“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia, author of Living, Loving and Learning’ (1982)
I (Mitch Abblett) have 20 years of clinical experience with a range of challenging clients, from teen sex offenders to combat veterans to teens at intensive residential and therapeutic school settings. I’m a licensed psychologist who’s spoken nationally and internationally—I literally wrote the book on mindful management of difficult clients.
And I couldn’t even start a conversation with my own daughter, only six years old.
As I gripped the steering wheel and caught glimpses of her as she sat in the back seat, munching away on a bag of stale popcorn, I found myself going stale as well—my courage for breaking open the possible Pandora’s box of her pent-up angst over her own challenges at school was getting the better of me again.
I’d spent decades stepping into minefields of complex and volatile topics in my clinical work, yet my fear of tripping the wires of pain and discomfort for my daughter (and for me), was stopping me short.
Most of you reading this are (or will be) in a caregiving role (personal or professional) with a child who is struggling. When faced with a child or teen you know who suffers from an emotional or behavioral condition—or even if their situation is not “diagnosable,” yet you’re convinced they are struggling in a significant way—then it’s important to consider how willing you are to lean into the situation and devote the emotional energy to addressing the child directly. Is this child’s suffering an elephant in the room that’s blatantly clear and left unattended? Younger children need adults to set the tone for the “rules” for managing behavior—they need your explicit guidance. Teens (though they still need rules) may be struggling with a long history of not being understood—it may be part of their emerging “identity.” They may not trust your initial efforts to reach out to them as authentic and may brush you off.
If you’re a parent, family member, teacher, clinician, or in some other caregiver role, ask yourself how much addressing the child or teen’s suffering matters to you. If you find yourself convinced of your desire to help, check the following list of common obstacles. These are thoughts that often surface for caregivers, effectively scuttling their ability to be effective.
Self-Assessment of Caregiver Inner Obstacles to Helping:
- “I’m not good at this stuff—I won’t find the right words.”
- “I’m not an expert or trained at this.”
- “I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.”
- “I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill—I don’t want to create a problem when one isn’t there.”
- “I don’t want to trigger a huge meltdown.”
- “I don’t know what to say.”
- “Somebody else will talk with them, so I don’t need to.”
- “They look fine, if something was needed from me, they would tell me.”
- “I tried this once before and it didn’t go well.”
- “It’s not the right time/place.”
- “I don’t have this condition, so who am I to try and help?”
- “I don’t know if this is really necessary in this instance.”
If you noted one or more of the above thoughts as a common companion when you’ve been face-to-face with an agitated, upset, disruptive, or withdrawn child or teen, then it’s no wonder you’ve found it challenging to lean into the situation with full intention. Such thinking has a way of stalling the best of us. It would be completely understandable if you came toward the teen either too much “heat” (i.e. trying to force things to change) or not enough “warmth” (i.e. losing track of your heart-strings and bowing out in some way).
Creating a Foundation for Change: Lean in to Discomfort
The child or teen’s behavior may be off-putting or uncomfortable for you. But it is a “message”—it’s their unintentional way of telegraphing their emotional pain. Discomfort and inconvenience to the side, ask yourself: When it comes to this kid’s suffering, am I willing acknowledge the elephant in the room?
The child or teen’s behavior may be off-putting or uncomfortable for you. But it is a “message”—it’s their unintentional way of telegraphing their emotional pain.
The act of taking the time to even ask or check up on the child helps far more than you will ever realize. Trust yourself. You’re doing right here. You’re doing good work just thinking about this, and the their needs. Even if you are wrong about the need to help in a particular situation, just the willingness to ask pays so many dividends down the line in the child’s life. It plants the seed of compassion exactly when they needed to believe that their challenges would be heard. It teaches them that such caring is possible, and helps them receive compassion, and perhaps spread it to others. They learn to say to themselves something like: “Wow…Mr/Ms. X really is trying to understand what’s happening to me … they might really care…”. In response to such a gift, the child or