.
Their expectations for what any sessions can accomplish may run the gamut from impossibly high (i.e., “This expert can fix up my kid no matter what”) to despairing and hopeless (“nothing can improve this situation”). Your skill with respectful, attentive listening (using the counselling micro-skills) will do much to bring unspoken hopes and motivations out into the open where you have the opportunity to begin managing expectations and helping parent-clients formulate workable objectives for the therapy.
The motivations and hopes are inextricably linked with the often heightened emotions which accompany the parent into your rooms. Thus, you may notice the client feeling:
Worried or concerned about the child
Powerless or helpless because they know that what they are doing is not working
Confused and/or uncertain about the best way forward, and the best approach for parenting
Angry and frustrated with the child’s seemingly out-of-control behaviours
Discouraged and/or inadequate as a parent because the child is experiencing problems
Fearful because they do not understand or know what is involved in the counselling process, or how you will work with them or their child
