Parents Supporting Treatment

Triumph youth and his family working together at a workshop

I spoke with a parent the other day and she reminded me just how difficult a decision it is to place your child in a residential treatment facility.  For most parents, it is their last option.  This parent added that a program like Triumph Youth Services is needed and where parents turn when everything they have tried has not worked (discipline, psychiatrists, medication, wilderness programs, etc.).  This parent did not send her daughter to Triumph because she didn’t know about the program until after she started a parent support group, not to mention that Triumph is a program for boys.  Even though I didn’t work with her directly in bringing her child to our program, I knew what she was talking about because of the parents I have had the privileged to work with.  It was clear that it was a very difficult decision for them and they were still questioning it even as I was arranging their son’s transportation to Utah.  Our great staff helped rest their fears, but they were still in for a challenging journey.  The journey is not just one of being away from your child, but also of change in yourself and your family.  This same parent stressed the importance that no matter the reason that their kid is in the program, the parents have to learn how to work with their son and his needs. I just found the below article and thought that it might be helpful to those parents that have taken the brave leap to embark on this journey.

Maximizing the Outcome of Residential Treatment

Enrolling a child in a residential treatment program often evokes strong emotions in parents that range from relief and hope to guilt and sorrow. While these are normal feelings for parents, how you act upon these emotions can significantly influence how much benefit you and your child get from treatment. It works much to the benefit of the child, the parents, and the care-givers when parents learn and practice the following methods to maximize true growth in treatment.

Accept the Need for Care

You will get out of residential treatment what you put into it. Your child may be resistive to treatment, but you, as a parent, need to be focused, resolute, and positive. If you will get on-board and support the program and the professional staff working with your child, your teen will adjust more quickly and positive growth will occur more readily. This may take swallowing pride and breaking denial on your part, but it is healthy and necessary.

Take Responsibility Instead of Finding Fault

Effective care does not place blame; it requires responsibility. Blaming condemns self and others for mistakes. Responsibility holds one accountable for solving problems. Blaming ourselves and others is a wasteful practice. Truth is, there is plenty of blame to go around. While understanding the cause of problems is helpful in finding solutions and preventing future re-occurrences, blaming prevents progress and wastes time and money. Successful parents do not blame themselves, their child, or circumstance, neither do they try to project blame onto care staff. Rather, they take responsibility to solve problems.

Support Instead of Rescue

Successful parents support their children, but hold them accountable to resolve their own problems, instead of rescuing them. Especially if your child suffers from a physical, emotional, or psychological disability, you may be tempted to protect him/her by making excuses for them, trying to modify the program to meet what you think are their needs, or treating them as if they are incompetent to help themselves. Parents who fall into this trap, buy into every complaint and excuse made by the child. They spend their time interfering with and trying to control the treatment staff, manipulating, and refereeing every situation that comes up. This modeling behavior empowers your child to resist working his program and taking responsibility for progress. It keeps him/her weak.

Learn Your Role as a Team Player

Successful parents learn early in treatment to play their role in treatment and become a team player from the beginning. Your role is not to control. Your role is to step back into a support role to your child. Your role is to provide the direct care staff with information and insight to your child. Your role is to provide positive support and unconditional love to your child. You become a cheerleader and a fan, so to speak, instead of a bedraggled player or would-be coach that has been drug up and down the field of life by your child. You work with the staff to identify and resolve problems, rather than create more by trying to direct and control. Take responsibility to work on your own issues and prepare yourself and your family for your child’s return. The sooner you learn to play your role, the more powerful your influence will be.

Build Positive Relationships

Four important relationships determine the success of treatment. Successful parents recognize and foster these relationships. They are: (1) your child’s relationship with himself and his/her recovery, (2) your teen’s relationship with you, (3) your relationship with treatment staff, and (4) your teen’s relationship with treatment staff.  [follow the link at the end of the article to see how the author defines these relationships]

Opposition in All Things

In the diagram above, you will note that the dotted arrows extending from each team player (parent, child, staff) point to the relationship, or side of the triangle, opposite from its position. This depicts the potential for positive or negative forces working on that relationship. Specifically, the teen may exert force to disrupt or promote relationships between parent and staff. The parent may either harm or help the relationship between their child and the staff. The staff may either harm or help the relationship between parent and child. As a parent, you should encourage a therapeutic relationship between your child and the staff; you should actively build a united relationship between yourself and the staff; and you should allow staff to assist you in building a positive relationship between you and your child.

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 their demands are not met. The manipulation stage includes heart-wrenching pleading, plea-bargaining, promises that often they cannot or do not intend to keep, and 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.[follow the link at the end of the article to see how the author explains these five powers]

In the end, there is no guarantee for certain success. You and your child have freedom of choice. However, if you will follow these principles, you have a much greater chance of seeing positive, meaningful gains in your child during his or her residential stay.

Article by By Stephen G. Biddulph, M.A.:
http://natsap.org/for-parents/articles/maximizing-the-outcome-of-residential-treatment/