breakthroughs

My female owner feels more competent this week, because she has achieved breakthroughs with two families.

First, the Grandma who kept cancelling on her and whom my female owner almost sacked, has finally demonstrated commitment to attending the parenting programme on a weekly basis no less!

The strategy which my female owner used was to overcome Grandma’s resistance and apprehension was to first, allow Grandma to ventilate and then reflect that she was listening to her. Next, my female owner asked questions that aimed to help Grandma see how the family environment was impacting on her grandson’s behaviour. She also used Grandma’s words to increase buy-in. That slowly convinced Grandma that some undesirable things were happening at home. My female owner realised that head-on persuasion was not going to win anyone over and the best way to modify mindsets was to guide the other party to generate his own truths.

The second family was a pair of parents who were very consistent in attending therapy and doing homework. However, they were still struggling with getting the child to comply and the mother kept saying that time-out didn’t work. My female owner had been feeling helpless and apologetic about the situation. She felt that she had not done a good job in teasing out the family’s issues and had this fear that they would terminate on her abruptly.

My female owner went to their house yesterday for a “practice session”. The parents had to select a typical situation which they struggle with, set some goals in terms of demonstrating some parenting strategies correctly and carry out the plan in vivo. It was my female owner’s first time carrying out a practice session for any of her clients (yes, this set of parents are the first to reach this stage of the programme). She found the session enriching in terms of her professional development as a therapist and also, in identifying gaps in their parenting. Phew. She left the session feeling that she had redeemed her credibility.

So there you have it. Two good sessions this week.