In Part I we explored some of the things adults, children and young people talked about in the therapy room about family life. In this blog we explore some of the issues parents talk about, specifically, in regards to parenting, raising children and young people.
Parents are faced with incredible dilemmas and challenging circumstances: social media, identity and gender issues, sex and sexuality, new shifts in areas like autism and neurodivergence, ADHD, mental health awareness, reporting of safeguarding issues and allegations, exposure to pornography, peer pressure, radicalisation, social violence, technology and mobile phones and the pressures from peers to over-share. These are all worthy issues for articles and blogs on their own but these are some of the issues parents explore in the therapy room and exploring strategies with their children.
Every parent is different and every child is different and what works for one may not for another, and what worked last week doesn’t work this week. Parents need to talk to their friends and peers, get ideas, talk strategies, and explore the moral and ethical implications of what they’re doing.
They have to keep the peace between doing the right thing, and making sure the child or young person doesn’t fly off the handle and overreact. Parents have to deal with temper tantrums and meltdowns. Then they have to deal with their own emotions and feelings of guilt and shame, wondering whether what they did and how they managed really helped and on top of this they fear being reported, having allegations made at them or being over-controlling and despotic in their child-raising techniques. And get on and earn money and deal with all the other issues in life. It is overwhelming and parents need to make sure they are keeping up with their own self-care and meeting their own needs in life.
When a parent comes into the therapy room they need to feel safe they can talk about what they need to talk about. Fear of being judged by the therapist is a reality and a good therapist knows what the parent needs: a safe place to talk.
There are ethical and safeguarding boundaries the therapist has to abide by. If the parent has been violent, abusive and bullying then it has to be reported. If the parent is at risk of harm from their child who could be a big kid, strong and powerful, then we sometimes have to think of the safety of the parent. Young people can abuse their parents and this comes with a whole different set of issues and boundaries to work with.
However, most parents are good parents and are trying to do the right thing. They are more aware and more knowledgeable now than older generations. Men are more aware of their feelings and emotions. They use their skills of speaking better generally regardless of the influence and high profile media coverage of prejudice, racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexual violence and misogyny and xenophobia we all see on our small and large screens. I talk to many men who are doing the right thing.
In this article I explore some of the things parents talk about the most: children, young people and the emotional meltdown, autism, ADHD and neurodiversity and social media.
The Emotional Meltdown
Some children will have an emotional meltdown and the parent often dreads it happening in a public place. But sometimes it does. If you read Part I about neurobiology I explored the emotional brain at the back of the brain and the prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain. When a child is in emotional meltdown they are not thinking; they are not in thinking brain. The only way to get the limbic system in the back of the brain to stand down with its rage and shouting and crying and sobbing, that often comes with statements like ‘I hate you…you are abusing me’ we need to get the child into prefrontal cortex brain. We need to flip the switch from back of brain to front of brain.
The video below really helps with that approach. Standing back, giving distance between you and the child but making sure they know you are close enough when they are ready. Avoid physical touch if possible. Use as little or no verbal communication as their language centres in their brain are actually offline as they are in trauma, anger or fear response.
Stay calm, no frowning, anxiety or anger facial expressions as this will make things worse. Try to avoid excessive physical movements.
When you have a good stable connection you can use more physical touch and maybe a hug with an ‘I love you…I’m so proud of you…your brain is just in fight flight…now you are in thinking brain and now we can be better’. That is when the language and communication can be initiated again.
Sometimes the meltdowns are because they did not get what they wanted like the right breakfast cereal or toy to play with.
Remember the part of the brain that sees things from other people’s perspectives is only formed by the age of 24 so this is work in progress. Some children develop faster than others so agree on boundaries with your partner if you can. Sometimes a sibling can get the child to regulate but it should not be forced. It can be frightening for a sibling to see their brother or sister like this so we need to make sure they are ok as well. Most siblings are very good to help their little sister or brother re-regulate themselves but sometimes it is their older brother or sister. But try to be consistent with the process with your partner or it can cause problems and the child can play off one parent from the other. Compromise is important between parents developing policies and procedures.
It is also best to talk about boundaries with the child only when their back of brain limbic system is off and their front of thinking brain is on. They need justification and reasons why you are deciding on doing something a particular way.
Tantrums and meltdowns in public places require different approaches and YouTube is a melting pot of strategies and suggestions. Explore them online.
Social Media
Another issue that worries parents is social media. This is about education and helping youngsters know the difference between fact and opinion. The other thing is to help children and young people understand people’s agendas. This comes down to having a relationship with a young person where you can talk frankly about why someone wants something from them – it might be an Internet influencer, a sales campaign, information about gender or issues around relationships and politics. We need to talk to children about narcissism, coercive control and manipulation. I often talk about narcissism with clients, even with young people who are starting to become more aware of relationships and what motivates people. Sexual persuasion is a good example here as more risk is now with peers rather than older people.
Parents need to educate their kids about people’s motivations, not to the point of paranoia and fear, but just sensible and wise discernment. Always encourage your child to check the other person out first. Do they come from a wise and kind place?
Parents can use TV, film, books to get into these conversations. Talk to them about why someone would make friends and ask inappropriate things on the game station or their phone. Give them strategies of what to do if someone asks something inappropriate. Be specific so they know what you are talking about. Stranger danger was someone hanging around outside a school when I was young but now it can be a peer in your classroom. Child-on-child abuse is now more common than before. Talk about this. Explain to them that you want them to be safe. Some youngsters can think you are trying to control them. Reassure them you love them and care for them.
Telling your kids you love them is a big thing and that you are there to help them. This is great parenting.
Autism, ADHD and Neurodiversity
This subject is tough for many ‘neurotypical’ parents and so it is sometimes difficult for them at first to understand how their child is thinking and reacting but this is just an introduction into the subject and that you are not alone.
It is worrying when a child is a late developer with their language and communication. Or they may have more extreme or unusual behaviours and reactions.
Some of these behaviours may include one or more difficulties in the following areas:
- speech and language
- social and emotional
- sensory and physical
ADHD may present with very challenging issues. There is a bog difference between severities of this issue. I have worked with very severe presentations that require self-management and self-regulation and self-soothing techniques to help them. Parents are often in a unique position to help someone re-regulate themselves and work through tasks and challenges in small steps. Young people and children with ADHD, for example, are often challenged by the way their brains are reacting to external situations and it is important to keep reminding them that the older and more experienced they get the better they will be able to work with it and feel more safe and calm with it. It takes time for people with ADHD to be able to find things that work for them in a variety of situations so their early years are going to be the hardest. Encourage them to persevere and build strategies and approaches to help them.
Masking is one of the biggest problems with neurodiversity, autism and ADHD because there is a default defence mechanism to just withdraw and isolate and even pass this off as someone else’s problem that the way they deal with it is actually dealing with it and projecting all the shortcomings on others.
For parents the meltdowns are overwhelming and the defence mechanisms, the aggression or withdrawal responses frustrating. The key is to connect and relate to them when they are in a calm state so they can communicate and take it in. Not blaming but trying to understand the brain is key. Depersonalise the issues from the individual to the way the brain reacts and works. Lots of psych-education is good and so the websites below are good places for research for you and them.
Quite often parents realise they had similar issues when they were younger and so getting some family dialogue going is important because it increases compassion, connection, understanding and seeing things from other people’s perspectives. Also it can be very healing for parents to realise that they had problems and then they developed sometimes unhealthy strategies to mask it.
The first port of call is the GP and a referral for assessment. It is also good to do as much research as their parent as there are so many supportive and helpful resources and organisations. Some of them I have included below.
Remember as they get older they get better and keep reassuring them and you about that.
And this is for parents – make sure you get some good self-care strategies, breaks and time to chill when you need it. The young ones need you and they need you to be ok so they can find more ways to make themselves ok. You have to model all of this. Walk your talk. Remember you are a human being…fallible but also resilient and that is what the young folk need to learn that they can be resilient to overcome their difficulties and then help others do the same with out blaming or getting into really unhealthy strategies and behaviours and social problems.
Useful websites
https://parents.actionforchildren.org.uk/development-additional-needs/neurodiversity/
https://www.adhdfoundation.org.uk/
https://www.autism.org.uk/autism-services-directory/a/autism-and-adhd-support
Boundaries - Don't Cave In.
Also stick to boundaries and don’t cave in. Some parents do get bullied by their kids into submission. Some parents say, ‘I just want a quiet life…it is easier to give them what they want.’
This creates bigger problems later on. And it will be too late then. Parents often talk about guilt and they think that they are being too hard on their kids. Sometimes youngsters will put up resistance and play power games. They will sometimes win or win all the time in these games with their parents. The parent feels guilt and shame and feels disempowered and depressed in their own home. They may feel unsupported by a weak partner who just sits and reads a paper or scrolls on their phone all the time. This is the time to reach out for support – a supportive family member or friend or therapist.
One way to help youngsters develop closer relationships is to take your kids out to do nice things and use that time to talk to them and get to know them. Instead of going out as a group just go out with them on their own. This way you can talk about personal issues if they come up. Praise them but also guide them and share with them stories about your own youth and childhood. Talk nicely about people. Avoid bad-mouthing family and friends and people in general. Critical voices are counter-productive. If you are gossiping about people behind their back you child might start thinking you will do the same behind their back.
Sometimes it might feel too tempting to criticise the school or teachers but this only triangulates and teaches them to take sides and create an underdog. It encourages bullying and victimisation. Parents have to avoid this kind of parenting. They try to use other people to side against to make them feel like they are on their kids side. This is not healthy parenting. It creates very critical and abusive people. Instead help the child or young person explore why people behave the way they do. There is nothing wrong in understanding what is good behaviour and not by talking about people but you might risk turning good people into bad people just to make you popular with your son or daughter.
To summarise keep healthy boundaries that help children reflect and think (prefrontal cortex) not react and skip into fight or flight, freeze (confusion and paralysis) or people-pleasing behaviours that minimise their own needs (limbic system).
Explore Your Own Childhood Experiences
A good strategy for helping your own kids in their childhood and adolescence is to really get to know your own childhood and what it was like being a child and young person. Reflect on how your own mum and dad and carers brought you up. This might be very moving and in some cases quite painful. You might need some help from someone else. Identify the adults who did good and why it was good, then model it yourself as a parent. I always remind my students and supervisees to realise that even ‘poor role models’ teach us to do it right in the long term. Many clients say to me, ‘they taught me how not to do it…it was traumatising at the time… but I realised I wasn’t going to pass it onto my kids.’
It might even have been a teacher or neighbour who inspired you. Even share what your child’s gran and grandad were like when you were young, even if it might have been negative. Try to get your child or youngster to see what it was like for you. Feel confident to talk about your childhood and what you went through and some of your own aspirations when you became a parent. This is a good conversation to have because it is exercising the empathy circuits of the child, something that can take a long time to work on but parents are good people who can encourage empathy thinking in the child. Help them see things compassionately from other peoples perspectives.
Parents I have worked with have talked about how much different their conversation and attitudes with their children were, when they opened up about their own, and shared their own vulnerabilities and how they worked through it.
Child Therapy v Family Therapy v Parent Therapy
This is an interesting area to reflect on because some children are referred for therapy but they are only coming to therapy because of the challenging environment, situation and people that are around them. Sometimes it might be the school situation that is triggering things too but we need to ask that question around children as to what is it in the environment that may be triggering the child’s behaviour.
If the situation is external, that is, other people, then the solution is about addressing that. Those influences may need ot reflect or maybe need to have some counselling themselves. In some cases it is the parent or parents that need to go into reflecting on their own issues, such as their workload, stress, mental health issues, unresolved trauma from the past, including their own childhood and parenting.
Sometimes we see children and young people in the therapy room and it is actually the parents that need to work on something.
Sometimes it is the whole family that need the support of a family therapist. This can be accessed via a referral from the GP. It is a good opportunity for the whole family to talk to each other in a neutral space facilitated by a a professional organisation that is experienced in supporting families through challenging times. It is more safe, neutral and focused than what might be achieved at home. However, it does require the motivation and commitment from every member of the family.
Children Need Time to be on Their Own
Something I have seen a lot in recent years is how much activity and demanding time children and young people pack into their day. Sometimes this is conditioned from a very young age – that children stay at school all day, then go to after-school clubs and activities, then go home to do homework, then go to a club or sport practice and this routine is repeated every day, 7 days a week.
Children and young people need time to be on their own to just be with themselves, play, explore, participate in creative, artistic, musical activity that is guided by their own autonomy and agency. This develops much needed skills and reflection to just relax and switch off from external stimulation. Overloading the senses and overwhelming relational systems of the developing child can make their life experience very externalised and directed outwards. They need to be able to enter some form of relaxation, energisation, concentrating on themselves within.
Here are some websites with some ideas.
https://www.psy-ed.com/wpblog/relaxation-strategies-for-children/
https://www.achievepsychology.org/post/mindfulness-for-kids
What Kind of Parent do I Want to Be?
Sometimes it is easy to opt out of parenting, either to leave it someone else and become passive or emotionally absent, or become a ‘friend’. This friendship role does blur boundaries and confuses the child.
Parenting is a very special role for a child and young person. It requires constant effort and reflection.
Parents have to be parents who protect, guide, provide boundaries, discipline, expectations, a role model, kindness, compassion, understanding, positive communication, provider or material needs, arbiter of disagreements and conflict and justice, wisdom provider, rule maker and friend. All these roles are important and they make us become better version of ourselves. In the course of being a parent one makes mistakes, says things in the heat of the moment and then have to model good reflection and analysis and correcting mistakes. We are all human and children need that modelling of how to be human.
It is not easy but we are driven by love, to be loved and to give love. Then we have to let go and allow the young ones to make their own mistakes and become their own wise ones, happy to explore life, make decisions and make mistakes.
Codependency - the Consequence of Unhealthy Parent Attachment
One of the consequences of parenting is co-dependency, where the child or young person feels such guilt and shame that they don’t meet the needs and expectations of the parent. Therefore, they begin to either people please and comply unquestioningly to the parent and thus minimise their own needs and desires to do what they need to do in life. This may be where the parent wants them to enter a particular profession that the young person is not suited to. Or the young person rebels against a value system they cannot feel connected to – and young people can rebel against kindness and liberal values as well as prejudiced or aggressive views. Out of both reactions the young person can develop resentment, anger and what they perceive as injustice.
Sometimes parents can use guilt to try to coerce their children to their way of thinking. And when their children grow up they start to use that method of coercive control on others. They also see their parents with resentment and feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. This can be turned within to harming behaviours like addictions and toxic relationships or it can be turned on others. All that resentment and anger has to go somewhere, in the form of externalised hatred and prejudice – to particular groups like the gay community, or the trans community, religion, national identity, racism, political ideologies. It can ferment into aggression and violence.
The path towards interdependency is more healthy. We are all connected as a human race on this planet that needs protection and caring and love. This connection of tolerance and living alongside one another is about kindness but with boundaries and rules of relationship. This starts in the family. Tell your family you love them, that there is no place for aggression and violence, hatred or harsh judgement. This takes place in an atmosphere of listening to each other and helping those who don’t understand and see things from other people perspectives while their minds mature and develop.
Remember the prefrontal cortex – to analyse, think, reflect, talk, listen, communicate, see things from other peoples perspectives and the consequences of our decisions and actions.
When people are in the back of the brain, they are in fight, flight, freeze, fawn or depression/apathy. Soothing, relaxing, calming and allowing these instincts to calm and the relational mind to be activated is what the human race needs to do to make sure our home on this planet is healthy and safe.
So we need parents who feel happy and safe and so we need governments who help families and support them to create caring and safe countries that care for one another. And so we are all connected in relationship and that relationship is driven by love and safety and protection.
Talking Support
If you would like to talk about some of these issues then you can call me for a free consultation on
martinhandy@protonmail.com
07864 029868
Support Links
Websites
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/
https://www.familylives.org.uk/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/parents
Books
Axline, V. M., (1990) Dibs: In Search of Self. Penguin Books, UK.
Bradshaw, J., (1996) Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem. HCI; USA.
Erikson, E. (1968) Identity, Youth and Crisis. Faber and Faber, UK.
Haley, J. (1993) Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson. W W Norton and Company, USA.
Mahler, M. (1975) The Psychological Birth of the Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation. Basic Books Inc., USA.
Panksepp, J. & Biven, L. (2012) The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions. W. W. Norton and Company, USA.
Stallard, P. (2019) Think Good, Feel Good. Wiley, UK.
