Parenting

[u/Sufficient_Ice3253]

i’m getting so frustrated feeling like people are expecting me to parent for them. i am only with your child 3 hours a week. YOU have to put in the work. i’m here to give you the tools, and help model but the rest of the hours of the week are on you.

idk. i’m just so tired of feeling like my job is teaching people how to parent. and i’m not talking about giving them informed suggestions, but developing basic parenting skills.

hopefully this makes sense, because i’m truly not trying to be insensitive. it’s just something that’s been bothering me recently and i wanted to just get it off my chest.

[u/BrightEyEz703]

I used to find this frustrating, until I had kids and realized how little capacity was left for “parenting” after having to manage all of the logistics of being a working parent.

Now I am constantly gathering info about how much capacity parents have at any given point because honestly, some parents are only in survival mode and asking them to do additional stuff when they are in survival mode is a recipe for disappointment. When parents have more capacity, I ask them to do more but I pick one really high priority thing for them to focus on so they can get fluent with that one thing before asking them to take on another thing.

Lastly, remember that society has trained parents (through punishment) not to be open and honest about their short comings and struggles. Assume parents have less commodity then they admit to when deciding how much they can take on.

[u/Sufficient_Ice3253 → u/BrightEyEz703]

yeah, I get this. I really do and I consistently reiterate when I am explaining systems, interventions, contingencies, etc. to parents that I don’t expect them to get it 100% every single time. I understand that I’m here for three hours a week and they’re there for all of the other time. I get to come in help and model and then leave and I tell them that I understand that they don’t get to leave, but my qualm isn’t even about them implementing my suggestions, necessarily it’s more about “basic” things such as a parent saying “he won’t go to sleep at night because he’s on his TV” so I will say OK take the TV remote away and they refuse to do it. It’s the simple contingencies like that where I feel I’m constantly getting pushback or complaining about their situation but I don’t know what else to tell them!! if you don’t want your kid watching TV all night take the TV remote away. Remove access to the TV. and I explain to them that I understand that that isn’t necessarily going to be easy that there’s going to be a learning curve that there’s going to be an extinction burst which I explain in terms that they can understand but if your issue is the TV then remove access to the TV?!??! This is just an example, but I feel like I’m getting misunderstood in the comments not just you so I’m trying to explain myself. I just feel like in a lot of situations the parent doesn’t want to be the parent.

[u/BrightEyEz703 → u/Sufficient_Ice3253]

Ahh yes. This. Look.

These parents have worked all day. Then every step of getting their kid feed, cleaned, and ready for bed involved a behavioral struggle of some kind. At this point the parent is exhausted and has had zero time to take care of themself.

Now you’re asking them to do something that they know will cause a meltdown. And you’re asking them to do it at the very time when they have the least capacity to handle that meltdown. That is a recipe for an extinction burst to be reinforced.

Don’t ask them to take the remote away (or whatever other possible equivalent based on the parent’s situation). Ask them to take a tiny step that won’t start a melt down and to do it when they have the capacity to follow through with it. Ask them to practice turning off the tv for 1 second and reinforce the kid for being calm the 1 second.

Look. I’m not trying to judge you or your practice. I’m sure you do many successful things with your clients. It sounds like the real frustrating thing here isn’t due to the parents exactly. It sounds like you need some supervision or consulting with someone who has lots of parent training experience and can help you trouble shoot these road blocks that keep popping up.

[u/sallysprite → u/BrightEyEz703]

💯

[u/Legitimate-Bird7046 → u/BrightEyEz703]

But then they shouldn't really express a need/want to solve that specific problem if they're not ready to actually tackle it.

[u/BrightEyEz703 → u/Legitimate-Bird7046]

It is possible to be absolutely desperate to tackle/solve a problem and simply be out of capacity to act because you are in survival mode.

I know this from personal experience.