Week 2: Family Therapy Journey / Discussion Week 2: Narrative Therapy and Models for Step Family Development
hi I'm Darcy from core parenting and welcome to the Big Blend Theory.
The more that we as collective adults can start to see ourselves as team members in a child's family, right? So we have to let go as adults of the them versus us. I separated from this person I'm done with that yeah and I am responsible, I am family of this child who is family of this person and that makes me family still. With this person and the more that I can, that we, as much as possible I mean, there's some realities of conflict and dysfunction and things that make it more or less, although I feel like if people want to work hard enough at it they can find a way to find a common language to talk about their children because they are family with the children. So to some extent, there's the responsibility of the parents to kind of step up and talk with each other about, you know, what's happening in the overall rhythm of the child's life. The second thing is to remember that, as much as we feel like it impacts us that life is like this over here and then it's like this over there, the person who is impacting the most is our child, right? They're the ones that have to go back and forth between different cultures and different norms and different expectations, different language. And I don't mean like Spanish versus English, I mean at this house we say, you know I need space, and at this house I say get away from me. And that, this there's different kind of like cultural norms that develop in each family's rhythm and the kids have to learn how to go back and forth from that and that's tricky. And every transition is tricky and even if both houses are really healthy and functioning really well, that transition back and forth can be tricky and children will often have more tantrums or meltdowns or say things like they “don't want to go” or those kind of things have been pre and post transition quite normally and we can often kind of misdiagnosed that if something's going wrong at the other house when really it's just about you know it's it's exhausting for kids to go back and forth. And there's some amount of empathy that we need to have for the kids in understanding, you know, if something's happening at one house, that is not to the level of abuse, but distressing to some extent or making things difficult for the kids, so I kind of hold himself together trying their coping skills or whatever so tricky, but not abusive, understanding and kind of being empathic with them in a loving non-judgmental way of the other house, so you know, kid comes back and they eight pounds of sugar and they're melting down and having a really hard time and saying “you know it's you know really special that you get to have all those treats at Mom's house and it must feel really good to do that and it's really hard to come back and then not be able to have it that's pretty probably pretty hard for you to be able to go back and forth like that I totally get it.”
Interviewer: sort of validate
Darcy: to validate their experience of yeah and they have to negotiate two worlds in a way that you don't, that world's bad, we're over here that world's bad they don't get that luxury. They have to go back and function in that world and function in their world
Interviewer: In the event where there is you know real-life trauma. How do you how do you start in a healthy way?
Darcy: No matter how hurtful, harmful abandonment, abuse, it doesn't matter that child loves that parent and feels very conflicted in the situation I mean even if a child understands or knows or you know can see that they're better off without the parent or whatever that that it's it's such a strong feeling so it's really important that no matter how ugly the situation that we refrain from initiating any conversation with the child that paints that that parent as bad, like if you know she's missing her mom or she says you know “you're not my mom” it can be really tempting to say something like “well yeah mom's not here” or “your mom did This” or” your mom did that” and you know,
Interviewer: I mean, I bite my tongue all right times, but I'm doing it yeah
Darcy: the thing is is that they they know what their mom did, and at some point they may come to a another parent for clarification for “I want to talk about this” “I want to do you know why mom did this” or “do you know what's going on with her” and as as they initiate those conversations, then it's okay to respond to those conversations and in a as non-judgmental kind of factual as possible but it's important not to put that out there for them and to really give them the space to be able to honor the feelings as they come.