Treatment Not Warfare
Early in private practice, I realized that treating children and adolescents is not my area of specialization for many reasons. It isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I suspect that growing up as an only child in a small family contributed to that. Interacting with little kiddos isn’t something I’m used to. However, the biggest block for me, and for many other professionals is the added layer of complication: parents.
The most common issue that clinicians deal with is having a child client whose parents are engaged in a custody dispute. While it seems like this should be common knowledge, it isn’t common, so I want to make it clear now that research shows that one of the most harmful things a parent can do is say something disparaging about the other parent in front of their child. This might lead you to ask, “What does that have to do with therapy?” It shouldn’t have anything to do with therapy. However, when one, or both, parents put the therapist in the middle of a dispute by asking the therapist to provide documentation indicating that one of them may be more “fit” than the other to be a parent, the child (our client,) inevitably is going to figure out that’s what’s going on. It’s not healthy.
Even though we pay a lot of lip service to children being our future and therefore important and valuable, like our pets, they tend to be relegated to the role of “less than.” It takes effort for adults to recognize that children need therapy for the same reasons adults need therapy: they need to process their feelings, they have problems with friends, they have mixed feelings about life changes, they have self esteem issues. Most of these issues are about being human. They aren’t about their parents or their parents’ relationships. Also, they are private matters and the child needs to have a private space to process them without them being about anyone else.
I’m saddened that I had to add a consent form to our packet regarding the treatment of children under 12. In Colorado, an individual aged 12 or older can consent to their own therapy and controls their own records. Unfortunately, the situation is murkier for anyone 11 years old or younger. In general, releasing a case file does more harm than good to anyone involved, child or adult. Therapy is not good case evidence. It’s just discouraging that even for the two people who are supposed to love a child the most that an interest in weaponizing any information they can get their hands on holds more value than providing the best possible care for their child.
Love is respect doesn’t just apply to preventing intimate partner violence. By demonstrating respect for privacy and confidentiality, we reinforce that everyone, regardless of age, deserves a fundamental level of respect. If we have any hope of raising a generation with positive self esteem and healthy self worth, respect for privacy is fundamental.
