You know what they say about children of psychologists??
Just wondered if anyone else has this conflict? I work part-time as a clinical psychologist with children 0-19 and whilst this is specifically with mental health problems eg Obsessive compulsive disorder, low mood etc I do some stuff that blurs into parenting eg: toilet training (when its gone wrong), eating issues etc. I have two little ones nearly 3 and 18 months and I feel really rubbish at parenting at the minute - my elder one has dropped his daytime nap recently, his eating is crap at the moment, and he is in the 'no'/ defiant zone, not to mention that he totally and utterly refuses to poo on the toilet - tells me calmly that he needs to but demands a pull-up despite being totally fine with weeing! Also massively sleep deprived following consecutive vomit bugs/ teething (me not them)...
Whilst I know that being a parent is a totally different experience to seeing families professionally, I had more expectations of myself (and friends also seem to think I should) have more ideas about how to manage? On the one hand I have so much empathy with families in a way I was not able to before (although I like to think pretty empathic before anyway). On the parenting front I am feeling completely de-skilled, incapable and crap. I am getting referrals for similar cases and feeling like such a fraud. Unfortunately the key missing part to this is that my supervision at the moment is really uncontaining - and whilst I am looking at other jobs, it takes a lot of energy to change jobs. There are no other members of my team who could supervise me, and I really love the team!
It all makes me feel awful - I'd really appreciate if anyone wanted to share their thoughts (constructively), less of the bashing if ok, feeling fragile! thanks for reading.
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to feel like a rubbish parent despite working with kids professionally?
34 replies
swaddleaholic · 19/11/2012 13:42
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