Parent ? Staff Relationships: Successful parents recognize that the relationship they establish with the treatment staff will ultimately affect the quality of relationship they have with their child. Form a strong, supportive bond at the beginning of treatment with your child?s professional care-giving team. The parent-staff relationship is especially vulnerable in the early phases of care when trust and confidence is just beginning to grow. This is because the child will attempt to sabotage and undermine their parent?s trust in the staff so that they can manipulate their way out of responsibility and growth. If a child can create distrust in the minds of parents for treatment staff, they can successfully jam the treatment process and escape accountability. Teen ? Staff Relationship: The rapport that develops between your child and staff is critical to growth. If a relationship of trust and mutual respect does not form, it is highly unlikely that positive growth will occur. For this reason, successful parents do not resent positive relationships that form between their child and staff, and they do everything possible to promote and encourage this relationship. Parents that rescue their children by interfering with this relationship diminish the potential for their child?s true growth. Wise parents do not necessarily buy into their teen?s complaints, but encourage them to work it out with their team staff. Develop from the beginning a trusting relationship with your staff. Make the staff earn your trust, but also listen to them and help them when at all possible.
Stay the Course
Positive growth is a process, not an event. Successful parents realize this and stay the course until sufficient growth has been realized. Resistive teens typically go through a limit-testing stage and a manipulation stage before they get serious about working their program. The testing stage is frequently characterized with angry outbursts, holding their love and future relationships with their parents hostage if they are not released. The manipulation stage includes heart-wrenching pleading, plea-bargaining, making promises that often they cannot or intend to keep, and trying to frighten parents with fantastic accusations of staff brutality, abuse, and neglect. They know their parent?s buttons and will readily push them if they feel it will be to their advantage. They do this because they do not want to be held accountable or face their issues. Successful parents do not pull their child out of treatment too early or at the first sign of progress. They realize that outer behavior is the beginning of change, not the end. They allow the changes to be internalized through sustained practice. They wait to see that their teen can sustain self-management of problems before they agree to end treatment.
Empower True Change
True change comes not by force or coercion, but by your teen acquiring and applying five important powers in their life. These powers are briefly explained below.
Empower Responsibility: One of the first signs parents should look for in their child?s growth is an awareness and honest admission of responsibility. You should promote openness and trust in your child so that they can feel empowered to take responsibility for their program. Remember that blaming, fault-finding, and rescuing diminish your child?s ability to be honest and take responsibility for accepting help from others. You can empower your child by modeling honesty and kindness and understanding.
Empower Resolution: Successful parents empower courage to make commitments and resolutions. Most children fail to make resolutions because they lack hope, vision, and trust in themselves and others. Successful parents model their willingness to recognize and admit their own weaknesses and mistakes, and they expect their child to do the same. Express love and hope and confidence in your child during treatment.
