Parents, Don’t Let the Practical Blind You!
Parents, especially the primary caretaker (whom I’ll refer to as “mom”), has so many responsibilities today in managing the family and facilitating the lives of their teens. So much time is spent driving them to sports practices and events, finding tutors, taking them to doctors, keeping track of which child has what assignment due when, planning meals, finding time alone with our significant other, planning family vacations, managing sibling conflicts, keeping one’s finger on the pulse of your teen’s social and emotional life, communicating with teachers… the list goes on and on….
Sometimes, with all that a mom has to do, we forget how to take time to really hear what is going on with our teen… especially when they are struggling. I recently saw a movie about a teen struggling with depression in the aftermath of his parents’ divorce and dad’s remarriage and new family. The teen manifested his depression as school refusal to the point that mom finally agreed to let him go live with dad. At first things seemed to be going well, to the point that he appeared to be so successful at dad’s that mom felt like a failure. Then the truth came out. The boy had deceived dad. He had written an email to the school (pretending to be dad), saying that he went back to live with his mom, when in reality, while he was at dad’s all those months, he would leave the house and walk. He did not go to school. When dad found out, he really tried to talk to him. He asked him the one question a teen often can’t answer, “why?” In dad’s mind, the focus was school. In dad’s mind, when his only problem was school. If only he just went to school, did his schoolwork, life would be fine for him.
Dad, in the movie, focused on the practical, on school, as the solution. He was truly puzzled as he tried to make sense of it. He tried to give him love, approval, praise, to connect with him, during this time, but all his efforts were to no avail. As a therapist watching this movie, I wanted to jump in and tell him to stop focusing on school. When his son made quiet attempts to tell him, such as “When you left mom, I felt like I was cut in half,” he failed to be quiet and just let his son talk. He failed to see hear his pain.
Sometimes (not all the time), when we focus on the practical, we miss the pain underlying the behavior. It may not be school refusal. The practical could be screaming and cursing at a parent where the focus in disrespect instead of the pain behind the anger. The practical could be a sudden drop in grades where we focus on getting tutors rather than finding out how our teen is being bullied. As parents trying to manage all the complexities of raising a family, of rushing here and there, of having not just one teen, more other kids to pay attention to, to be attuned to, we can miss the real issues. Sometimes, we need to take the time to let go of the practical and just listen…