Parental Guilt!
Parental Quilt!
The woman on the other side of the computer met me through Alignable — a networking platform. As often happens, the person on the other end will see that I am a hypnotist. There are several hypnotists on Alignable — I have spoken to five others at this point. However, she had not met any of them yet, apparently. It helps to be on the platform regularly, so more people get to know who I am.
The woman I spoke to was interested in having more than the usual 7 minutes given during the Smartconnects on Alignable. She has a daughter, 15 years old, who has been struggling since she was a little kid.
This loving mother has invested in getting several sessions of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and psychiatric care, where her child was placed on several medications, of which her mother helped her halve the number of prescriptions taken thus far, and wants her off all of them. She is herself a holistic health coach.
However, she realizes her daughter did not do very well when she started having her cut back on one of the medications.
She realized that something was missing, as her daughter is not much better after all these interventions. She is only a little better…not good enough…not in the least.
A couple of months ago, her daughter finally told her what the real problem was — bullying classmates from a young age in her previous school. She was not happy at that school, so her parents took her out of it and found another , but she still hates school and will not get out of the car to attend more days than not.
The deeper problem horrified her mother, made her feel guilty because she never would have allowed her precious daughter go to these two kids’ houses if she had known about the molestation by two of her young female friends. She was only 8 and 10 years old when these two events occurred.
Her daughter was having nightmares about these events, making her anxiety ridden, and even hearing voices, thus one of the prescriptions.
She told her daughter that she needed to tell both her psychiatrist and her psychologist about these events. She did…nothing changed!
So, happens I have worked with several kids of both sexes who have had similar problems. I told her their stories of healing. She found herself feeling some hope for her beloved daughter, a very cute kid I met after asking her mother to bring her on the video call so we could meet. Her daughter is the only one who can make the decision if she wants to work with me and do whatever it takes to heal, so we needed to meet for her to make that assessment.
The great news is that her psychologist did a little hypnosis with her, which is when some of this important information in her history was found. But the hypnotist did not know how to help her heal once the information was found, leaving her in a strange space of knowing, yet not being healed.
The good news what that she had an idea of what I do, as a hypnotist, though I have my own style, of course.
I gave her the expectations for both of us to successfully work with one another. I let her know as a kid, that kids rarely have authority over their lives, always being told what they need to do, when, and how.
That is not the case with my kid clients…not at all. I have a healing protocol based on the information I get from their Detailed Personal History; however, the client is the one in control. She will need to tell me when I need to integrate something new that she has learned from her inner wisdom, her subconscious mind. As I explained to her, I am not and do not want to be a mindreader…that is a different profession.
Get Suzanne Kellner-Zinck’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I let her know that I may not understand everything she tells me in the way she wants me to understand it, and that may anger or frustrate her.
Luckily, her response was, “Don’t worry about it.”
Lastly, I told her that she needs to be on time for our sessions and apply herself, because she has all her own answers in her unconscious mind. My job is just to help her facilitate finding them and help her finally be rid of all of the problems that are causing her nightmares… to release her from all of her past, while helping her design the life of her dreams, as much as a 15-year-old can create for themselves.
Parents are in a tough position because they cannot know what will happen when their kids are out of their sight. They can get a feeling for a particular family, a particular kid, but have no way to know what will happen when their kid is in their presence — NONE!
Worse, parents, as was the case with this particular mother, feel guilty for what happened. She feels terrible every day…for several years watching her daughter struggle, but so far nothing has worked that she has tried…not really.
I am here to tell the responsible and responsive parents out there that there is little you can do to protect your kid 24/7. And, it is fine, because kids need to learn how to deal with life’s problems. However, as in this case, there are times when parents need to get involved in helping their child find the help required to heal.
It is your job to respect the fact that your child trusted you enough to hear them and help them. Sadly, I have had several clients whose parents blamed them for the actions of another person done against them. Many of these clients are adults today, harmed twice. Once by the perpetrator and again by their parents, blaming them, or disbelieving them. These adults learn to not trust anyone, building huge walls around themselves. For a woman, being overweight is one of the methods used. Never transparently engaging with others, only the superficial, while they wear their fake smiles, as they are dying inside from all the previous trauma.
If you have a child who comes to you with something so painful to them that it took everything they had to tell you, your only response is first being grateful they trusted you enough to tell you. Second, help them receive the help they require to heal.
I am not for everyone by any stretch of the imagination, but I do get along well with kids. Kids who just want to feel “normal” again, able to live “normal kid lives.”
Kids are very talented at hypnosis, being in a natural state of hypnosis till they are 25 or 26 years old.
Kids are transparent when they trust the person with whom they are speaking.
Kids will tell you everything you need to know, including when you have screwed up with them — I appreciate that greatly because I can’t correct it if I don’t know.
Kids are funny and fun to work with because they have their quirky personalities they share.
And, I speak their language. Anyone who has spoken to me knows that I haven’t changed how I interact from when I was a teen, other than the fundamental change of giving suggestions instead of directives and allowing them authority over how the sessions are run, because that shows them respect and builds trust, which is fundamental to any relationship, especially one where I am entering their subconscious mind.
Most of all, hypnotists like to have fun. Sure, if I need to go to those deeper, harder places, I will. But the goal is to make the healing process as fun as possible because that is how one quickens the healing process.
If you have a child who is suffering. Everything you have tried has not helped. It is time for you to contact me and let me know what is going on to see if I can help heal your child of their trauma.
