Would you accompany your teen to CAMHS appt?

[Honeywort]

Am posting for general advice as I can’t work out why i feel a bit uneasy/uncomfortable about this or even whether I’m overthinking but anyway here goes;

My friend has a lovely 17 year old son who has just been diagnosed with some quite severe mental health issues - it has been serious enough that he was hospitalised over Easter. He Is now having therapy/counselling with camhs - not sure of details but I think he is on about the third appointment.

He has exams after half term which are important because they will count towards his predicted grades for a levels. so my friend - who works part time - asked me to have him over for two days this week as she doesn’t want to leave him revising on his own. (Friend is single parent with father not on the scene) He’s much better than he was but is still a bit fragile/vulnerable. My own dc are much younger but I am v happy to have her son over and have two “home days” over half term.

This was all arranged weeks ago but she has just texted me to say that he has a camhs appointment on Friday and asked me to take him to this,. I am kind of uncomfortable about this - I can’t imagine not taking my dc to a medical appointment myself but I don’t know if this is because they are so much younger. I realise that I’ll just be driving and then waiting in the waiting room (or even out in the car) though - and maybe teens are encouraged to not come with parents to camhs sessions anyway.

I do appreciate she has to work, but I know she has a lot of flexibility to set her own days. And I guess I’m a bit anxious that something will come up in the counselling session that he’ll want to talk about and I’m not sure how confident I feel that I will do that well.

So I’m not sure if I should just say yes that’s fine or should voice any of these concerns. I don’t really have any experience of teenagers (other than having been one myself!)

Most of my DDs CAMHS appointments were very specifically NOT for a parent to attend. If I did take her I just sat in the waiting room. Most of the time she actually got the bus straight from school and I picked her up at the end.

I often used to take DD and wait in the waiting room. There were other parents there doing same thing so it’s definitely not odd or anything.

I take DS to his appointments, they are the opposite side of the city from us and he would struggle to navigate via public transport. When he was having private counselling sessions just up the road he went alone.

I sit in the waiting room for his appts and he is alone with his psychologist. We may have a 5 minute review without him present but I can't imagine them needing to speak to you about it? I think it will literally be a case of taking him, waiting and bringing him home!

I take DD and wait for the 45 minutes in the cafe on the next floor. I would never accompany her into the appointment, as she needs to that space to be honest and not worry about how she looks to others etc, even if I was allowed in. It's never come up in conversation as I've never indicated that I want to come into the appointment with her.

One of us will usually take DD to CAMHS appointments but we don't go in with her, either DH fetches her from school if it's term time (then waits in a nearby cafe and drops her back at school) because it's quite a walk from school, or if it's holidays I walk with her as far as town and we have a coffee before or afterwards. We take the lead from her choices about what she's comfortable doing.

You are massively overthinking this. All you need to do is sit and wait. If he does talk to you afterward, all you really need to do is listen, however I seriously doubt he'll do much talking about anything that came up in therapy.

Thank you all, that is really helpful to hear. I think I am thinking about her ds as if he’s the same age as mine, but I guess not having your mum waiting outside the appointment room is all part of the growing up/taking care of yourself that our children do as they become teenagers and young adults. Thanks again -