My kid still hates me for sending them to treatment đ€Ź
đ April 2024 Recap
April was a huge month for Not Therapy! We hosted our first-ever online parent workshop with OPLM, an amazing parent support group on Hopestream, and last Friday, we spoke with the upcoming graduates of Mountain Springs Preparatory Academy - a step-down boarding school in Utah.
Colin had multiple new client home visits and went to the Autism Symposium (shout out to Jason Cox for an amazing conference!). Iâve been in Spain for the past few weeks for an âextended home visitâ (live-in coaching) with one of my young adult clients. Weâve both grown a lot as coaches over the past month, and business has never been better. Shout out to all the new families we started working with last month!
We expect to be full by the end of May!! Not bad for meeting each other last November and officially launching Not Therapy 4 months ago đ
The question we get in every parent support group (âïž)
âMy kid still hates me for sending them away. What do I do to get them to understand it was [insert valid justification here]?â
Okay cool, so what have you done about that?
âIâve said sorry a million times, and they wonât forgive me!!â
Hate to break it to you - sorry doesnât mean shit. Sorry is just a word.
Although itâs not just any word. Itâs literally an adjective. Itâs a way to describe a state of being. No action inherently comes from âbeing sorry.â
Weâre a society that over-apologizes and under-delivers on promises. When you accidentally bump into someone, thatâs a moment to say sorry.
When youâve caused emotional or physical hurt to someone, either intentionally or unintentionally, sorry is not going to cut it.
âBut I promised I wonât do it ever again!!â
Love that for you. But similar problem. Making a promise is just the act of reassuring someone that something is going to happen in the future. Promises donât mean anything unless youâre already doing what you say youâre going to do. Like, literally right now.
This is where making amends comes in.
Oh no. Hayleyâs about to get up on her âI used to be in AAâ soapbox đ Again.
yes. yes i am. sorry about it. still gonna talk about it tho.
OMG did you see that coaching moment?? You just witnessed SORRY BEING AN EMPTY PROMISE. In action. Damn.
Making amends đ€ vs. apologizing đ
Making amends is about freeing yourself from your resentments toward another person. Itâs not about getting an apology from the other person, and itâs certainly not about apologizing for your behavior.
To amend something means âto make right.â Itâs about taking action, both by taking accountability for what youâve done and by acting in a way that shows the other person that youâre putting in work to make up for it.
One of my favorite sayings I heard in AA was, âKeep your side of the street clean.â It was explained to me as a way to know if you had any amends to make. If youâre walking down the street and youâre scared of (dreading, avoiding, not comfortable with, etc.) running into someone, you probably need to make amends to them.
If you feel a combination of guilt and resentment toward someone, you probably need to make amends. In AA, they say you need to make amends to everyone youâve ever wronged to stay sober.
Iâve learned that, regardless of whether or not Iâm in AA, keeping my side of the street clean is critical to my self-esteem, self-trust, and overall happiness. AA taught me to be extremely wary of feelings of guilt and resentment and to act pretty much immediately, if I can, to let those feelings go by making amends.
The best part? Making amends is not that deep. Itâs actually very simple. If millions of recovering alcoholics can do it, anyone can do it.
In my and Colinâs experience, this helps parents release their own feelings of guilt and anger toward their children once they leave treatment. Itâs important for parents to do this ASAP, even if they think their child had an overall positive experience and embraced it as a growth opportunity.
Itâs even more important to do when parents are resentful that their child has slid back into old patterns of behavior. Even if we donât receive it well in the moment, this can be incredibly healing for us after coming home.
As troubled teens in treatment, weâve had to write accountability letters to our parents in wilderness. Weâve had to sit through hours of family therapy where oftentimes, we couldnât defend our actions. Weâve had to take responsibility for âwhat got us here.â Weâve had to show everyone that we consistently behave differently for months on end. Weâve worked at rebuilding trust with our parents while in a stressful and uncomfortable environment (i.e. not home).
Parents - we acknowledge that almost all of us need to show you much more gratitude and probably need to make amends to you ourselves. However, youâre still the parents and usually have to take the high road. We put in all this work, and all we want to hear is that you recognize what you put us through, even if we agree that it was necessary.
đ How to make amends to another person (adapted from AA)
PREREQUISITES:
For your amends to be sincere, you must have:
Ability to acknowledge your resentments
Desire to improve your own self-esteem or general mood
Desire to âkeep your side of the street cleanâ
No expectations of an apology or amends from the other person
Enough humility to reflect on your part in the situation
Ability to do something about it â change attitudes or behaviors for the benefit of the other person
STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS:
Write out the resentments you hold against that other person. All of them, no matter how small.
Ask yourself what your part is in creating and holding onto these resentments. Write it out. Itâs best to have someone else help or review this with you as an outside third party. In AA, it would be your sponsor. Colin and I have done this with some of the parents we work with.
State specifically what you did, both intentionally and unintentionally, that harmed the other person. Donât state any excuses, no matter how justified these might feel especially if the other person âwrongedâ you first. Only talk about your actions.
State how it wasnât okay for you to treat them this way and acknowledge how your actions made them feel. Do not blame your behavior on what they might have done to you. I was told not even to bring up what they might have done to you.
State your desire to make things right between you and talk about what youâre already doing to facilitate this. Donât ask them to do anything in return. You can make amends without the other person changing any of their behavior or even owning up to anything.
Ask them: âIs there anything I didnât say that I did that hurt you?â Listen and acknowledge; donât explain anything.
Ask them: âIs there anything else I can do to make this right?â Commit to doing as much as you can that they ask while holding your boundaries. Start doing these things immediately.
Continue doing what you said youâd do. Own up immediately when you make a mistake so that you can maintain trust and keep moving forward. Weâre human; mistakes happen, and patterns of behavior are ingrained, so itâs important for the other person to see that youâre consistently holding yourself accountable and continuing to work on changing your behavior.
Pro tip: I was told to never even say the word âsorryâ when making amends. That helped me focus on staying accountable, hearing the other person out, and showing them what I was doing to make it right.
Example - from a parentâs POV đ
Inspired by my parents amends to me. This is NOT me saying that every parent needs to own up to these specific things. Itâs personal to you and your child.
Situation:
I sent my child to treatment, and Iâm resentful that they are ungrateful and are not changing certain behaviors that I donât like.
My Part (what to say to them):
I wasnât honest with you before sending you away when I said it was going to only be for 30 days.
At the time, I didnât see how my own behavior was influencing yours; I see now that sweeping all your problems under the rug made you feel like I didnât care about what you were going through and that you couldnât come to me for help or support.
I didnât think about how being away from home for 18 months would feel for you. I am fully aware that I will never be able to appreciate just how hard it was for you.
The lack of trust I had in myself supporting you at home will impact you for the rest of your life. I know I will never truly understand how frustrating that is for you, seeing as it was my decisions that made you go through something as challenging as treatment.
I fundamentally changed our relationship by taking away your freedom for the better part of two years.
How I impacted you:
These decisions led you to feel like I abandoned you, and itâs not okay that you had to feel that way and figure out how to deal with it on your own.
No child ever deserves to feel abandoned or betrayed by their parent, regardless of the circumstances.
I could have handled this differently, which might have at least mitigated some of those feelings for you, but I didnât.
I will never understand what it was like for you to be in treatment and to be sent away by your own family, and I am so proud of you for adapting to the situation I put you in and working so hard to make positive changes in your life.
What Iâm doing to make it right:
The next steps in your life are up to you.
I am always here to help you and discuss your goals and plans. Iâm working on not projecting my own beliefs about success onto you, and Iâll work on whatever else you think will make you feel more comfortable if you do want to discuss these things with me.
I am working on managing my own feelings about your decisions so that I donât put the burden of my emotions on your shoulders and so that I can be open to hearing about your feelings as they come up.
You can always come to me when you need help, no matter what it is, and I will do everything in my power to give you the support you ask of me, rather than the support I think you need.
Is there anything I didnât say that I did that hurt you?
Is there anything else I can do to make this right?
Results đ«
Then, move forward. Even if your child is still resentful and acting out, even if they haven't made amends to you, youâve cleaned up your side of the street.
If they donât ask for anything else to make it right, itâs not your job to continue trying to make up for it. Follow through with what you said youâd do, integrate their feedback, and move forward.
Obviously, donât commit to anything you wonât do. Itâs a losing battle if you say something like, âI support every decision you make from here on out.â As a parent, you inevitably will still think theyâre making the wrong decisions from time to time. If they hold that against you, thatâs on them, and they have to bear the burden of holding onto that resentment.
Unfortunately, you canât put a timeline on when your child will forgive you for sending them to treatment (or on a gap year, or to a college they donât like, etc). If youâre still resentful that theyâre resentful, thatâs on you and something you need to work through tbh. Making amends can be an important step in working through those feelings.
Donât underestimate the impact of your child seeing you be vulnerable, accountable, and putting in the work.
Last pro-tip: do this only after theyâve fully left treatment. Otherwise, it might be seen as some therapeutic exercise, or it just wonât sink in because youâre still putting them through the experience for which youâre taking accountability.
Again, we fully acknowledge that this is only half the equation and most of us need to do the same for our parents. We probably wonât do it as soon as our parents would like, but you may have planted the seed by taking the initiative to do this yourself first.
And nowâŠâŠour vibes this weekđź
đ What weâre reading
How 'blue comments' turned the TikTok algorithm into a protest tool, mashable
In this group chat, pop culture meets politics, vogue
Gen Zâs new status symbol, business insider
đ¶ What weâre listening to
fave album for kicking off chill summer vibes
đĄ One last thought
THANKS FOR READING!
If you found this valuable, this is your signâïž 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.