Thank you so much, DJ.
That first link (didn't have time for the second one) was to an excellent study comparing care choices for kids with various problems.
Some of the findings of the study demonstrate why I advise parents who live in communities without a lot of supports, whose kids "just won't go" to therapy, to go to therapy *themselves* to learn more productive strategies for parenting their kids, given their families' special needs.
Okay, what I just said is jargon heavy. What I mean is that when the kid's in trouble the family's in trouble. It doesn't matter whether the kid's trouble was caused by or was the cause of the family trouble. The trouble is there.
Most RTCs claim to repair the family trouble, and most do appear to make an attempt to repair the family trouble. RTCs do not do a good job of repairing family trouble because they separate the child from the family for months or years at a time.
Her doctor says my Katie is oppositional. I'd say without the jargon that means she's stubborn, she's very intelligent about practical life matters, and she's very aware of some real shortcomings I have and that her dad has that sometimes makes her better judgment about her life problems, on the spot, better than what we might advise her to do.
I have a disability, her dad has to work long hours---it's the nature of his field, it's the nature of today's workplace.
This doesn't make our family bad or dysfunctional. What it does do is make it so that it's better for Katie and our family to parent a bit differently from the best strategies for families that aren't us.
This is true whenever the family and the kid(s) "have issues."
It's possible to parent effectively through those issues. I know it because we do it.
Therapy, with a family therapist, for the parents, can be effective even if the kid "just won't go" because the parents can tell the therapist what they see in the kid and what's going on in the home and the therapist can help the parents learn individualized techniques that work with their particular kid.
We negotiate, we help Katie realize how a bad behavior inherently hurts her and will hurt her in her life if she does it when she grows up. She has a special kind of smarts for coping with life. We play to that strength of hers and use it to appeal to her rational self interest.
As a ten year old, she doesn't have the life experience to see on her own how a bad habit will hurt her with friends and authorities, now and when she's grown. Her strength is that when we explain how the behavior is going to come back to bite her in the ass, she understands quite clearly---she just didn't have the experience to think of it herself. We don't have to hit her opposition head on. We appeal to her self interest, help her figure out what's in her own best interests, and work with her to figure out how we can help her out.
Despite her stubborness, Katie has a special strength in liking people, including parents and teachers, and being very eager to please. When we and the school let her know small, specific positives we want to see, and make a habit of praising her when we see them and give her some appreciation for her efforts, we see a lot more of those efforts. No surprise there.
We listen to her when she tries to tell us why she thinks what we or the school are telling her to do will cause her trouble. When she's right, or as likely to be right as we are, we let her try it her way. This means she's more likely to trust us when we insist.
We pick our battles. For things that don't really matter, we give her a lot of freedom. For things that really matter, we enforce limits no matter how much she wants to resist them. Because she knows we'll be reasonable, she gives in easier and doesn't carry resentment around when we insist on a limit.
Some of these strategies wouldn't work too well with a kid with different strengths and weaknesses. Some kids would get an inch and take a mile. Katie sometimes tries to, but we have our ways of dealing with it. Ways that work with her, but wouldn't with every kid.
We're far from perfect as parents. She's not a perfect little angel of a kid who can do no wrong. But our parenting strategies are tailored to her strengths, weaknesses, and needs.
That's hard to do. We could figure it out without family therapy, so far, because Katie's a lot like I was, a lot like my oldest sister was, a lot like my husband was, a lot like his mother was. Her school is supportive. I'm able to stay home and spend more time working with her.
If it quits being enough, we'll use family therapy. If, when she's a teen, we have to do that and she just balks at going, we'll go on our own.
It's like marriage counseling. A lot of times you can save a marriage even if your spouse won't go by you going by yourself and learning better ways to handle your problems.
The studies emphasize how helpful intervention in the home is. Well, even if your community has limited supports, you can get that much intervention by finding and going to a good therapist, yourself. Family therapy just for you is an advanced course in Mom Fu or Dad Fu
There is no substitute for Mom Fu or Dad Fu in helping your kid.
Mom and Dad have the power to change the home environment the kid lives in. Change the home environment to play to the kid's strengths, change the home environment to set the kid up to succeed, change the home environment to pick your battles carefully, and you change the kid.
Set the example of going to therapy yourself, and creating a home environment that sets the kid up to succeed, and you increase the likelihood of the kid going to therapy.
Of course the kid is going to resist going to therapy if the impression he gets of it is that you're sending him to fix him and you're going along to supervise and make sure you can help manipulate him into getting fixed. No matter what their problems are, who the hell wouldn't resist that?
If the kid gets the clear impression that you're going to therapy to fix yourselves, and part of that is fixing your own screwups that drive your kid crazy (as well as learning better Mom Fu), then if you let the kid know that sure you'd like him/her to do better, but that certainly *you* could do better at improving yourselves if the therapist had the kid's point of view, you have the potential of actually getting your kid through the door.
If the therapist is supportive, "Hey, Johnny, I suppose you know that your parents have been coming because some problems you were having helped them notice that they were having a lot of problems, too. Thanks for coming and helping out at making you guys' home work better. First, to help me know how to focus the session, what do you want out of today? Are you here mostly to give input to help me help your parents, or are you looking for some help with something that's going on for you? Okay, let's go with that."
If a resistant kid or spouse shows up, you let them define why they're there that day and you focus on that. You can get in through the back door, but just a little, with having one say to another, "When you do [thing], I feel [thing], which makes it hard for me to do [thing]."
Then there's always the "Okay, so we all agree that [person] needs to get better about doing [thing]. Is there any possibility you could help [person] out with their changes by trying to do/not do [other thing] a bit more?"
If you can get somebody in the door, you can appeal to their self-interest to change some of their behaviors, even if just to support their parents in stopping doing something the kid doesn't like.
Example: The kid doesn't like it that the parents are always freaked out. The parents are freaked out because the kid is coming home drunk and high. Small steps. One of the parents' worries is the kid driving drunk. Can the kid get a ride, or call for a ride, or even call for a cab, and just get the car the next day--rather than driving drunk/high? If the kid does this, will the parents make [defined] progress at not getting freaked out?
It doesn't stop the drug abuse *yet*. One thing it does do is stop *one* of the major risks freaking the parents out. The biggest thing it does is get the therapist's foot in the door by getting the kid to accept the idea of changing a behavior. It ties the change to a change in the parents' behavior that the kid wants---not a bribe, just that the kid's change will reduce stress on the parents and help them do better at fixing *their* problems.
Another example: Promiscuous sex without condoms. Are there some condoms that are less objectionable than others? Can the kid not afford them? Is the kid forgetting to carry them? Can the kid start carrying them and using them? If the kid doesn't know if some condoms are less objectionable, can the kid try out various ones and find out? It's a *small* step. It doesn't get to acceptable behavior in one sudden leap. It's an improvement.
The small step isn't a stopping point. It gets the foot in the door.
Sometimes parents in troubled families make the mistake of expecting all or nothing, or expecting too much at once and giving themselves a figleaf excuse that they don't want all or nothing, or assuming that accepting a small step as a beginning, and facilitating that small step, amounts to condoning portions of the whole set of behavior that are still unacceptable.
Sometimes they think letting up on the pressure on the kid in return for a small step takes away a disproportionate amount of their bargaining position.
Sometimes they can't see the value of a small step in reducing one of the worse risks of a behavior, and the long term value of working a small step at a time in the home instead of all at once in an RTC.
The *habit* of using condoms, or calling for a ride instead of driving impaired, is a durable habit that reduces risk instead of being likely to relapse. Each small step is a durable habit.
Once the kid has some improved impulse control, and has seen improvements in his home life, he's more likely to agree to a major change like sobriety or a severely reduced number of sex partners. Most sexually active people are not going to stop sex completely---it's a powerful, natural, human drive--just because someone else wants them to. Sexual abstinence requires a deeply held personal belief. Trying to dictate someone's personal beliefs doesn't work. However, if the beliefs are there, improved impulse control developed from the small steps might help prior beliefs to re-emerge into abstinence.
Parents can reap huge, long-term improvements in a kid's behavior by going to therapy to fix themselves, learn new parenting techniques, and target their parenting strategies to their kids' strengths.
Sending your kid to an RTC is like buying shoddy, flashy, convenience goods for a small fortune. It looks flashy, it seems like a one-shot fix for all your problems, but its quality sucks and costs way too much money.
Julie
