{"id":2121,"date":"2012-04-10T16:13:31","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T22:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhavenrtc786.e.wpstage.net\/blog\/?p=828"},"modified":"2024-03-06T13:50:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T20:50:50","slug":"parent-to-parent-placing-your-teen-in-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/adapave-family-systems\/parent-to-parent-placing-your-teen-in-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Parent to Parent: Placing your Teen in Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Placing our daughter in treatment was a very difficult process for us.  We felt very alone.  We were terrified of the separation and the expense. We felt we\u2019d failed<\/a>.  How would we pay for it? What if it didn\u2019t work?  How could we send her to live with people we\u2019d met but didn\u2019t know?   Then again\u2026how could we not send her away given the severity of her struggles?<\/p>\n

Many months into treatment, however, we finally came to understand at a very deep level that we\u2019d made the right choice<\/a>.  We were saving our daughter\u2019s life, our family\u2019s health\u2026and maybe even our marriage.  We finally had a community of other parents to normalize the process and give us some assurance that we were doing the right thing.  In retrospect, we only wish we’d had that support right away–even before placing Rachel in treatment.<\/p>\n

In that spirit, we\u2019ve put together a list of things to consider if you\u2019re placing\u2014or considering placing\u2014your adolescent in treatment<\/a>. Consider this your first parent to parent chat:<\/p>\n

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  1. Talk to Parents of Recent Graduate:  Any high-quality program will gladly put you in touch with alumni parents who can give you an objective understanding of the process.  Ask for a list.   Of course you\u2019re likely to get hand-picked parents who had a good experience, but to be honest, those are the best people to talk to.<\/li>\n
  2. Tour: Our own tour was rushed because we both work and it was hard to coordinate schedules.  We almost canceled at the last minute.  But even that short tour made a huge difference.  Being able to picture the place our daughter was living and visualize the people taking care of her was hugely reassuring.<\/li>\n
  3. Get your Own Therapist: As we learned in treatment, the family is a system.  We all play our part in our child\u2019s struggles\u2014whether it\u2019s to enable, to provoke, or to ignore.  Having your own outside resource can help you grow along with your daughter, which is critical for showing your solidarity with her, modeling therapeutic engagement, and preparing for her return home.<\/li>\n
  4. Participate: All good treatment programs<\/a> have a family component. Participate!  Go to every event you can.  This is a great way to heal your family system<\/a> and build up a supportive network with other parents.<\/li>\n
  5. Engage your Community: Whether it\u2019s a faith community, a book club, or your extended family\u2014engage your community. Reaching out for support is absolutely critical during this time.  You\u2019ll be surprised to see how other parents will confide in you once you have the courage to admit that your family is not perfect!<\/li>\n
  6. Let Go:  If you\u2019re like us, you are used to at least maintaining the illusion of control in most parts of your life.  Also if you\u2019re like us, your teenager has done a lot to destroy that illusion!  It\u2019s easy to make up for those feelings of powerlessness by trying to micromanage her treatment process and the treatment team<\/a> from a distance.  We did that for about the first three months.  It doesn\u2019t help and it will exhaust you.  Once we finally let go and got out of the way, the healing process really began\u2014about three months behind schedule!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you\u2019re like us, you are used to at least maintaining the illusion of control in most parts of your life. Also if you\u2019re like us, your teenager has done a lot to destroy that illusion! It\u2019s easy to make up for those feelings of powerlessness by trying to micromanage her treatment process and the treatment team from a distance. We did that for about the first three months. It doesn\u2019t help and it will exhaust you. Once we finally let go and got out of the way, the healing process really began\u2014about three months behind schedule! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":10565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[34,36,54,55,50,51],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18413,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions\/18413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}