My "Running with Scissors" Moment

Yeah! summer is here, theoretically this should mean less time in the car and more time spent enjoying lazy summer days without paying attention to the dreaded clock. I don't want my kids overbooked in the summer, I don't want to be overbooked in the summer, I just want some downtime please!



One of my children meets with a therapist on a weekly basis. Nothing serious in my mind, just some behavioral issues that we are trying to get a handle on before those dreaded teen years hit. This particular therapist likes to meet with me on a regular basis. Actually she would like to meet with my husband and me together on a regular basis, but scheduling this given my work hours, those of my husband, and her irritatingly limited office hours, has made meeting together pretty damn near impossible with any regularity. So sometimes she meets with me, sometimes with my husband, and sometimes with the two of us together.

I have been thinking that we have been making progress. My daughter has come a long way over the last few months, behaviorally speaking. I am thinking these thoughts as I go in to meet with said therapist today and thinking that maybe we are approaching the end of this therapy journey. I feel confident.

Sadly, the therapist doesn't seem to feel as confident as I do. She seems to think that my daughter is just "on the verge" of doing some critical things, like communicating her feelings appropriately, and suggests that we consider bringing her twice a week. Actually, that was her first suggestion. About mid-way through our meeting she suggested that I bring my daughter in maybe several times a week.

At this moment I had a flashback to the movie "Running with Scissors," the part where Annette Bening drags husband, Alec Baldwin, in to see her crackpot, guru therapist and this therapist tells the couple that they should see him everyday for something like four hours. The therapist then becomes angry at the husband (who laments that he can't commit to that because of work), telling him that he has cleared his schedule for them, why can't they be considerate and clear theirs for him!

Now I don't think that my child's therapist is a crackpot or a guru and amazingly enough our health care insurance would actually cover more sessions. But we are not going to do it. I am going to "parent with my gut" here and quite frankly I think that my child will make more progress in her emotional well-being enjoying a fun and play filled summer than she will be by being driven hither and yon all summer to appointments!