đ¨ATTN PARENTS! Plz let us mess up more.
What I really wanted the Title to beâŚ
But I didnât want to risk our emails being sent to spam because this is an important one.
Iâve been on three home visits in the past two weeks. Itâs been fun traveling all over the country and meeting new clients in person. Itâs also been exhausting, but Colin and I have found these visits invaluable in starting off our relationships with new clients and their families on a strong footing.
Some of our clients are living at home with their parents, and some are living on their own or going off to college in the next few weeks. Hereâs what weâve noticed:
The parents, who recognize that their child has done more therapeutic work and has grown more rapidly than most people are ever capable of in their lifetimes, better set their teen or young adult up for success than the families that are living out of their old anxieties.
This can be because they were in treatment, were on a gap year, or are just in a transitional moment in their lives in general. As a result, these parents are more willing to put in the work to improve themselves, and their anxiety for their child doesnât run their lives anymore, especially in the moments when their child is struggling or âmessing up.â
Colin and I arenât parents, so please remember that this is just our hot take. Itâs based on what weâve seen in our families and the families with whom we work.
We understand that every person leaves treatment, or a life-changing experience, at a different point on their growth journey, and we all have more work to do. However, nothing is more annoying than returning home after this only to be treated by our families with the same wariness and trepidation as before we left.
We get that sending your child away was hard for you. But the level of growth you have to do to cope with sending your child away is nothing like having to live day in and day out in the woods or in a residential program where you have little to no freedom for an extended period of time. 99% of the time, parents canât understand what itâs like to not be able to see your friends, do what you like, or say what you really think for years.
When most of our peers would have free time, weâre in therapy. When most people are in school or at a job, weâre in therapy. When most of our peers are hanging out with each other on the weekends, weâre in therapy.
Itâs individual therapy, family therapy, seemingly endless group therapy, and in-the-moment âmilieuâ therapy â a phrase that I see on many programsâ websites that I believe refers to staff being around 24/7 to process any feelings, deal with interpersonal conflicts, or shut down ânon-workingâ behaviors.
Even if we werenât in a therapeutic program but just had a life-changing or new experience, weâve spent much more time being uncomfortable on average, and to get through that, weâve had to grow.
Weâve had to change to adapt to our new environments. In Colinâs and my experience, all of the young people weâve worked with have changed âfor the better.â Which is to say they have all changed in positive ways, whether theyâre able to better regulate their emotions, handle uncomfortable situations, be more self-aware, and/or have a healthier definition of relationships.
Weâve just been through one of the hardest periods of our lives that weâll ever have to go through. We feel strong and capable, and our self-confidence and trust are probably higher than theyâve ever been.
So there is nothing more frustrating than feeling that way and then coming home to parents who are still acting out of a place of fear and doubt. We get that youâre exhausted, and you have every right to feel scared that weâre going to slip back into old behaviors.
Spoiler alert: we will.
Thatâs just the reality of being young and trying to change who we are for the better. However, when children experience anything new, we look to our parents to see how we should react. So when we come into a new environment, weâre naturally looking to you to see how we should feel.
When parents are coming from a place of anxiety, fear, and doubt, all of those feelings will creep into our minds. If our parents donât believe in us, especially while weâre living at home, weâre either going to rebel against what they want or start doubting ourselves, too. Most of the time, itâs both.
If you try to protect us from the realities of becoming young adults, weâre not going to learn to confront the hard decisions and consequences that are just a part of growing up.
Weâve never had more tools or been better positioned to deal with what life throws at us after going through a life-changing experience. We just made it through something completely unexpected, largely out of our control, and figured out how to make it through and become a better person while doing it.
This is why Colin and I have the same message for all the families with whom weâre working as our clients move onto the next phase of their lives: the best thing you can do as parents is to consistently tell your child, to their face, how much you believe in them, how proud of them you are, and that youâre always there to support them.
The work you have to do as parents is to bridge the gap between your current confidence level in us to at least 80-90% confidence that we can overcome what life will throw at us. We understand this takes time. But you have to acknowledge, at least to yourselves, that you havenât grown as much in the last year or two as we have. So you have more work to do.
Letâs say your kid hasnât been to treatment. Maybe theyâve been on a gap year. Maybe theyâve just made it through another year of high school. Maybe theyâve had to learn to live with a newly diagnosed developmental disorder or undiagnosed mental illness. Your child has still grown at a more rapid rate than you have in the last year.
Letâs say you donât see the changes you were hoping for or weâre still doing things that give you doubts about if we can successfully become an adult. Itâs not going to help us if you constantly bring up what weâre doing wrong or if youâre actively looking for reasons not to trust us. This is only going to push us away.
Instead, we suggest you practice something we had to practice in treatment at a certain point: Act âas if.â
Act as if you believe we will absolutely crush our freshman year of college. Act as if you know we can make new friends once we get home. Act as if we will stay sober if thatâs what we say we want to do. Encourage us to come to you for help if we are having a hard time with any of these things. As best as you can, wait until we come to you for help instead of preemptively solving problems before they become a problem. I know that means weâll probably mess up more, but we will have to learn these lessons at some point.
So please, let us f**k up!!
Iâm so grateful my parents gave me the space and freedom to mess up early and often. The lessons Iâve put off learning until later have always led to much bigger consequences than had I worked through these challenges earlier on.
Colin and I are not coming from a parentâs perspective. We acknowledge that what we write in our newsletter is never this simple. But I donât think weâre completely off-base here when we say, act as if you trust us so that we can trust ourselves. Even when we break that trust, work with us to help us earn it back instead of throwing in the towel.
We always tell parents to take every opportunity they can to learn, grow, and improve themselves in areas that they know are holding them back from living their best lives, even if it doesnât feel connected to their childrenâs problems. This is exactly what your children are doing when theyâre in treatment, in a transitional moment in life, or when they work with us. If youâre investing in your childâs growth, we always say that you invest as much time, if not more, in your own growth too.
You donât have to sit around feeling anxious about us 24/7 anymore. You have the choice to get the help you need to start feeling differently. Weâre moving on from our past and our mistakes, and you deserve to do so as well. That requires actively seeking help from professionals or parents who have been here before.
Colin and I have a ton of resources to help parents do just this, including parent coaches we love, therapist recommendations, and online parent support groups. Please donât hesitate to reach out, even if youâre not working with us. Weâd love to hear what you need help with and are happy to point you in the right direction! Just like we tell the young people we work with: you donât need to do this alone đ
And nowâŚâŚour vibes this weekđŽ
đ What weâre reading
Instagram will help researchers study if itâs hurting teen mental health, the verge
How are you auramaxxing? the cut
Brat summer: is the long era of clean living finally over?, the guardian
đś What weâre listening to
THANKS FOR READING!
If you found this valuable, this is your signâď¸ to send this to parents or young people who can relate to the feelings weâre having this week so we can make sure they know theyâre not alone. Sharing is caring đ
Weâre in this to collaborate and support. Please feel free to reach out to us:
If youâre a parent who has a child in treatment, weâre happy to answer any of your burning questions and share our experience in treatment and with transitioning out!
If youâre passionate about changing the narrative in the therapeutic program industry.