validate

One of the biggest things I have learned in all my years of teaching, parenting, and therapy is to try very hard not to invalidate what my kid brings to me. SO, if she says "I am stupid no one likes me" after MANY years of my own therapy I have learned to say "that sounds horrible...tell me more..."....or I just sit quietly with her in that dark place. I know this seems counter to what we might want to do but I find in the long term she knows she can bring me the “hard parts”. Does this resonate? Please email and let me know your throughs. I often feel as though I am dragging my clients to this realization...but I feel it deep in my soul now. Who else other than a therapist / educator (aka mom) will listen to these parts? I am not saying I am my kids' therapist at all but I think reflection is the best part of therapy and not what we typically think of when we think of "a therapist". I think we think of the poor examples on TV and in Movies. Though there are some decent examples and I would be curious which TV or movie therapist you might like. My deep hope is one day her good friends will listen to her sad parts but I am not sure they connect on that level yet. Happy to hear push back or questions about this. AND please know I boost her up too, saying "you worked so hard on that test prep." Or "I see how you are getting yourself to school each day prepared". Notice I don't only say "I am so proud of you". There is some decent research around this kind of giving the kid the power. Also, I had a lot of false propping me up in my life that landed in a kinda fake way, so I might have overcorrected in this area. Hope this is making sense, I will be adding content here each week. Stay tuned!