How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

In her blog entitled “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy” Lori Gottlieb explained why many young adults were not always happy with their childhood experience. Although, many of these young adults seemed to be happy with their parents, yet something was still missing in their lives. One of her patients said, “I love my parents! I had a great childhood! I’ve got a good job! So why do I feel so lost?” According to Gottlieb’s explanation, their parents might have been too familiar with them or they might lack parents’ attunement. Instead, by giving their children freedom to “find themselves” many parents did not prepare them for life’s realities.

There is a common saying in Africa that it takes one person to give birth to a child, but the whole city is responsible for training this child. Parents are responsible for balancing their children’s behavior and providing for them their basic needs. It is not everything a child asks for that should be given to him/her. As adults, parents should know when to set limits for their children. Also to let them know that life does not provide one with everything one wants.

When I was six years old, I left my family to stay with my aunt. I am the third child in my family, and I have some younger ones after me. I was not solely responsible for their wellbeing because I had two elderly siblings taking care of us when my parents were not in. Living with my aunt, I became the first child because her children were younger than me. I learned how to manage a house, especially when my aunt and her husband were not in. I remembered her telling me “If you were not born, would you not come to this world?” That is, must I be taught everything? I learned how to take initiative and to make some decisions when they were not in. This helped me to learn how to take responsibilities for my actions.

I agree with Gottlieb’s assessment that parents are either too attuned to their children or lack attunement. You can always find such children among multitudes of people because they are not secure in themselves. Their parents had contributed so much to these children’s lack of self confidence. Therefore, these children began to look for solutions to their problems as adults, in other words, they landed in a therapist’s office.