Experiences of family therapy...?

[cattitude]

Hi all, I'm on my own with my 2 children and there is no involvement from their father. I don't get much support from anyone else apart from my mum a couple of days a week but unfortunately she doesn't live near by & there are limits to what she'll do.

When I was first in this situation (eldest was nearly 2 and I was 38 weeks preg with youngest) the midwives and health visitors were offering medication and 'family support' on a plate, none of which I wanted or needed at the time, because thanks to the awful nature of what my ex did I was getting more practical support to pick up the pieces and cope from close friends / family. Now nearly 3 years on, peoples lives move on, which I understand, so it's mostly just the 3 of us now all the time.

Too often I feel I'm not the parent I thought I would be or want to be, I am generally tired / anxious / stressed and this can manifest in me being narky / snappy / shouty / overreacting towards my children which I am so upset by / ashamed of afterwards for so many reasons.

Because of this, I have been thinking back & wondering if we are now in a position where we would benefit from some external support of some type.

My questions are these. What is available, what have others had?? How do I access it? Is it chargeable as I won't be able to pay? What are other peoples experiences of seeking this kind of help? What would it involve for the children & me? I don't naturally open up to strangers so this is a difficult prospect for me but I need to explore it for the sake of my children and I thought on here would be a good starting point if others in similar situations would share their experiences, I'd really appreciate it.

Big thanks in advance to those who reply.

Why do you think you need family therapy rather than individual therapy for yourself?

I think we'd benefit from doing it as a family, but that's based on my uninformed idea of what is involved. I've never had therapy of any kind before so I admit I'm no expert in this, hence seeking others advice / experiences.

See your GP and research any counselling charities in your area, like MIND. It sounds like you need help, family therapy is for when there is a family problem in how people interact or if the family cause a child to be in trouble all the time or something. You haven't said anything about your children displaying problems.

Oh just realised you asked why Roshbegosh. I suppose it's mostly gut feeling?

As far as I know you will need a GP referral to a family therapy service. Whether your GP will offer that for your gut feeling I don't know. I think you could do some research into services offered by charities yourself. Start with MIND.

No no no no, it's normal. It's a very stressful time for you all. What I used to do was set the table for breakfast the night before, always try and get a step ahead (and I worked full time and still do).
Single parents doubt themselves every day, the more I focussed on the dcs the better I felt, don't despair.

I've had family therapy, not out of choice. I was referred by ds's school because he was often saying things that were unacceptable to people, for example to a lovely little indian girl in his class that he loved 'is your dad black too'? not meaning anything by it, he just thought she was beautiful. Also to a mum of one of his best friends in the playgroung pick up (I was there) 'hello XXXXX gosh your fat.' (which she was.. huge).In reception he declared that he wanted black skin like XXXX who he had bonded with.

The final diagnosis of the family therapy was that he is just a lovely bright honest boy. It took weeks for that, me and his ds (who is a couple of years older and is the total opposite taking time off work/school). So, summarily, it was rubbish. And it is not what you need. You need confidence that you can do it and what a joy they give you back :)

hth

Thanks Monty. I'd have thought lot of children say things like your DS, kids just say what's in their heads don't they?! Glad it all worked out for you but annoying to have had to go through that if it's against your wishes.

This has been on my mind all day after posting last night, no chance to get online though with the kids awake.

I think the thing that makes me think family therapy would be best is that I often feel like my eldest would benefit from an external person reiterating the levels of hierarchy in a family. Hear me out before thinking this is a weird thing to say! My eldest (age 4) acts like we are equal in decision making etc or more usually like she is in charge. It's being going on for quite a while but getting worse as she's getting older. She constantly challenges my authority and undermines me in things I ask her to do or things I ask my youngest to do, she will either tell her sister to do the opposite or give her permission to follow my instructions. My youngest really looks up to her so I am constantly in situations where either one of them is doing the opposite to what I've asked. It's so wearing and draining and upsetting and demoralising. Not only am I concerned about her perception of & respect for authority, I worry about the future if she actually needs my guidance to avoid trouble, she won't listen to me if I try to protect her. It's like she just thinks I'm here to cook, clean and wash but beyond that taking any notice of me is optional. Its unbelievable at times the way she squares up to me for her age. I think in a 'regular' family, the father would step in and say 'don't ignore your mother' or 'don't speak to your mother like that' etc, and this helps LO's learn about respecting others, but I have no one to help them appreciate me (which I think is important because when we recognise what good we have we are happier rather than those who always focus on the things they don't have). Some days I do just feel like she sees my job as chief bum wiper and I honestly don't believe this is good for her. I also worry that if she sees us as equals she's assuming more responsibility than she obviously should for her age.

So I thought family therapy may help instill some of the natural roles within my family, particularly with my eldest because although I've gone on about it from my view point, I am actually worried about her for the future if this continues. Outside the family home, I must say, she is a complete darling, well behaved, quite quiet and at home when not as above, she is thoughtful, funny, helpful.

I hope this makes sense.

So I thought family therapy might be the way forward as we all could potentially benefit from a refreshed perspective on things. Or have I misunderstood what it's all about?

If she is only four then play therapy aimed at helping her be a child might be useful.
I would suggest you got o gp and ask for a referral to either the NHs counsellor attached to practice (easiestroute to get something ) and then maybe family based therapy... Thing is I don't think to sounds like your dc are suffering at all so they don't need therapy. so you might find it hard to get a referral based on the dc needs. Also as she is so young.

But I do think having some kind of support and froma consellor who is a family therapist could be useful for you.

I did individual and group sessions with a therapist specialised in divorced and separated
Pvs I did individual with thE gp surgery consellor who was a great support.

(I wasn't someone who thought therapy was more than an American fad...but I think now that with the right person it can be a great outlet and support. Some of the standard Cbt type tasks or questions they ask, it can just help to rethink how you see things ..and help you to orientate how you think.

More recently did family therapy the referral was for my youngest who was having trouble dealing with wantiNg and also not wanting to be around her dad.....(he has cyclical severe mh issues ) ....I did find this useful we did sessions me and dds, me alone, dds alone....

You might also find generic parenting courses useful even if only to know that this isn't a single parent thing and others find things tricky...I recently went on a (free) evening introductory session run by a well known (super nanny type but diff approach) lady who does parenting courses, I went with a single parent friend. We actually both felt that we were doing ok, especially when hearing from the couples dual parent families present who had high levels of anxiety around their children's ' behaviours and felt they lacked control....

Unless dd is showing signs of distress I think the fresh perspective you need is for yourself , and someone who can help you devise strategies and things to try with your dd. do also see if there are generic parenting courses which you can get on for free, might be more available.... you might then find you can get some few minutes on on one for your specific issues at the end of a session, if you like the course leader.

Preume she goes to a nursery ? And there are no issues there ?

I don't think you need to assume that if a dad was around to say xxx or yyy it would be vastly different, it wouldn't always happen......

If you did go to a family therapist given her age they would do things like asking her to draw her family, then ask questions.

My dds older but they did what I assume to be standard strategies of drawing family tree, asking who does what in the family, whose job is it to xxxxxx ? What do you like to pay with, what do you like about that ?
What scares you ?
Lots of open ended questions but done ina fun way. And then they would
Pick up on things they said.
Is about getting child to open up .... Using dolls, puppets, toys, play doh or construction toys, dolls houses al those kind of things .
Use dolls to role play maybe suggest a scenario see where she takes it as this can tell you a lot... But you can also do this too to try and get an insight eg have a dolls set with mum, two children, what does the mum do all day ? What does the oldest child do all day in her imagination? Might give you some clues how she sees things.. You can then say "what about if mum says xxxxx" etc.
however difficult when you busy with day to day stuff but you can prob slip a few things in, like drawing "let.s draw our family " etc . Then let her explain who is doing what etc

But also I thnk you MIT find it useful to do one n one..

Might ......

Family therapy has long wait list but you could ask...but in meantime gp referral to counsellor and/or parenting courses which may be available locally and free. If good therapist counselor or course leader you got nothing to lose.