Parent Roles During Sessions
I work as a consultant to parents to establish a team to best support the child/youth. It can be difficult to determine at onset what this might look like depending on presenting concerns and intervention method this might include
• Parent sessions as the sole source of treatment via parenting support, psychoeducation, Emotion Focused Family Therapy
• Parent sessions at onset of treatment
• Number of individual sessions with the child/youth with parent appointment at session 6-7
• Family Interventions- where multi members of the family attend sessions with youth
• On the occasion a parent is requested to join the session (ie: safety planning, or child has requested to share information with parent)
• Combination of individual sessions with child/youth and individual parent psychoeducational appointments
Parent Roles Outside of Sessions
• Observer- Observing child’s behaviour and emotions and relaying back to the therapist is important
• Advocate- Having conversations with family members, teachers and/or other important people in the child's life
• Play Partner- Having one-on-one time with children is important, especially in play.
• Practicer- Practicing skills between sessions and helping the child to arrive to session prepared
• Provider of Limits- Family routines, rules and limits will be explored and you may be asked to experiment to see what works best for you and the child.
Please refrain from asking your child/youth too many questions about their session after the appointment time unless they volunteer the information themselves. It is important for the child and youth to feel a sense of safety and security in the therapeutic relationship. They also have a right to confidentiality for the purpose of building rapport and freedom of expression (so they do not worry about the therapist “tattling” on them to their parents). As a result, not all details that occur in sessions are discussed with parents. It is the therapists role to communicate any risks, therapeutic goals, interpret and report on themes, elements related to development, level of functioning and progress throughout appointments.
