Great review, really appreciated this alternative perspective. As someone who benefited greatly from therapy in my 30s (it genuinely saved my life, but it was with a trained and talented psychotherapist, so not exactly relevant to what this book is talking about), it is great to get a perspective on how such interventions may not be bene…
Great review, really appreciated this alternative perspective. As someone who benefited greatly from therapy in my 30s (it genuinely saved my life, but it was with a trained and talented psychotherapist, so not exactly relevant to what this book is talking about), it is great to get a perspective on how such interventions may not be beneficial at all ages. You review has given changed my mind on some things.
However, moving to your core question about whether "If my son absolutely did not want to return to camp should I have forced him to?", I feel like you have entirely missed the point of your own argument.
It seems that much of the thrust of Bad Therapy is that "these days" regardless of your son's wishes, one would have said that of course it would have been irresponsible to let your child go back to camp, you would need to keep him home where he would be around the familiar, could talk to his parents whenever he needed and have a regular therapy session.
Now we have created a false dichotomy of "should we force him if he wanted to stay home"?
It seems obvious to me, that in one of these "potential traumatic" situations, we should trust the child. Children tend to know their own minds, and they will know if they have been unaffected and want to continue their adventure, or whether right now they need the love and support of their parents close at hand.
Directly after the death of someone close to them isn't the time to "tough them up a little" and teach them death is a way of life, and your parent won't always be there to help you get through it, so good luck at camp son, feel free to cry yourself to sleep alone every night! The idea that you are genuinely considering whether, had your son been pleading not to go back, sobbing at your feet, grabbing at your ankles pleading to stay with you (which is how I interpret a child expressing they "absolutely did not want to return to camp"), you think it would have been to your son's benefit to exile him from your love and care when he genuinely feels that he needs your love and support to understand an incredibly traumatic event that has just happened to him makes my blood run cold!
My best friend as a child died in a car crash when I was 13. I was largely unaffected, and I don't think it had any lasting effects on me. But it could have. My parents checked in on me regularly, asking how I felt, whether I missed Josh, but they respected my response when I said no. They didn't make me talk about my feelings, or make anything up, but neither did they say "big boys don't cry" when occasionally I would realise I would never get to play with my friend again.
There is definitely a space for traumatising kids a little. Yes, give them a bit of prodding to go down that slide that is a little scary for them, encourage them to join that sports team when they don't know anyone and are worried no one will like them, give them a movie that is perhaps a little bit too mature for them and will give them nightmares for a week. But you also need to know when they really just need their parents to hug them, and take care of them and make everything alright, and witnessing the death of someone close to them is definitely one of those times!
Glad you enjoyed to review, and particularly glad that I was able paint the picture a different perspective.
As to your main point, I didn't mean to paint quite as strong a picture as you did with the term absolutely. (Sobbing at my feet, etc.) And I think knowing our kids is probably the best tool we have for finding the dividing line between the traumatic and the non-traumatic. This is separate from listening to them. Kids are often very bad at predicting what effect something will have on them, which is not to say listening isn't important, but that it's separate and a step down from actually understanding them.
My final point would be, as loving parents we default to shielding them as much as possible, and I think that's the wrong way to go about it, that we should actually default to exposing them to more negative experiences to the point we're both of us are a little bit uncomfortable.
Great review, really appreciated this alternative perspective. As someone who benefited greatly from therapy in my 30s (it genuinely saved my life, but it was with a trained and talented psychotherapist, so not exactly relevant to what this book is talking about), it is great to get a perspective on how such interventions may not be beneficial at all ages. You review has given changed my mind on some things.
However, moving to your core question about whether "If my son absolutely did not want to return to camp should I have forced him to?", I feel like you have entirely missed the point of your own argument.
It seems that much of the thrust of Bad Therapy is that "these days" regardless of your son's wishes, one would have said that of course it would have been irresponsible to let your child go back to camp, you would need to keep him home where he would be around the familiar, could talk to his parents whenever he needed and have a regular therapy session.
Now we have created a false dichotomy of "should we force him if he wanted to stay home"?
It seems obvious to me, that in one of these "potential traumatic" situations, we should trust the child. Children tend to know their own minds, and they will know if they have been unaffected and want to continue their adventure, or whether right now they need the love and support of their parents close at hand.
Directly after the death of someone close to them isn't the time to "tough them up a little" and teach them death is a way of life, and your parent won't always be there to help you get through it, so good luck at camp son, feel free to cry yourself to sleep alone every night! The idea that you are genuinely considering whether, had your son been pleading not to go back, sobbing at your feet, grabbing at your ankles pleading to stay with you (which is how I interpret a child expressing they "absolutely did not want to return to camp"), you think it would have been to your son's benefit to exile him from your love and care when he genuinely feels that he needs your love and support to understand an incredibly traumatic event that has just happened to him makes my blood run cold!
My best friend as a child died in a car crash when I was 13. I was largely unaffected, and I don't think it had any lasting effects on me. But it could have. My parents checked in on me regularly, asking how I felt, whether I missed Josh, but they respected my response when I said no. They didn't make me talk about my feelings, or make anything up, but neither did they say "big boys don't cry" when occasionally I would realise I would never get to play with my friend again.
There is definitely a space for traumatising kids a little. Yes, give them a bit of prodding to go down that slide that is a little scary for them, encourage them to join that sports team when they don't know anyone and are worried no one will like them, give them a movie that is perhaps a little bit too mature for them and will give them nightmares for a week. But you also need to know when they really just need their parents to hug them, and take care of them and make everything alright, and witnessing the death of someone close to them is definitely one of those times!
Glad you enjoyed to review, and particularly glad that I was able paint the picture a different perspective.
As to your main point, I didn't mean to paint quite as strong a picture as you did with the term absolutely. (Sobbing at my feet, etc.) And I think knowing our kids is probably the best tool we have for finding the dividing line between the traumatic and the non-traumatic. This is separate from listening to them. Kids are often very bad at predicting what effect something will have on them, which is not to say listening isn't important, but that it's separate and a step down from actually understanding them.
My final point would be, as loving parents we default to shielding them as much as possible, and I think that's the wrong way to go about it, that we should actually default to exposing them to more negative experiences to the point we're both of us are a little bit uncomfortable.
They're tougher than we think.
Yep, agreed entirely.