[Closed] Family Counselling - any success stories?

All I can say is it's hard. The abundance of social media doesn't help at all , as is the ability to connect with all sorts at any time of the day, and the 'well x's parent's allow them to do this and that'. Mine are getting to 22 and 19, son eldest and was hardest to deal with, still is, but we've got daughter's boyfriend now, and he has all sorts of issues - not so much behavioral, but he can't deal with crowds or anything busy (anxiety, ADHD etc and it's us that get fall out (had us traipsing around the country with daughter looking at his Uni choices so daughter had to fit round, then he dropped out - been the same through college years), and now is just bumming around. She's at least level headed, but bends round him all the time, and his choices are poor.

Certainly worth seeing if you can get some sessions but 14 YO's are hard work.

My son had some counselling as he was diagnosed as T1 at 14, which added to complications - refusing to take meds etc (which resulted in us dragging him to hospital due to non-compliance) - the ward was 'open house' to T1 kids anyway - you'd ring them if he was having a major tantrum about testing/injections, if he didn't listen to them, in car to hospital in the early hours. Once or twice the kept him in for a few days.

Oh and I've younger brothers and sisters who had no kids at the time thinking they knew better than we did. Ha, it's coming back to bite them now two have kids we just smile), and the other has a toy dog that's ruling their life.

Over the years there have been a number of us making post like yours on here, Woody.

The problem with councelling is it risks being just another ****ing institution to him, another representation of authority - the enemy. What do you hope to get out of the sessions? Does he want to do it?

Do you have friends, neighbours, his friends' parents, grandparents... who might be able to help out. We had people he behaved well with to take him for a few days to cool off, and people whom he had known since a todler to talk to. They really helped with another perspective.

The home can be a pressure cooker and not the best place when he's letting off steam. He leaves the house at night but where does he go? One of junior's mates ran out of the house in an argument, barefoot and lightly dressed in Winter (he'd also done a bit too much weed) - he was found dead from hypothermia a few days later - the funeral was a proper wake up call for junior and his mates.

Take it all seriously, be firm and fair and keep your head. I'm not saying be super cool, he expects and perhaps wants a reaction to the provocation, just keep it measured and reasonable. You're still a model whatever you might think he thinks of you.

14-18 felt like a boxing match, by the end I felt properly beaten up for a points draw. Fine now, he's great. Hang on in there.

Thanks both for replying.

I think I'd like counselling to be somewhere we can talk and have someone else be the referee, help guide the conversation. I'd hope he'd want to engage - he's refused to do so on an individual basis, but if we're all there I'm hoping it might be different? Who knows!

We do have family and friends, however I'm not sure I'd want to subject them to the potential shit storm he's capable of releasing.

His nocturnal ramblings haven't taken him far, he mainly just legs it out of the door and is back in 10 minutes. For the moment it's not too concerning. I think he'd be too scared to stay out any longer

I can only hope that we all come through it, I fear it's impacting his younger brothers badly so hoping we can nip it in the bud ASAP

Sorry, that sounds tough. If you don’t gel with the local Relate person, many counsellors are now offering online consultations so you might find there are more to choose from than just those in your immediate local area. Having someone you feel is listening or understands you helps a lot in making counselling effective.

Even if your son won’t go, perhaps there might be support that would help you and your partner have some extra tools or approaches to help your son?

You note he’s always been ‘complicated’. Have you considered whether your he is neuro divergent? E.g. ASD and/or ADHD and thus behaviour may be driven by anxiety. Lack of social skills and empathy are other alarm bells that he might be neuro divergent. Look up traits of ASD and ADHD with an open mind and think about whether his behaviour is genuinely voluntary/deliberately difficult. If he looks to be ticking these boxes, there’s a lot of literature out there on strategies / tools but also suggest you want to get assessed by paediatrician but this may take a long time.

Some children, particularly those with asd and or adhd genuinely can’t (not won’t) go to school though anxiety. If he is being bullied then that is a clear cause of anxiety and you need to talk to the school if you haven’t already.

Do you spend time (no matter how short) with your son such that it is just you and him and he knows you are spending that time with him because you want to and enjoy doing it with him. If not ask him if you can spend 10 minutes (or however long) of special time with him (ideally noT screen time) and then tell him he can choose what ever activity he likes. Then tell him how much you enjoyed spending the time with him and look forward to next time. Repeat regularly.

If he has low self esteem How often do you praise him even for really little things - try and find something encouraging or positive to say about his behaviour even if it feels contrived or unwarranted as it follows or is during bad behaviour. every negative comment takes 5 positive ones to offset.

In my experience it worked wonders, my chap really struggled with anxiety, crowds buying things in shops anything like that was off the cards total panic he’d go sit in the car or just refuse to go out at all made school very tough for him terrible self esteem. Full disclosure I found it really tough to deal with and made some mistakes in how I did things and trying to help. We love him and think he’s brill so I couldn’t see where this all came from, and needed to “fix” things for him ( I know now… I know!!) .

We found a psychologist who worked with him and us And it’s transformed him, he’s a happy healthy chap, he’s got insight and tools to deal with his anx, as do we and I’ve learned a huge amount from the process and changed how I dealt with things. Transformative is how I’d describe it and I’m not exaggerating so I’d say try it.

The key was finding someone who clicked with him, and we were lucky in this regard.

There may be access to help via the GP the CAMHs team or Barnardos have some support available in some areas so could be worth a try too?

Best of luck to you all.

I feel for you OP and you have some great responses here.

Sorry I don't have time to write as much as others have, but please do consider this bit...

Have you considered whether your he is neuro divergent? E.g. ASD and/or ADHD and thus behaviour may be driven by anxiety. Lack of social skills and empathy are other alarm bells that he might be neuro divergent. Look up traits of ASD and ADHD with an open mind and think about whether his behaviour is genuinely voluntary/deliberately difficult.

Does he have a bad temper? Get distracted a lot? Struggle to understand social cues?

Thanks again everyone.

We have considered getting him assessed for an ASD/ADHD diagnosis, our main sticking point has always been "why? what would change?".  And rightly or wrongly,  a concern over labelling him.  He does display some of the more recognised traits - doesn't like social situations, has massive/inappropriate meltdowns about things that most of us would consider trivial, aversion to change and so on.  However, he is relatively empathetic (as teenagers go!) and can generally function pretty well in the world in the main (until recently anyway).  He is a real jekyll and hyde character though; sometimes fine & sometimes a raging monster 🙂

We contacted CAMHS but he was immediately discharged as he didn't want to engage.  He has been talking to a mentor at school and seems to find that OK, but we're not privy to what they talk about obviously, and it isn't really helping in terms of keeping him going to school.  School's response has been a bit crap if I'm honest, and we may look at moving him, but he's year 9 and GCSEs are looming large so we are concerned about further disruption.

I'm going to contact a few local organisations and see if we can get him onboard

Not that it helps, but you're not alone, it's tough but fingers crossed you're all able to look back from a much rosier position in the future.

We had some pretty frightening challenges with our son - happy to chat if you want to pm me, suffice to say, in short, I think the most helpful step (along with lots of other actions and support) was me being able to spend a significant time physically away with him - away from home/family/friends/bad friends/bad stuff which allowed him to come to his own conclusions and plan. Appreciate that's not poss for most, but genuinely believe it was the core of the solution for him, and now, 5+ years on, he's fab and a joy.

Hang in there.

It’s not black and white, asd doesn’t mean no empathy at all but difficulty empathising is a feature of it.

As children grow up different stresses happen. As such to date if he is neuro divergent but has been able to cope and bottle stuff up. (Look up Coke bottle effect).

Clearly I don’t know your son or your relationship with him or pressures he’s under at school or otherwise but my thoughts are;

Whilst labelling sounds bad it has many positives - help your son understand that he is different and why he feels like he does
- help identify what might need to change to help him be less anxious
- help you with ideas for the above
- get him extra support at school or indeed educating out of school if he’s unable to go, get the school to make reasonable adjustment for him
- for some with adhd, medication can help but not all
- help others understand how to interact with him

It’s a battle though as Camhs and other support is grossly under funded.

I don’t know what your relationship is but I’d suggest making sure that it is really positive and home is a safe space. Try and see things from his point of view and let him know you are on his side/fighting his corner. Another suggestion on this front is pick your battles - some stuff will be non negotiable but others you might nag on, you could let go - e.g. is a messy room that bad in the bigger picture.

Does he get enough exercise - hard, but regular movement break, strenuous exercises, can help both those neuro typical and divergent but particularly the latter.

Sounds though that getting an assessment is something I would be considering very seriously. Talk to the school and doctor/cams, set out the traits he displays and why you think this might be asd/adhd and ask them to help.

Even without diagnosis, you could get an adhd / asd book and try some of the tips/strategies in there and see if you get any traction.

Parenting is hard and then up several levels of hard if he is indeed neurodivergent. Good luck.

Just to add to that, diagnosis would give him the opportunity for self-knowledge and hopefully self-acceptance.

Rather than feeling that he's different and not understanding why.

I remember clinging on to wanting my child to be "normal", but it was a relief and help for everyone (parents, teachers and her) to get the diagnosis and to have information and experience to draw on.

And obvs, he might not be diagnosed anyway.

The person you want at school is the SENCO.

Hi Woody,

Not too sure where you are in the country so want to keep this as general as possible, lest I discover that I actually teach your son!
I’ve been teaching for nearly 25 years and have for the last 2 years, taken on the additional role of ANXIETY BASED SCHOOL AVOIDANCE Support worker at my current school. The role is Local Authority funded and there are examples of this type of project all over the country (Google “EMOTIONALLY BASED SCHOOL AVOIDANCE” and see if your County/School has its own provision.)
This could also be a good starting point:
https://www.supportservicesforeducation.co.uk/Page/20029
There are a few sentences in your posts which strike a chord – namely “wanting to kill myself”, “refusing to go to school” and possible “ADHD.”
These type of kids (and their families) are my bread and butter and I could talk you through some of the possible avenues of help if you like.
HOWEVER… and it’s a BIG HOWEVER… 99% of my job is to help families understand their complicity (and I choose my words very carefully) in their current situation.
I’m currently working with a range of parents who believe that (for example) mum being in prison, dad being an alcoholic/drug addict, younger sister having severe autism, teenager staying up all night playing on XBOX, grandmother dying, fabricated illnesses, controlling parents, domestic violence, abuse, absent parents, chaotic family dynamics, lack of routines, divorce/family split, dead siblings, dad having a sex change, undiagnosed ADHD/mental illness/autism, being a young carer, poverty and unemployment have NO effect on their child and that “that bloody school” is entirely responsible for all the ills of their family.
My point is that 100% of people know EXACTLY what the problem is but are unwilling to deal with it and would rather ignore the problem until it’s too late or would prefer to blame someone else.
Only when the root-cause of the problem is dealt with will your son (and the rest of your family) get better and I’ll bet you a Tenner that you know exactly what the problem is. Question is, are you actually ready to deal with it?
As an example: You have only just gotten to the point where you “might” consider getting your son assessed for ADHD? He’s 14…….FOURTEEN! It should have been done years ago. If he does have ADHD that means 29 kids have had their learning disrupted almost every lesson, every day for the last few years. (Sorry dude. I have no sympathy for “I don’t want to label him.) It’s not fair on him and it’s definitely not fair on the vast majority of students around him who just want to get on and learn. Imagine how much learning HE has lost because he can’t sit still, can’t concentrate, and keeps getting sent to the RESET Room every lesson.
Yes… There might be bullying issues but I bet he has a list of “Behaviour Incidents” on the school record system as long as your arm. It can’t all be because the teachers are picking on him, can it?
On the other hand…. What you could be describing is your autistic son spending all day “masking” at school and then falling apart when he gets home. (Again a diagnosis should have been investigated YEARS ago.)
I can imagine that you are getting phone calls from school almost on a daily basis, either to ask you to pick him up because his behaviour is so challenging or a phone call “safeguarding check” to ascertain his whereabouts because he is refusing to come to school (again) today. Sound familiar?
Tried another school yet on a “Managed Move?” Had many meetings with Head of Year? Have you had to sign a behaviour contract agreeing to do your part in getting him into school? Had many meetings with the SEND Coordinator and what was the outcome? What about EWO or Ed Psych involvement? You been fined yet for his none attendance?
In the past 2 weeks I have heard the phrase “I’ll do anything for my kids” at least 20 times. My experience is that words are cheap. It’s a pain in the arse being a parent sometimes but as an ADULT we have to take responsibility and get our kids the help they need.
There will probably be people who say “How dare you say that… You have no idea what we are going through etc etc…..” especially in these times of “my feelings are more important than your facts.”
FACT is, I have a caseload of 15 high-need students and every single referral has started off with “my son is being bullied/this school is crap” and 6 months down the line after I have gotten to know the students and parents, it has become clear that the parents are the real reason why the kids are the way they are.
Your son (and your family) need help.
Get to the GP and ask for him to be assessed for ADHD and/or Autism. Contact the school and ask the Head of Year to investigate referring your family to the Local Family Support Service. Get your son some counselling (school can provide some numbers.) Contact school and ask for the SEND Coordinator to tell you about the EHCP process. SEND CO will also give you some info on local Anxiety Based School Avoidance support. Start putting in boundaries (and don’t give up just because he becomes belligerent or aggressive.)
Ultimately, you could be fined for his non-attendance and then he could be permanently excluded from school for his unchecked poor behaviour. If that doesn’t work then you are into the realms of an EBD residential school or eventually a secure unit if his behaviour really is that bad.
I’ll be perfectly honest, I have NO IDEA whether you are a genuine caring parent who (no fault of their own) has found themselves at their wits end with a psychotic teenager who is threatening to kill mum and dad in their sleep every night OR you are the abuser and your son is using his limited language to tell the trusted adults around him that he needs protection from you.
Only you and your family know the complete and honest answer. I hope you get all the help you so clearly need.