Judged

My old therapist was pretty judgmental about how people parent their kids. I just learned early on to keep my own parenting stuff to myself. He was pro-spanking, anti-co-sleeping etc and I don't spank and my littlest ones sleep with me. Whatever to him. I just got the impression that he was very rigid with his own sons and I am not that way. Not that I am a perfect parent.

I'm rambling, but I would upset about this too. I'm not sure what you should do though. I'm so helpful.

She is a LMFT, so I do appreciate her guidance regarding parenting, but no she doesn't treat my daughter, hasn't met her, and while I think she has some solid knowledge of my family dynamic, I think what happened here is that she's jumped to an easy conclusion when I do think the reality is a lot more nuanced.

I think my husband's viewing choice says something about him, as does his enjoyment of news shows, documentaries, comedies, etc. He's not a one dimensional person and I certainly don't think this is the one-dimensional cause of my daughter's difficulties.

So you know how you feel about it and your T is not going to change your opinion or thoughts. Your T has her own opinion. Can the two of you just be willing to accept that on this issue you will not agree? Can you come to an agreement on how to handle future parenting discussions? Could you ask your T if she is willing to keep unsolicited opinions about your parenting decisions to herself or should you refrain from discussing your daughter (which I am sure would not be helpful to you since I'm sure parenting a child with odd is stressful.)

She didn't mean to give an unsolicited opinion originally- she misunderstood something I said, made an assumption and let her opinion slip. So, there's that. But then, when questioned, she took it to the next level, which didn't help, haha.

I did let someone read the entire convo verbatim and I will say to be fair that they thought I was correct that she was being judgmental and maybe off base, but that I was being really reactive and responding like she was the enemy, i.e. defensive.

So.... I'm trying/hoping to calm down and see how to best work it out.

I do consistently have a really hard time with these judgments/disagreements. I seem to feel very threatened, not just w/her but at work in the past and elsewhere. I know I have some deep seated insecurities from the past. I've been doing better with it in other areas, but the closeness and sensitive topics in therapy make it a lot worse I think. A growing edge.

I notice you intellectualize a lot. Do you think she was trying to address your primary defense mechanism?

Just a thought...

I have been very willing to stop talking logic and talk emotions instead during our work together, so that has come up. But she asserted that his tv viewing would cause her violence and I don't think just saying I felt upset was enough. It was flawed reasoning, so that was an issue for me. I don't want to discredit myself by resorting to saying all there is here are feelings.

Therapy is a lot about feelings and the vast majority of our work is on that level, but when she judges my parenting, and does it poorly, I do want her to rethink. Because she's not telling me she feels worried about this potential influence, but that she thinks anyone should know better, so, there's some flawed logic there and I need to be logical to address that.

However, I've told her about my underlying fears and insecurities and upset, so she's aware of those. And knowing that motivation, I find it a little easier to consider agreeing to disagree with her on this issue, though I am exhausted and need some more time to think it through, probably tomorrow or the next few days.

No single therapist is great at everything. My partner has a similar issue with her T where she often feels judged about parenting stuff.

For example our son has had general anesthesia for dental work and partner's T (PT?) explained that when her children needed dental work she just sat next to them and held their hand and read them a story rather than subject them to the dangers of general anesthesia. Well at 3 or 4 there's no freakin way that our son could have done dental work while at all conscious. Some children can, but not him. He couldn't even tolerate having his hair cut. It would have taken multiple adults to restrain him. No way. Believe me, we weren't eager to have him undergo such a major procedure either but we saw no alternative.

I kind of feel like (unless a child is being abused) onlookers need to STFU and withhold judgement to a very great extent. You just don't know what any parent or child is dealing with on a given day. Your daughter might forever cherish the memory of the day she went to wrestlemania with her dad. Even if it was a mistake to let her go (not saying it was, just that it's a possibility) it is not the cause of all her behavioural difficulties, and parents get to mistakes and children survive them.

My T is great to talk to about parenting stuff, it sounds like she has had the experience of parenting a high-needs, spirited, tantrum-prone child and she's been very understanding and non-judgmental about everything I've gone through with my kids. However, unlike your T Leah, she really isn't so helpful about all the out-of-session fallout of processing trauma and I find it totally unmooring to try to discuss attachment stuff with her because she sucks at stuff like out-of-session email (she'll generally read mine and either acknowledge it with a terse "we'll talk about this Wednesday" or not at all) and I inevitably spend days and days feeling horrendous, triggered and alone. So you might need to accept that this is just a weak area for your otherwise great T, talk to her about it and recognize that you actually know more about parenting your child than she does.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate how you and the other mother's who've posted can relate.

That's probably good advice. My therapist has her conclusion, which I think was hasty, but she also, after further correspondence, said that I am the one on the front lines and that if I've done my research and made my decision, she trusts my judgment. It's just hard for me to calm down and I'm uncomfortable having a difference of opinion with her, hopefully it will settle out soon.

I'd told her initially that it wouldn't help me to see her if that was her stance, but that I would be open to covering the topic if she'd just approach it in an exploring manner rather than judgmental. I sent her a follow-up message, trying to let bygones be bygones though I'm still sort of muddled on this one. We've differed on things before though, so we'll see. I don't know, am feeling totally out of sorts. Not even sure how much of this is being sleep deprived and PMS, ha, I feel a bit of a mess over here, ugh.

Responding to someone else's words about us is usually more about us than them as it is our response? There are a lot of ignorant people out there with ignorant, judgmental opinions. Why do these particular comments bother you?

I remember being hurt and humiliated by a boss in "public". I had been trying to help him with a project and my words of explanation about something got tangled and he made fun of it, very dismissively. I thought why that hurt and realized it was because I do have trouble speaking when anxious and feel personal humiliation about that. However, I started working with myself right then and my feeling of humiliation and remembered I was working on my speech with my T and doing the best I can and am to be commended for that, not made fun of! Who is he to make fun of me, when here I was helping him? I got my good anger on instead of my "poor me" face and started plotting

(1) This boss (not my direct boss, thank goodness) was wrong and hurtful. I could avoid him by not offering to help! I could not do anything about being "assigned" to work with him but I could keep a low profile around him elsewise.

(2) If he ever spoke disrespectfully to me again, in public or private I would go to him in private/just the two of us and say, "I find your speech very disrespectful of me and want you to stop. If you ever speak to me like "that" (define it for him so there can be no mistake) again, I will quit!" (I was working part-time and did not need that particular job, could easily get another at that time).

(3) Quit on the spot if he does it again.

Leah I so get what you're going through her and if my T had slipped up like that about my daughter I'd have been angry as well. Pointing fingers and making blanket assumptions is never helpful at any time, especially in therapy. I have a daughter with Aspergers and she went through a time where we thought she might have ODD also, and it baffles me how free people felt to express opinions on something they know very little about. I get very defensive about it as well. I have done a lot of research and have seen specialists. When people outside the situation question our choices I find it very arrogant and condescending (especially If they aren't even a parent!!). I will say Ive been lucky in that have neither my t, Pdoc or the marriage/family therapist ever appeared to pass judgement, even if they were thinking differently. I once dealt with a school principal who did though. She felt that if I disciplined my daughter differently she wouldn't refuse to enter the school the way she was at the time. I explained to her kids with AS have to be handled differently, which she heatedly disagreed with. It's not exactly the same but similar in that she made blanket assumptions regarding my parenting and attributing my daughters behavior to it. Your T has a knee jerk reaction and made a judgemental comment based on her personal taste and values, not facts. I would want her to understand what she did and how she should avoid making the same mistake again. It might not seem like a big deal but that's the kind of thing that would make many people (at least people like me) not return to her as a T. As a professional she should know better.

Wow. I am just - correlation is not causality! This is so simplistic, it just doesnt seem like her. I mean, i wish it were that easy. It seems if it were that easy to cause, it would be a heck of a lot easier to cure. Not that THAT reasoning is very scientific either, but sheesh. We ALL watched wrestling when we were little - it was on every saturday afternoon in the 1960's. We all watched "the agony of defeat" - whatever that sport show was called that was also on - we all didnt turn into olympic skiers.

Well, she backed off. She said she didn't mean his interest in wrestling caused my daughter's explosiveness/violence. She took the much more reasonable stance, in the end, that all things being equal, given that my daughter has ODD, exposure to wrestling wouldn't help.

And I agree with that. Hence, she only got to see it for those very few hours, a special, unusual occasion.

As far as doing anything further about it, I mean, I think it's interesting/valuable to understand what draws my husband to it and how his viewing might influence things, but beyond talking, I don't know what else to do: my husband has done a great deal to help my daughter- he's gotten into therapy himself, major diet change, picked up a huge amount of slack while I'm in school and working so much, etc. etc. and there's no way I would ask him not to watch wrestling while she's asleep. My husband's a grown man entitled to watch what he likes late at night, and he's been a fan a long time. He's not a violent guy and while he's not perfect, I think there's room for lots of other work in our family and we don't need to focus the spotlight on his soap opera for men as I call it.

(I told my therapist I was open to discussing it, it just needs to be a fair, thoughtful convo, not one where we start with a predetermined conclusion.)

So, she's agreed to let bygones be bygones when I suggested it and said she wants me to know she understands I'm a good mother and that she trusts my choices implicitly.

Of course, she couldn't say that without wondering if being a vegetarian caused a nutritional deficit which then contributed to my daughter's anxiety, sleep trouble and temperament, (ugh!!!) but I was okay with it, because this time she specifically said she had never raised the topic with me because she admits to knowing absolutely nothing about it. (I'm extremely thorough about providing her a well balanced, well researched, appealing diet). She's just such an entrenched meat eater she figures, like a lot of folks still I guess, that there must be something wrong w/a kid that doesn't gorge on hamburgers, ha. Lordy.