Our readers weigh in on whether we should honor our teens’ requests for therapy
I had a lot of thoughts about this issue.
Most of my children are now married and raising their own families. Recently, one of my daughters went on medication to treat postpartum depression and anxiety. She shared that this depression and anxiety weren’t new experiences for her, and that she’d tried explaining it to me years back, but I didn’t hear her.
She didn’t say it with anger, baruch Hashem, and I was able to apologize. Honestly, 11 years ago when she shared this, I think we all were a lot less psychologically aware — I certainly was. I also think she gave up far too fast after mentioning it to me once. I do believe that one of the points Mrs. Kohn made, and that needs to be made, is that as parents, sometimes we are frazzled and dealing with 17 things at once and sometimes the child in the family who gets heard is the one who can repeatedly, continue to make a point. I know that would’ve been true for me. Had my daughter mustered up the courage to talk to me again and again, even with my lack of awareness, I would have realized this is something important.
I had a child who was quite mischievous, and at the age of eight claimed he couldn’t see the board and needed an emergency eye doctor appointment. I saw it as yet another way for him to get out of school, but after he said it twice, I figured I would check it out just in case. Lo and behold, the kid needed glasses badly. I think the same is true with any area. Sometimes we take children less seriously because of their history, but it certainly can’t hurt to do some sort of rule-out.
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