Why Mental Flexibility in Parents Helps Youth in Pain Heal and Grow
This post is written from the perspective of a young person who participated in CHYP.
A youth in pain will make multiple transitions from conceptual theories discussed with clinicians to “real life” experiential practice. The youth must remain mentally flexible to adjust and fine-tune their approaches to different challenges. This means that you, the parent/caregiver, must also practice a unique mental flexibility to support your child’s transitions.
Mental flexibility from a parent becomes vital as your child “changes their mind.” A youth in pain will have to shift their perception of self, their childhood, and the external world. In addition, their bodies are giving them no choice but to change how they live. There are endless emotional complexities around the healing process. While the youth processes and begins to make changes in their external life, the parent is tasked with the practice of gracefully allowing their child to:
- Try new activities; never try some of them again.
- Come to new personal identities; replace them quickly again.
- Say “I can’t” or “I will never”; then double back and do those things they opposed.
The sensitivity of a youth in pain makes it so that many would choose not to take long-term personal leaps of progress to maintain short-term “comfortable/predictable” interactions with their family/caregivers. Supportive parent/caregiver “reactions” that allow for this to shift can look like:
- Acknowledging emotional achievements: (Ex: “You handled that interaction with skill. You showed up strongly.”).
- Less praise for external successes: (Ex: “You went to this event; talked to this person; attended school all day…”).
- Demonstrating that you believe in your child’s process: (Ex: Supporting new approaches with little or no debate; accommodating practices you don’t fully understand).
As always, it is important to communicate with your child and their clinical support to accommodate the individual’s tailored needs. When youth in pain begin to experiment with big changes without fearing the compromise of their caregiver relationship, they can make bigger leaps toward the life they truly desire.
