The life of a parent is often full of surprises and
challenges. One of our biggest
challenges is how to reach out and get the support we need when our relationships,
children, and family dynamics require us to shift and approach life differently. This need goes up
exponentially when you have an unhappy teen in the house tipping each of you
into reaction much of the time. Many of us have had to make difficult personal
and financial choices to place our unhappy teen into a therapeutic program so
they can get the support they need. Although
this is a stressful situation, there are also some of the hidden jewels and
opportunities for us as parents in this process.
When we have a child acting out, with declining grades, accelerating
behavior, challenging or breaking rules everywhere they can, they are indeed
asking for help. But what if it is
more? What if they are actually doing
their best to throw off the thinly disguised façade of balance in the home? What if they are doing all of this to teach
us something? Think about it. They are desperately using their own life
energy to get our attention. More
importantly, they are actually letting us know when we are inconsistent or
indecisive, where we disagree with each other as co-parents, and how easily we
can be split and manipulated. They are exposing our weaknesses as parents.
For many of us, there is something in our family system that
invites our kids to act out. Our kids feel what goes on in the house. They feel
the unsaid words between us when we are not in agreement with each other. They
feel what we aren’t saying much more than what we do say. To make it even more challenging, they feel our inner stories, the ones we can
no longer see in ourselves, the unlived choices or desires of all the coulda,
woulda, shoulda’s in our lives. Our kids
often feel our doubts and our fears,
and they witness the struggles for power within our relationships. It drives them crazy to witness our oblivious
pretenses, and the frustration and pain they experience comes out sideways in
school, with changes in lifestyle, and often very dangerous risk taking.
As a parent, when we get this, really get this, we have an opportunity to partner with our
child. We get an opportunity to
co-create a different way of living, being, and interacting as a family and just
as important, if not more, as a community of people under the same roof.
We place our child into a program so they can push and shove
and act out until they learn to trust that they are being seen and heard, and
what they see and hear is honest and consistent. We give them the gift of being with a group of
people who can do something for them that we cannot. Once they know they are in safe hands, they
begin to loosen the grip of the battle energy they took on in the family, and
they begin to unwind into a more relaxed and authentic version of
themselves. They are in a program with
people who know how to be authentic and trust their gift of leading an angry
adolescent into himself or herself. I
believe these staff members are the lucky ones for they get to witness the
magic of a young man or young woman unfolding with every day.
While someone else is helping your child calm down into
their authentic self, you get to take the time to do the same for yourself. Here is a real nugget for you. Your child always knew who you truly were,
inside. They inherently see the inner you, and they chose you to guide them in this life, to lead them, to steward them into
adulthood.
For us, we are left at home with an empty bedroom way
earlier than we ever planned. There is
silence and the absence of drama, yes, and there is also the ache of the memory
of seeing your child in the different rooms of the house, remembering the funny
things they used to do, and images of our beautiful child keep popping into our
head and hearts randomly throughout the days.
There is a grief that takes over that life will not be the same. It is true, it will not. It will not ever be the same…. and this is a
good thing.
As parents, we hope we are doing a good job. We hope we are doing a better than we probably
are, and we hope no one else sees us struggle.
We struggle with many of the new roles we take on such as financial providers,
organizing other people, facing lots of surprises and challenges, and adults
who understand life. Who actually
understands life? When we are really
honest with ourselves, we know we really don’t understand, we just keep trying
to do the best we can. We do know there
are layers and many forms of self-denial about how lost we really are. Perhaps we are good at making money, but suck
at relationships? Maybe we bury
ourselves in all our relationships so we don’t have to feel our own feelings? Maybe we disconnect from all of the daily
emotions and feelings and just keep our head down to keep up with the frantic
pace of life? Whatever it might be, our
child witnesses this. All our children
witness this.
With each passing year, they witnessed you layering up and
hiding your authentic self behind work, stressful responsibilities, mistakes in
relationship, and the righteousness of your ego trying to hold all of life
together. They have watched you
disappear in to yourself.
So now, with the gift of time in a program, knowing our child
is safe and growing, we get a chance to hit the “redo” button of our life and
take a look at who we are, who we wanted to be, what we like, and what we don’t
like. We get the opportunity to get to know ourselves again.
You have the opportunity to match your child’s courage as
they take on self-exploration, vulnerability, and emotional pain. They have to be willing every minute of
every day to experience a different way of doing relationships, of facing their
snarky behavior as a cover up, and being called out on their own honesty. There is fear, pain, and such exposure, week
after week, yet they learn to trust this self-discovery and know how good it
feels to get to the other side of this pain.
They learn that self-discovery is the truest thing they know.
So the answer to what do we do when our child is in
program? We step in to ourselves. We match our child’s courage with our own courage. We demonstrate a willingness to submit
ourselves to the same courageous path our child is on. We use this opportunity and challenge to dig
deep and go after the stories, the hidden truths. We embrace our own personal work with courage. We learn to step into our most authentic
self. We begin again to see ourselves
with honest eyes. And we share this
journey at the same time as our child, independently, in our own way.
Then, when we visit our child, there is the opportunity to
share honest selves with honest selves. Honest journeys with honest journeys. This
is the gift. This is the hidden jewel,
for when a small family unit, just like a small community, gathers together in
truth, anything is possible. The world
becomes a beautiful place of change and growth.
You are invited to use the precious time of program to step
in….
Enjoy the journey!
Denise
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