Navigating the "Parental Guilt Trip"

July 13, 2021

Episode Transcript

Kathy
Hello everyone. I'm Kathy Marino and I'm the Director of Admissions for Elk River Treatment Program. And we are here today to talk about “navigating the parental guilt trip”. And I want to take a minute to introduce you first to our panel. This is Holly Hunter, who is the owner of Safe Passage Global, and she is also a certified parent coach. And then we also have with us Penny Baker, who is the Clinical Director for Pinnacle Behavioral Health. So we want to spend some time today talking about how parents’ guilt can interfere and potentially be an obstacle to the admission process & to a program - also how to sort through it and how it can affect the transportation process to getting a child to treatment and how the guilt can also interfere with the parents’ commitment to continuing their child in treatment. So thank you again for joining us. And I want to see, Penny, if you will start us off and explain a little bit more about what we're going to be going into today.

Penny
Sure. Thanks, Kathy. When we're talking about the “parental guilt trip,” you know, we are coming at it from a perspective of being in the trenches. Between the three of us, we have worked with families from the decision-making process of “is treatment needed?” from outpatient transportation to referrals, to admissions, to working with IECs, to even walking them through the treatment program. And we have seen many facets of where guilt has often interfered with parents being able to do what they needed to do as parents and the struggles and the challenges that guilt really faces. Now, we're going into this training today, knowing that without a doubt, guilt is a big topic to tackle. I know we're biting off a lot. We’re hoping to get to you the high points of what's important when it comes to parental guilt trip and how that affects what we all do as a team, and individually in each of our roles, and we hope you're able to learn a lot from today on what that means. So buckle up and get ready for our ride, as we talk about navigating the “parental guilt trip.”

Kathy
Penny, thank you for talking a little bit further and going a little more in depth with what we'll be reviewing today. Holly, I wanted to turn this over to you. Could you share with us a little bit more about some of the concepts of guilt? I know that certainly in your role, as far as doing transportations and parent coaching, that you were very used to seeing many shapes sizes and forms of guilt. So I wanted to see if you could talk a little bit further about that for us.

Holly
Absolutely. Thank you so much. I do see guilt. We, we see it often, a lot of guilt that we hear on a daily basis comes from parents who simply feel like they aren't good enough that they haven't done enough for their child, and that no good parent would ever reach beyond the parent boundaries in order to bring their child to the place they need for help. So they're struggling with placement, they're struggling with a treatment plan and they're struggling with how to make this all come about. When you think about it, in terms of that criminality aspect, you come to it from a place of a dynamic dissonance that has been created in the family, either through chaos or manipulation. And we hear that manipulative behavior all the time, but it's more than that because it's not just a child who has grown up manipulating to get their way or another family member who is creating drama. It's about a dynasty of people that are all involved in this, that create the guilt for one person. It's not just a one-and-done, it's ongoing. So it's more than just a simple concept.

Penny
You know, Holly, one of the things that I've noticed in working with parents and kids, especially clinically and in counseling is that a lot of times guilt is also fed by unresolved issues, where you have a parent that hasn't dealt with their own ‘stuff.’ So when it comes to making decisions for their kids, their own ‘stuff’ that's unresolved is really interfering with what they need to do as a parent. And unfortunately our kids that we work with are so savvy and intelligent, they know how to work that with a parent. I love what you talked about as far as the dynasty that happens. Those influences that happen, that come from all of these other resources and feed the guilt. And, you know, when we look at the unresolved issues that that parents have of their own ‘stuff,’ they are usually from their own childhood of unmet needs. Combine that with all the influences affecting us and establishing the kind of moral values and standards that you were talking about. That could be school. That could be family; that could be values and beliefs, whether it's a religious belief or our peer group. I've seen families whose guilt comes from how people view them based on a socioeconomic standard or financial standard.

Holly
That's why I call it a dynasty, because it's not just the friends at school and it's not just the siblings and it's not just the parents or the grandparents or some civic leader or religious leader or youth group friends and so forth. It's all of them, because not just one person teaches a child how to begin being manipulative or how to influence them in a way to circumnavigate the family boundaries so that they can get whatever it is that they are looking to get and achieve their personal goals. For the the kids we see, their personal goals do not align with family goals.

Penny
One challenge that I have for you is to, those who are listening, is to stop and think of what influences all of your decisions. You know, what aspects of yourself, what values do you have, what social, personal, and community resources are really influencing the decisions that you make every day? And as you take a moment, just to think of that, you know, that's going to give you some insight for every family and parent that you work with. You really have to look at what is influencing their decisions. Because if they're starting to show some of the signs that the guilt is interfering with good decision-making, you know, that's going to help you be able to really see where that source is coming from, by looking at the big picture outside of even just the family dynamic, but overall, where is that guilt coming from? What is it about that experience from that parent that has caused them to evaluate themselves as a failure, and that they've made a mistake? And what's really complicated about grief – I mean about guilt – what is really complicated about guilt is that guilt is important.

Holly
But so is grief. I'm glad you brought that up, because grief is almost an outpouring from guilt. So the two are very closely related. At least that's what we see in our office. To go down that road is not far out of the realm of what we're discussing today. I know that you probably see this in doing admissions and that you recognize the guilt-ridden parent from the first breath that they draw on the phone with you - that they can't accept their decision and are looking for a way out, that's something we see all the time and that's driven by guilt. So how do you get past that?

Kathy
Transparency, honesty, sometimes even calling them out on it. I think what is important is that we, in the most professional and kind way that we can, let them know what's going on. And we understand that you don't want to have to make this decision, but how's this going to affect the rest of your family? If you don't, is this going to be a life-changing experience for everyone? Of course it is, but how can we move through this process together in a kind way, in a gentle way, but direct, so that we've set common goals as professionals helping you, assisting you and bringing you and your child to a place where they need to come to. I think one of the important things for us to address as well is this question - is all guilt bad?

Penny
Absolutely not, absolutely not. And I do think that's an important distinction. You know, whether it's in making a decision about treatment or whether it's just in the way you live your life, guilt is important. Guilt is what motivates us. Guilt helps us, you know, from trying to lose a little weight and, you know, deciding whether to pick up that doughnut or not. Guilt can be very healthy for us, but what we find is guilt also can be very unhealthy for us when we're evaluating ourselves based on other people's perspectives of what is best for us, and allowing that to influence what our value system is on what's right and wrong. It can move to an extreme and unhealthy place when guilt becomes irrational – that is a big piece of it. So that's really what you have to look for and what it looks like with parents. I know I see it anywhere from outpatient counseling all the way through residential treatment. When you have a parent who's making decisions based on what is best and feels best for them versus what is probably best for the health of their child. You know guilt is interfering. There's something there that they haven't worked through and that they still need to work through to help them be able to make the best decision for their child. So that's when it gets into that unhealthy category, which is really what our focus is today.

Holly
That is, I think, one of the most difficult pieces for all of our jobs. What you are facing in your practices with your clients too – when you get to that point where it becomes so overwhelming for the parents that they do begin to look way more at their own needs versus: “How can I step back from this and do what is going to be in the best interest of my child?” And I think that one of the big things that we see is the difference between parents that are sitting in their guilt, (that’s when it’s unhealthy), and parents who have identified their guilt or are passing through it. Two entirely different situations in two entirely different scenarios. And as a result, you wind up with two entirely different sets of parents and their methods of communication and their anger & their frustration is generated in totally different ways. Example: last week we moved a child to treatment and everything went perfect. The child was high-risk, as many of you probably guessed, and these days we stop often for a COVID test. And so we, we always hope and pray along the way that it's not going to be positive, so we don't have to take the child back home.

In this case it was negative. Everything went well. The child did well, even though they were really high-risk and, following everything, we got a phone call back to the office from a parent who just went off the rails with us, angry: “How could you possibly do this without keeping me in the loop?” Well, it was an overnight drive. And first of all, they're told up front, ‘no news is good news.’ “We don't want your son thinking that we are reaching out to you for approval on everything we do, whether it's stopping for gas or getting food, or, or, you know, whatever else we need to do.”

So he just couldn't get past the fact that he didn't get phone calls all night long every hour. And we're the recipient of his anger. What does that really saying? It's saying that he's sitting in the guilt for making the decision and he's feeling guilty because either he wished he did it himself or driving his son to treatment, or just the fact that he can't get his head around what all is going on. And he's finally coming down from the business of the family, which was making this decision, but he's sitting in the guilt, versus the parent who calls in and says “Thank you so much, this was wonderful. I understand my child did great. And, and he's there safely. Thank you so much. You have just taken a great weight off of us.” That’s the difference between sitting in that guilt and not.

Penny
You know, I'm glad you brought that up, Holly, because I think it might help in giving our parents that perspective. I think that from here it might be beneficial for us to ‘break it down’ and go through the admissions, the transportation and the treatment process, and give you some examples of what to really pay attention to. If you see these certain scenarios, or even hear certain phrases that are tipping you off, that's a good clue that you have some parents who are struggling with their own guilt. There’s a chance that it is going to interfere with what's best for the child.

So next, I think maybe let's have a little conversation and talk about how it presents in each of our roles, and explain what we do in the trenches with families. And maybe Kathy, you can start us off, especially you get usually that initial call from the admission side with that family in crisis who is in a panic, and talk about guilt stuff that they're having to deal with. Maybe you can give us some examples of what you're seeing when you get that first phone call or communication from the family.

Kathy
Sure, absolutely. You know most of what I hear in admissions is, as I'm sure, very similar to what you hear when you have some of your first interactions with parents. They typically kind of go through the story of what is going on with their child and what the issues are, but then inevitably, in almost every phone call or interaction they start to say those phrases. Say it’s an adopted child: “Oh my gosh, am I just going to re-traumatize my child again? Are they going to feel abandoned if I go through this process and, you know, send them away from home?” Or: “My child has said, if I do this, they're going to do A,B,C, and D,” which is usually some safety event. They might run away. They might kill themselves. They may say “I'm gonna turn this age and I'm never going to come home.” Or: “If you put me in treatment, I'm never going to talk to you again,” you know, all of those kinds of threats. So that is typically for us a little bit later in the initial conversation, after they describe what's going on and why they need help. Then it turns much more emotional. You feel the guilt feelings. And another thing that we encounter a lot of times is, and I'll give you an example of this too: families that just cannot, for whatever reason, make the decision to say, “Yes, this is what I'm going to do: I am going to place my child in treatment. I recently worked with a family where the mother was horribly guilt-ridden. This was very evident from the very beginning of the phone call. The main request that I had from the mother through the entire admissions process was: “Can I please put you on the phone with my child so that you can talk to my child and let them know that this is what needs to happen?” And in so many words, basically get them to the point of being O.K. with us.

Penny
Just for my understanding, do you think that parent was so afraid of being the ‘bad guy,’ that she wanted you to be the ‘bad guy’ to tell her kid about treatment because of whatever guilt issue she had going on?

Kathy
Correct. I think that was a huge part of it. This was a clearly a situation in which the child was really driving everything in the home and the family dynamic completely revolved around that child because they were feeling guilty or they were fearful. They were walking around on eggshells, not knowing what that particular child was going to do. So I think for this family, the guilt came from a lot of different scenarios. So much of what my role ended up being through that admission process with this mom was not getting on the phone with the child, but coaching the mother on how to do this as a parent.

Penny
So how to navigate the ‘parental guilt trip.’

Kathy
How to completely navigate the ‘parental guilt trip.’ I was fortunate that this mom was very open to that, even though it was a continuous struggle throughout that whole process. But she was open to feedback and would do some of the things that I was coaching her on doing. That’s just been one of the most recent experiences I've had.

Penny
I have to say, I'm curious. Were you able to work with the mom to the point where they actually placed?

Kathy
Yep, sure did. So, you know, as we all experience, some of those take much longer and it's a much longer process. We do have to work and help them get through some of those feelings of guilt, or at least be able to manage it better during the course of their decision-making. So that was a little bit of a longer process from the initial phone call to actual placement in program with us. I think that’s what we all have to do - figure out how to manage that with them and help them navigate to a point where they are feeling O.K. about their decision. Because clearly we all know, as parents and professionals, you never want to get to this point of having to place your child in a program, ever. Right? None of us ever want that.

Penny
Because what does that say about me as a parent? See, I would think that this issue would come up a lot on that initial admission call. You know, “I've been a bad parent” or “what have I not done to take care of my kid? I'm having to ask strangers to help me provide for my kid.” And you know, I would think that beyond the parents’ own ‘stuff’ that they're all having to deal with, that this really feeds their guilt. One of the most common themes with parents is fear of failure.

Holly
It's a very courageous decision to send your child to treatment. That’s just the bottom line. You can't do this kind of thing without having courage to reach beyond your parental responsibilities to ask for help. That's just it. You were talking about coaching the parent through, because there's so much guilt, that's laid in, layer upon layer, by the child that needs to go to treatment. We have the same situations that we hear every day on the phone. Recently, we moved a child from a hospital setting to the woods. So, interestingly enough, I mean with COVID, all of that hospital pick-up for a child has changed because we don't get invited in. We can't come into the hospital to have that moment of intervention. We either find ourselves on the curb after the discharge papers have been signed, and the parents are never there because of COVID, because they're limiting access and so forth.

This mom was so distraught. Adopted child, whose parents are now divorced, and everybody is very, very dysfunctional. So you've got lots of layers to deal with. And mom says to me, “He'll never speak to me again. He will say I'm abandoning him. He thinks I don't love him.” And I said, “Has he said that, or is this what you're saying?” And once we got that identified from the standpoint of: “I think he's going to hate me because he's going to say I abandoned him and then he'll have more issues with his adoptive background and problems because I abandoned him.” I said, “Then how about you take that right off the table? How about you simply say, ‘Son, I have not abandoned you. I have found a safe place for you. That's where you are right now, because where you were before your behavior was creating an unsafe environment for you. So you're safe right now while I figure out next steps, and I have not abandoned you.’ You tell him straight up. So when he does try to bring it up, you've already taken that off the table.” So when we can move through those dynamics in that way, it helps clear that guilt away. Then, the parents can make a healthy decision that's healthy for them and their children and all the rest of the family too, because this decision affects everybody, not just the child going to treatment.

Penny
Holly, there is one thing that has gotten a lot of media attention lately, that has to be feeding the parental guilt, and gives kids a lot of ammunition on the process of treatment, especially if they're not completely on board with needing or wanting treatment. Although the family knows that's the best thing and the safest thing for that child and that family. I was hoping you would maybe speak a little bit about the bad press that's been going on, with terms that have been used, especially with transportation companies, about ‘kidnaping’ a child in the middle of the night, and some very disparaging phrases that have been in the media. We have the kids who, again, are savvy and very intelligent, who know how to ‘work’ their parents. Especially the more, we find, that the kids work on their ‘stuff,’ - the more they understand their own issues – the better they can identify that their parents have those issues too. Then they use that to ‘guilt’ their parents. One of the things that comes up a lot is that kids will make comments like, “My parents couldn't even bring me here” and “Shame on them for having to send strangers in that woke me up.” We're hearing a lot of that on our ‘side of the house’ - kids, you know, using some of that to try to tap into parental guilt and to manipulate, at times, or control the situation a little bit more.

Holly
I would be happy to talk about that. “Goon Squad.” I think that's correct. Probably the most heard-of term right now for kids that are transported. “Oh, I was ‘gooned.’”

Penny
Ah, see, I've only heard ‘kidnapped.’

Holly
This is the problem. First of all, I think that kids don't want to go to treatment when it's not their plan, when it's not part of their life goals to go to treatment, and they don't want to ‘buy in’ immediately. And they don't want their new peers to think that they are ‘buying in’ immediately because: “I can beat this. I can get myself kicked out and go home or whatever, if I just complain.” Now, that's not to say that there are sometimes not reasons to complain, but kids have different languages. And unless you're up on their language, you don't know what they're talking about. So instead of saying they've been ‘transported,’ they say “I've been ‘gooned’” or “The ‘Goon Squad’ came for me.”

The bottom line is we aren't ‘goons.’ We're highly trained individuals who are going to keep these kids safe. That's what's important to us. We're going to let them know where they're going. We're going to let them know when we're going to get there, how we're going to get there and what they can expect when they arrive. We're not going to represent the program because we don't work for them, but we are going to represent the fact that we're here on behalf of their parents. Sometimes we come at 0-dark-30. Why is that? Because in order to get you from Point A to Point B, which is 3000 miles away, we've got to get on a flight. It's most advantageous for them to have the most daylight in front of them when they've set foot on campus. So wherever that is, no matter what kind of treatment center they're going to, daylight in front of them is important.

So we try to factor that in when we're making the plan for transport. And sometimes if it's open egress to the house, then we want to come early, so the neighbors are asleep. You don't want people out walking their dogs and snapping pictures and calling the cops and saying, you know, “Jane Smith's son has been kidnapped again,” using the terms that are wrong for the situation in the moment. The last thing any of us want is to be on the front page of the New York times. That's just the bottom line. Unless of course, it's all really good news. It's not kidnapping if we have parental consent or guardian consent. I think it's really important that we dispel those myths and move on to what is actually happening. Part of the guilt factor is that parents allow their kids, on the back end, to then talk about things with those terms, instead of saying, “No, you weren't kidnapped. I gave permission. No, you weren't ‘gooned’. There were good people, highly trained and skilled individuals.” Until we take that approach, parents aren't going to be able to get rid of the ‘guilt factor’ when they do need transportation.

Penny
We talked earlier that, when it comes to guilt, a big influence is what other people think about you: what your community thinks, what your neighbors think, etc. It’s important that we are respectful of that by strategizing transport to be the least impactful and to protect the parents from the embarrassment they may have. And that takes that away.

Holly
And that embarrassment is false because embarrassment is self-imposed. It's nothing anybody else can do. If you're embarrassed, it’s because you impose that upon yourself. Our whole responsibility is to ensure that the business of the family is protected. It does not involve the neighborhood. You're not asking for consent from your friends - at least you shouldn't be - and you don't, as parents, need to be seeking an advocate in all of your friends, because they are not going to say, “yes,” - they're not going to understand. Are they going to still be your friends? I don't know. But what I do know is it's your family business, and we're going to do our very best to make sure it stays your family business and not anybody else's,.

Penny
You know, it's interesting how we see that effect carry over once your team drops them off at the program. Cause they'll try that again, and again – it’s so important to redirect that language so as to not give them ammunition. Every time there's a new change, the kids are going to attempt again to tap into the parents' grief and their guilt related to having to hand their child off to strangers. Right? So we see that all revisited again when they actually get to the program and they're admitted - they'll revisit the admission, they'll revisit the transportation, and try to use all those terms. Or, a lot of times we have parents that have had to be pretty ‘creative’ in how they got their kid to us if they didn't use a transportation company. So the kids have to work through that as well, and some really use that to try to guilt their parents. We find that kids go through different stages, and every kid is a little bit different when they come in. Some kids will go through their ‘honeymoon’ stage where everything is great and wonderful. Some kids will come in right from the beginning and decide they’re going to try to challenge everything that they can challenge. Again, they are brilliant and savvy and they're going to start (especially as we pursue treatment programs for them to really ‘dig in’ and talk about some difficult issues to address) to address family stuff. Their go-to initially is going to be, “I'm going to blame everybody else. I can blame where I don't have to deal with my own stuff.”

So in blaming others, the first target is going to be the family. It's going to be their situation. They're going to try to blame parenting - what the parents have and haven't done. We know that going in. And so then the parental guilt really starts to ramp up, because as this kid is trying to deal with some hard things and is blaming the parents, the parents ‘stuff’ is going to start creeping up and really getting in the way, and the kids know how to work that. So they'll use lots of things. And usually we find out (whether it's through their letter-writing or family sessions, or when they're doing family visits) that the parents are really struggling with their guilt trip after those visits. When the kids had a chance to ‘work’ on them a little bit, and then suddenly we get those phone calls or, you know, they're on campus and they say, “Can I speak to you for a second as a staff?”

And we start hearing things like, “You're not feeding my kid; my kid’s not being fed enough. They're not getting any therapy” or, “They don't like the food,” or “They found bugs.” In our particular case, we do the majority of our activities outside. They're probably going to encounter some bugs and some wildlife. But really, as they learn more about their issues, they're able to tap into what's going to work for their family, and families have to be aware of that. And one of the things that we really advocate for is that parents are in therapy while their kid is with us in treatment.

Holly
They start out in that ‘dynamic dissonance’ at home that they've created, and they've learned how to live in, and maneuver through it, leaving everyone in this field of chaos while they maneuver, and they think they're going to go back to that. They hope that they're going to go back to that, because then they can maneuver still. It is only when everyone in the family aligns that the guilt is shed and then they can move forward in the business of the family, adopting these things that need to happen.

Penny
But it is very interesting. When we see kids with adoption issues, their go-to is: “Leaving me here in treatment is making my feelings of abandonment worse.” They all use that with the parents. If you have a kid who has experienced trauma, typically they will always go with, “I don't feel safe.” They will really tap into whatever their issue is or whatever they know that trigger is with that parent, and they really start pushing that issue with a parent. With the ‘parental guilt trip,’ you know, parents start calling in a panic: “Is my kid feeling abandoned, is my kid safe?”

We also see often that on holidays or big events, that guilt in the interaction with the family becomes more intense, especially around external family members, community members, friends, and all of that. Parents start worrying: “What are they going to think if my kid's not home for Christmas?” Well, what's more important, that one Christmas or their life? We see often where the kids will start working up the family with those issues. Now a big one on the other hand, which we see a lot, is when parents at times will start actually ‘flipping the script’ and trying to use guilt to motivate their kid, which never works.

The most common thing that we see as far as parents using guilt with the kids is usually financial, especially: “This is costing us so much money. You need to get to work.” Well, you've just given ammunition to that kid who will say, “Oh, watch me now.” It’s not going to motivate anything like that. It's not going to motivate. One time I had a kid that had done great in residential. She was at her last step, ready to graduate, motivated, and was doing incredible. In a family session she begged, “Please let me stay and finish. Please let me graduate.” And the parents made the comment, “Well, we've already had to lay off one maid. We can't lay off one more to let you finish.”

So that’s an example where the parents let what other people thought - related to their financial status - override what was best for that kid. Their guilt trip interfered with what was best, the best decision as a parent. Well, we've talked a lot and given you several examples, from our different expertise in the trenches. We work with each other. We, we have the same message we give to parents as far as coaching and directives: just put it on the table when we see that they are letting their guilt override the parental decisions.