I find it extremely frustrating to have a therapist sitting there saying “just make the kids do X” after hearing, for an hour, about our attempts to do exactly that. She has no new suggestions as to how to make them do these things, just says “do it.” Um, okay—so do we order the cattle prods now, or what? Because we’re at the point, with some of these issues, where we’ve done pretty much everything we CAN do to, for instance, get Rowan out of bed, short of things that are too likely to be considered child abuse. He’s 14 years old, and if he has decided not to get out of bed, and we’ve already turned on lights, taken away his covers, made the room noisy, etc and he STILL won’t get out of bed, what next? Drag him out, kicking and screaming? Take away the bed so that he won’t be sleeping so comfortably? I was all for pouring ice water on him (and have threatened to do so)—but then someone told us about a kid placed in foster care because his guardian did that (not to get him out of bed, for other reasons). ARRRGHHHHH!
Edit—this isn’t Emily, our family therapist who is an absolute goddess and who I’d happily marry if given half a chance. This is Tara, who is R & G’s therapist.
