Counselling for a "normal" kid?
June 20, 2018 1:57 AM   Subscribe

My daughter is 12 and generally she's getting along really well, but anxiety runs in the family and I'm wondering if seeing a counsellor could help her develop some strategies for handling her anxiety, or if it's possible to do more harm than good.

She does well in school, has close friends, enjoys lots of different extracurricular activities, including doing stuff on her own. She does have moments of anxiety that seem well within the realm of normal to me, but she also feels bad about those negative feelings which makes her spiral a bit before she can recover. She doesn't like to talk about her feelings with anyone but me or her dad, as she tends not to trust others easily.

My motivation for seeking counselling for her would be, ideally, a few sessions with someone who has experience helping kids handle their negative emotions. I teach at university so I see lots and lots of young people who seem like they might benefit from something similar. The counsellor I've found has experience with kids who have trauma, sexual abuse, etc. i.e., experiences very different to my daugher's, who (to my knowledge and we're pretty close) has never experienced anything like this. I'm worried that they might actually not be the appropriate person for my daughter to see.

I'd appreciate any feedback on what might be an appropriate way to address this.
posted by stinker to Health & Fitness (23 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
We looked at this for our now 14yo son, after he had some health issues a couple of years back that really knocked his confidence because of the physical impact of surgery (& the underlying stuff that he had surgery to correct).

So, we engaged with the pastoral care staff at school, and looked at the out-of-school counselling service that they link up with.

Also we talked to him about it - and, his responses in the end guided us to not go down that route. We normalised the whole thing as much as possible, he knows that both of his parents have accessed that kind of support & found it really helpful, some of his peers have used those services & also know the benefits.

We put it on the table, and he didn't pick it up. And that's OK. They're old enough to express some views about the route they want to take, and outside of specific trauma or other urgent need, I think as parents we should respect that.

So I would say - talk to your daughter in age-appropriate terms, and see where she wants to take it.
posted by rd45 at 2:21 AM on June 20, 2018 [10 favorites]


I wouldn't lead with the specialist but instead work on modeling healthy mental health strategies and normalizing stress and anxiety. Therapy is good, but it's like taking her to the ENT specialist when she just has the beginnings of a cold. It could be overkill and could teach her that she needs professional help when she needs to learn self-help strategies. Does she exercise to stabilize her mood/meditate/journal/yoga? Does she know good mental health practices? Maybe work on those as part of being a healthy person and let her know there is always professional help if she's overwhelmed.*

*When I was a kid, I had a bullying experience and after the school told my mom, she immediately booked me in with a therapist, which really upset me. My mom never talked to me about what I wanted or how I felt--instead, she just threw me to a stranger who was supposed to help. 45 years later, it still annoys me.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:44 AM on June 20, 2018 [8 favorites]


As a former 11-year-old girl with a tendency to ruminate, I would not have taken well to this. I probably would have catastrophized about the fact that my parents thought I needed counseling, and it would have fed into the negative thinking spiral. I am pretty introverted and talking to a stranger about my feelings would not have worked for me, especially at that age.

On the other hand, learning resilience is really important, especially as she gets older and the stakes get higher. As an adult, I became aware of cognitive-behavioral therapy, and although I've never really done a full course of it, the idea of recognizing, acknowledging, and releasing your negative thoughts -- stopping the downward spiral, as it were -- really worked for me. Would it be possible to guide your daughter to something like that? Let her know that resources are there is she needs them, but also validate and normalize what she is feeling right now.
posted by basalganglia at 4:44 AM on June 20, 2018 [7 favorites]


It's great that you're so attuned to your daughter's stumbling blocks. But that's a tough age for kids to hook into therapy, in my experience as a parent of kids who definitely needed/need therapy. During that time I think we got more mileage out of my own individual therapy that was often geared toward "here's this thing happening with kid(s) this week; how can I best help them cope?" rather than my "own" issues. There are several books out there that are designed to help parents better understand what's going on in the veiled and poorly articulated inner world of the anxious child and coach them through basic CBT practices to deal with everyday situations. That might be a better place to start.
posted by drlith at 5:22 AM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have seen poor outcomes from children/young teens that go into therapy at that age. There is still a stigma and they internalize it, and they can interpret things said by the Therapist in the wrong way, accept that person is an "authority" on their own mental health and start to doubt themselves. What I have done with my own children (who are healthy and have pretty good coping skills but also have a father with psychosis and poor coping skills (as well as his parents with destructive personality disorders) is make sure they had several mentors who could guide them and were adults other than myself they could go to with questions/vent about me. I was specifically looking for people with resilience. I also enrolled my children in physical as well as cerebral activities with good, solid coaches because there is a direct correlation between physical and mental health (we chose yoga for the mindfulness aspect and had family as well as individual sessions). For us, I make sure we have a lot of parallel one-on-one activities like walking where each child can talk without having me stare at their face or feel judged. It is MUCH easier to get them to open up without direct eye contact.
posted by saucysault at 5:53 AM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Others have weighed in more thoughtfully on many aspects of your question, but I wanted to agree with the notion of exposing her to strategies from cognitive-behavioral therapy, whether through counseling or more informal routes. For example: I was an anxious kid, and when my dad didn't come home from work exactly when he was supposed to, I'd start to panic. My friend casually suggested that I try give myself 15 minutes before letting myself worry. Easier said than done of course, but often, he'd be home within that buffer or call with an update, and even when he wasn't, the practice of acknowledging my worry but trying to reframe it or shape how I responded to it continues to helpful to this day. Working with her on some mental interventions that acknowledge the emotions she's feeling and take them seriously but also help her find some ways to address them could be helpful, no matter how she's introduced to those strategies.
posted by dapati at 5:55 AM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


When I was 12, my mother arranged for counseling for me for some real issues I was having associated with the recent separation of my parents (which ultimately led to a divorce). It was an objectively terrible experience. I completely misunderstood the purpose of the counseling and the things my mom said to me about it in ways that led to me getting the opposite message she intended -- my take away was that I was not allowed to talk to anyone about anything ever. This led, when I was a bit older, to me being sexually abused and used as a drug courier -- I knew that what I was being asked/told by an older relative to do was wrong, but thought I wasn't allowed to talk about it and didn't know how to say no. I'm not saying to NOT take your daughter to counseling, but if you do just be really careful about checking in with her about what she does and does and does not understand about the process.
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:19 AM on June 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


An alternative would be to bring home something like this American Girl book (there are several others that deal with things like friend troubles etc) that are easy to read and appealingly branded.

I also have a high achieving and generally happy but also high strung adolescent, and I concur with the above posters that randomly bringing her to a therapist would be weird and unhelpful for her. I do try to do my own research and be ready to help her think things through, provide some ideas for calming, etc.
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:57 AM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have been struggling with a similar line of thinking. Our daughter is 10. I don't know yet whether we will do anything (I'll be reading responses here with interest) but I think I would present it as a normal thing and part of emotional skill development, allowing feelings to exist without judgment, and an opportunity to get strategies for coping with anxiety so that she doesn't develop a thousand avoidance behaviors to avoid feeling anxious for a few hours (something I am having to unlearn as a middle-aged mom). I think I would treat counseling like going to the dentist, a thing you do to take care of yourself, as part of the continuum of self-love, acceptance and education, not like a thing you do because there's a big fat problem to solve.

We also watch and listen to this song now and then and it's a really good jumping off point for talking about feelings. Sometimes I play it over and over all day at work on headphones if I really need the reminder. It's possible to embrace pop culture that is in that spirit, like the Pixar movie 'Inside Out'. It helps to be able to simply say 'I am anxious' without feeling like anxiety is this secret, broken creature living inside you and shouldn't tell anyone about it.

A lot of people have been damaged by a perception that everybody else is confident and has their shit together and is prancing around on the world's stage like glamorous, self-actualized show horses.

My parents handled my hypersensitivity through observations like "You think too much." "Lighten up." "You are oversensitive."

That was not actually helpful. Those are appalling responses they rolled out because they hadn't any idea how I felt and didn't care. Even as grown up me cleans up their mess, I'm grateful to have their mistakes to learn from and to have so many more resources.

I am, in fact, often anxious and hypersensitive. I do think that is genetic, but how it's responded to is a choice, whether you get loving compassion and strategic advice or the message your feelings are dumb. And never even mind therapy -- it would have been so great to hear that I was okay, smart, and special just the way I was and that I didn't need to dig deep in hopes of becoming someone else entirely! I probably could have saved fifteen grand on therapy over the course of my life.

My last thought would be to consider counseling just for you, instead, like one session, to talk through how you can best support her.

Twelve is such a vulnerable age and I don't see a 100% clear direction for you -- it depends on your instincts, your daughter, and the counselor. I would not make her go if she wasn't on board but I do think you are doing the right thing by finding ways to address it.

Hope something here is useful and apologies for the wall of text and being unable to extricate my response from my own baggage!

You are a good parent!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:20 AM on June 20, 2018 [10 favorites]


At her age I loved going to therapy and it was hugely helpful, but I was also miserable from my parents divorce and had OCD issues that needed professional help. My Mom has offered therapy when the divorce started and I asked if I could go a few months later. Me asking and wanting to go made all the difference. I’d suggest letting her know that therapy is a good tool and if she ever wants it you’ll help her get it. And if you are ever in therapy be open about it, make it a normal thing people do so she doesn’t feel like it’s strange to ask.
posted by lepus at 7:26 AM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think of myself at 12, and I wish my parents had offered me counseling. I never felt that I could talk to them, nor did I want to. I had some big thoughts in my head, and it would have been nice to have an objective third party to talk those out with.

I would broach it with her, maybe over the course of a few weeks, and let her know it's always an option. But that you trust her to make the decision for herself. Not as 'I think you might have issues down the road,' but as 'sometimes it's nice to talk with someone who's not part of our immediate circle.'

You say that this runs in the family... If you've had your own struggles with anxiety, you might articulate those to her as they come up, and walk through how you worked through them. Nothing too heavy, but just another way as a parent that you are giving your kid tools to deal with life.

Or if you see anxiety in your spouse, you might verbalize how they work through it: "I think dad was worried about XYZ. I tried to help by doing ABC. Sometimes we see our friends struggle with XYZ. Everyone's needs are different, but I've learned that dad needs time to process, so I make sure to give him space. Have you seen a friend go through something like this? How would you want your friends to react if you were going through this?"

Just articulating behavior can be helpful to kids who may not have the words to explain how they're feeling. They also often feel like they're the only one who feels this way - try to help them know that's not true.
posted by hydra77 at 7:34 AM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had some therapy at this age, intermittently from ages 11-14. I thought something was wrong with me and I thought I was in trouble. I acted sullen with the therapist, who asked me prodding questions that seemed accusatory to me. Things like "and how did you feel when..." or "what were you thinking when..." sounded just like what my parents and teachers said when they chastised me.

I was an anxious kid, and am an anxious adult, like my parents. At 14 I had stomach issues and I went into some group therapy. The kids in that class had serious problems at home and they resented me a ton.

I'll tell you what helped me the most though. The therapy my *mom* was in that helped her see the need for self care, and the tools she got to help her cope with her patterns -- made her more present and available. And my dad, who shared with me his own anxious patterns and how he coped with them, made me feel less alone and modeled the behavior I needed to see: anxiety is a thing you live with and you have to learn how; it's not a defect or a failure. Unfortunately I was 32 when he had that conversation with me. It would have done so much more than counseling!

I'm all about therapy for adults, and intervention when kids are facing problems their parents aren't equipped to help them with. The stigma is real as a kid, though. And self care is a thing kids aren't totally ready to grok on their own yet.
posted by pazazygeek at 7:35 AM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have been greatly helped by therapy as an adult, and I recommend therapy to people often. But it is important to find the right therapist; it usually takes me 3 or 4 tries to find one I'm compatible with. Recognizing when the therapy is helpful, neutral, or actively harmful is something I can only evaluate as an adult.

As others have mentioned, it is easy for people at that age to internalize this idea that there is something "wrong" or "broken" about them, which can be extremely difficult to shake as they grow up.

My parents sent me to see a psychologist when I was around 11, and the experience was terrible in retrospect. I was told by this authoratative person that the abuse happening to me in school was in my imagination. I was also told that I could tell the psychologist things that would stay confidential, but he betrayed that trust and shared personal things with my parents. (At least I learned to never trust a professional that someone else is paying, lol.) I could have really used some help at that age but I would have been much better off not going to see anyone, than talking to that pompous, gaslighting jackass.

Are there any programs, like summer camp or day programs, not explicitly designed for mental health stuff, that could help your kid build confidence and stretch their social muscles a bit? Not competitive sports, but playing in nature or building robots or making jewelry or putting on a play. Something ot directly associated with their school.

My parents didn't have very good coping skills, and practiced a lot of avoidance, among other things. I wish they would have sought out therapy or classes to learn those skills, which I could have then learned by example.
posted by ethical_caligula at 9:03 AM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I was a highly anxious kid who was in my head way too much and had pretty bad coping skills. I do wish someone had done something, anything, to help.

I think my best case scenario would not have been talk therapy, but more of a workbook/workshop/class on recognizing anxiety in myself and working through it. So, someone who offered up lots of tips and techniques but not in a really clinical setting.
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


My friend got therapy for her 11-year old daughter. I was incredulous because she seemed like such a normal, well-adjusted kid but the mom (rightfully) explained to me that you don't have to be terribly messed up to benefit from therapy. The daughter ended up doing really well, her biggest success being that she gave up the typical pre-teen habit of having everything be catastrophe wrapped in drama. The difference was noticeable: she stopped sulking constantly and instead started acting friendly and engaged. She is now 16 and I can report that the positive changes "stuck".

(Just one anecdote... obviously, your mileage will vary. We had therapy briefly for my 6-year old, for sleep anxiety issues, and the therapist was so apathetic that I was surprised she didn't cure my son by putting him to sleep just by being such a dead fish. We pulled him out because the whole thing seemed to be doing more harm than helping. So I really think it hinges on getting a good therapist.)
posted by rada at 10:13 AM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


This is reiterating some of what's been said above:

I think it's likely to be helpful to bring your daughter into this conversation. See what she thinks and what she might want.

I'm curious if you've been to counseling or if you have friends/family members who have. To me, it seems clear that basically everyone could benefit from therapy and I realize that not everyone has this perspective. Seems great if you can normalize it and say, hey, everyone needs all kinds of help and lots of people, like me (or your Aunt X or Neighbor Y) have gotten some good benefits out of talking with someone, so that's one of the many options of support and coping tools available to you.

There's also a huge range of therapeutic styles and approaches. If you don't feel certain about the particular counselor you've found, maybe consider searching for more? I think that experiential approaches, like expressive arts therapy or animal-assisted therapy are especially good for adolescents. Then it's less, now I have to sit and talk with a stranger adult about my feelings, ugh, and more, we do this fun/interesting thing together and also I get to feel things out and reveal in a more organic way.
posted by overglow at 11:05 AM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


To me, it seems clear that basically everyone could benefit from therapy and I realize that not everyone has this perspective.

I don't have that perspective because I've spent hundreds of hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars on therapy and it has harmed me. And I am an adult with agency. Do not force this on a child.
posted by Violet Hour at 12:21 PM on June 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


I don't have that perspective because I've spent hundreds of hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars on therapy and it has harmed me. And I am an adult with agency. Do not force this on a child.

I think this is an important discussion point, and I fully understand where you are coming from I have had a lot of shit therapy experience (see my note regarding 'fifteen thousand dollars' upthread - it's not an exaggeration. I literally can't count my former therapists. I am not a 'Yay for therapy' person. I'm not even sure that it is something I will do again. I'm angry about therapy for what I suspect are some similar experiences others have had, who feel negatively about therapy.

But -- I've also had a shitty dentist and wound up having to get a bunch of implants. That doesn't mean dentists suck. I was young. I should have ditched that lazy fucker, I wish I had been more assertive. I had a terrible therapist at around twelve when I started cutting school, who, when I said I liked to make people laugh, paused for a long time and looked at me carefully, and said, 'Do you like it when people laugh at you?'

I did not go back.

I guess what I most want to say is that language is important, emotional literacy is important, and a decent quality therapist can help give people and especially children language skills so they can say, "I have been feeling anxious lately and I'm unsure why." Or "I felt so self-conscious in that meeting" or "Holy God, I sure am experiencing a lot of rage that is hard for me to manage!" or "I am really angry at how you treated me today."

Those are skilled statements that help people communicate with each other, increase self-compassion, and provide a sense of perspective. It's hard to manage emotions without the ability to label them accurately.

This is especially important for girls, who often have difficulty with negative emotions because they sometimes feel society has told them not to have any, like jealousy, competitiveness, anxiety, and just flat-out anger.

Bad therapists are incredibly damaging, and some therapists are less than insightful, but the process of learning how to talk about emotions can be very helpful in the lifelong work of managing them.

After any talk with any medical professional, it's good to pause and ask when we walk to the parking lot, do we feel better or worse? If the answer is 'I feel like shit, thanks', personally, I would find another professional and I would trust my kid's emotional response and review to a recommended pre-screened therapist in a case like this.

If she goes and feels cruddy after, forget it.

There are also a lot of really good books and so on especially for girls. I am listening to Odd Girl Out and she talks a lot about the difficulty that girls have managing their own negative emotions.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:40 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


While it's not counselling, is there a kids yoga or mindfulness class nearby? My younger kiddo had a daycare teacher who taught some basic things and it has proven awesome in moments of anxiety. It might give her some tools in a very non threatening way, because at least here kids yoga is a cool thing. Maybe she even has a friend who would like to go with her?
posted by Northbysomewhatcrazy at 7:18 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'd recommend you go first, either to set the stage for the therapist or to get a set of coping techniques you can recommend and advise on when appropriate. If she doesn't perceive her anxiety level as a problem on the specific day of the therapy appointment, it can lead to a lot of confusion and missed chances, whereas you as her parents can offer suggestions in a more timely fashion.

I've had great results from therapy when I've gone in with a specific issue to address and think about, and pretty poor results when I've gone in on the logic that "everyone can benefit from therapy, I'm sure they can help me have a better life!"

And specifically, as a teenager, my parents brought me for one session of therapy a few months after I'd had a rough break-up. But I was mostly over it by then and didn't perceive it as a problem, and so my session with the therapist consisted pretty much entirely of her trying to figure out what was wrong and me saying "I dunno".

"Do you ever have suicidal thoughts?" "No"
"Do you drink?" "No"
"Do you do any drugs?" "No"
"Do you have any problems with school?" "No"
"Do you have any issues with friends, or dating anyone who's treating you badly?" "No"
"Do you have any idea why you're here at all?" "Not really, no"
"You're fine. Go home."
posted by Lady Li at 9:23 PM on June 20, 2018


Thinking about that particular counseling session when I was a kid, I just now realized that it was probably a symptom of my parents' anxiety as much or more than anything inspired by *my* anxiety/behavior. So that's worth thinking about.
posted by Lady Li at 9:25 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


One of the issues with kids and therapy is that the process is not always explained to them in ways they comprehend. Kids do get the message there's something wrong with them that the parents can't fix (which means it must be pretty bad), or their parents are giving up on them, and it can also create a dangerous boundary issue because all of a sudden, they're expected to reveal personal information to a complete stranger which is what they've been told all along NOT to do.

So if you think about benefit versus lifelong cost, this is not the time to get your kid in with a therapist. But it may be a good idea for you to talk to someone so you can feel more confident in working with your daughter and get a handle on warning signs and how to help her.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:31 AM on June 21, 2018


I regret not acting on our vague worries that our daughter may have inherited an anxiety disorder while in her teens. Everything turned out great, but it took until she was 19 and away at college for us to really understand how much trouble (maybe pain is a better word?) she was in. Having a person to sit with her and scope out what was and wasn’t “just what everyone feels like,” as my she put it, could have made her teen years more enjoyable and helped her be more connected with peers.
posted by putzface_dickman at 7:47 AM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


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