Derry Oliver was in fifth grade when she first talked to her mom about seeing a therapist.
She was living in Georgia with her brother while her mom was in New York scoping out jobs and apartments ahead of moving the family. It was a rough year apart. Oliver, now 17, was feeling depressed. A school staffer raised the idea of a therapist.
Oliver’s mom, also named Derry Oliver, questioned the school’s assessment and didn’t give consent for therapy. “You’re so young,” the mom recalled thinking. “There’s nothing wrong with you. These are growing pains.”
The issue boiled over again during the COVID-19 pandemic when the younger Oliver, struggling with the isolation of remote learning, reached out to her Brooklyn high school for help. School-based mental health professionals like social workers can provide some counseling without parent permission. But in New York, referring a student to more intensive therapy almost always requires a parent’s agreement. In Oliver’s case, that led to more conflict.
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As schools across the country respond to a youth mental health crisis accelerated by the pandemic, many are confronting the thorny legal, ethical, and practical challenges of getting parents on board with treatment. The issue has become politicized, with some states looking to streamline access as conservative politicians elsewhere propose further restrictions, accusing schools of trying to indoctrinate students and cut out parents.
Differing perspectives on mental health aren’t new for parents and kids, but more conflicts are emerging as young people get more comfortable talking openly about mental health and treatment becomes more readily available. Schools have invested pandemic relief money in hiring more mental health specialists as well as telehealth and online counseling to reach as many students as possible.
I understand that kids can need therapy for all sorts of reasons and that parents don’t always agree even if schools suggest it.
I have a totally different problem with this issue- namely that school counselors think they are therapists.
My daughter got doxxed by two other girls who also prank called her multiple times.
The school’s solution? Group therapy with the girls at school with the counselor.
One of the many reasons I’m glad my daughter is in online school now. She was so bullied that even the bullied kids bullied her and the school’s solution was always counseling. Which, of course, made it feel like the bullying was partially her fault. She developed severe anxiety and started having all kinds of self-destructive thoughts. She’s only 13.
And no, online school is not the same as being homeschooled. She has live (videocoference) lessons with licensed teachers where she can ask and answer real-time questions and she gets assignments graded by those same teachers. Her textbooks are from Pierson like every traditional public school’s textbook since Pierson has a monopoly. The school is run by the state, so it isn’t even a private school.
I do have to stay with her and keep her on track and help her with her assignments if she doesn’t understand something, but I am not her teacher or considered her teacher or expected to be a teacher and there are plenty of times I have to tell her I’m as confused as she is and we need to talk to one of her real teachers about it.
And we are so lucky to be able to have the ability to go down to a single income and barely squeak by because she is still severely damaged from this months after we pulled her out of her public middle school, but she’s building up some self-esteem and is actually willing to go out and do activities and socialize and make friends, which she was totally unwilling to do while in public school. She actually has more friends now than she did when she was in that school, including kids who are still going to that school who have made big apologies to her for going along with everyone else. She’s magnanimous to give them another chance. One of them is also now in online school because she became the most bullied kid when my daughter was pulled out.
Does she get therapy? Yes. We put her in therapy and a big reason was because the school didn’t do shit besides making her sit down with the bullies in a bullshit group therapy session so they could all apologize to each other.
And that is what concerns me about schools suggesting therapy. They are doing it as a way of solving bullying in a form of victim-blaming.
TL;DR - I do not trust schools to understand the root of a child’s mental health problems when the root could be something at school they aren’t doing shit about.
Thank you for being an awesome parent! I buried a lot of trauma from elementary, and having their “guidance” counselor forced on me made it worse. This person actually told me I was a compulsive liar and went on and on and on. A lot of bad shit happened to me and I have had issues with pretty much every female therapist of any sorts.
There was also a sort of traveling counselor who would visit the elementary schools sometimes, but was based out of one of the middle schools. He was awesome and had real credentials. I was so happy he was at the middle school I went to and that I could talk to him sometimes. He was very short, gentle, and did everything he could to put himself on the same level as the kids he was trying to help. If you just needed a safe space to quietly play with dumb toys you were “too old” to play with, his office was open.
Anyways, give your kiddo a hug for me, if they are cool with that. Don’t ever let her forget her self worth. Keep reminding her that she has a voice and that you can really say no to things.
The best complement I ever received was that I was a force of nature.
Thanks. And yeah, our counselors were awful when I was a kid too, but at least they didn’t try to make me get along with the people bullying me!
As far as reminding her she has a voice, I’ve been doing that for a long time, but it took getting her out of that hell to give her the courage to tell some kids from that school who were harassing her while she was out roller skating to fuck off. Which I’m very proud of her for.
This is not that unexpected of a response. People like to say things like therapy for kids “isn’t needed” but what they really mean is “I don’t want my kid to see a therapist because a therapist is going to blame me for everything”
people also have a weird aversion to it. I have a friend struggling to have a baby who is suffering deeply due to two miscarriages — won’t do anything about their mental health despite sending me messages at 4am about how they’re drowning in grief.
Human fertility is the best argument us atheists have that there is no one managing the universe. Perfectly wonderful couples slowly going insane trying to have a child and people who should never ever even think about having kids have 7 of them.
I am a parent. At least if the therapist is blaming me for everything it is a fixable problem. I can change my behavior.
You are a vanishingly small minority methinks.
I am a parent too. I have reservations because I don’t want my kid to feel like he’s special for the wrong reasons. Like he has something wrong with him that the other kids don’t have. Because when we were considering it, he was having outbursts that were concerning.
He has stopped having those and the ex left the abusive ex boyfriend that caused his outbursts (color me shocked). I still have concerns with the counselor being how they were being towards me, the father. But whatever. My kid knows what’s up.
if they get therapy, they’ll realize I’m an abusive parent.
Likely. So many conservative parents end up with kids that hate them because their entire personalities become hateful. They think everyone and everything that isn’t straight and conservative is out to get them and take away their rights.
children deserve self determination just as much as anyone else. kids can’t even get their own medical issues addressed if their parents think they don’t need / deserve it, it’s nuts.
100%. People shout all the time about parents rights, but few care about the rights of children.
“parent rights” is just a dog whistle for “I think children are property not people”
Republicans: School Shootings are a MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE! Also Republicans: THERAPY IS BAD! JUST DEAL WITH IT! HERE’S A GUN!
This sounds great except when those kids have permanent records of a history of mental problems. (Not true, but how it will be interpreted by others)
They can’t get clearances
Insurance will hold it against them
If they ever get charged with something it will be used against them
All it will take is for all the schools in the world to have perfect cyber security for all time and new laws for my concerns to be mooted
Mental health I argue is more important than physical health. Death is a given eventually, happiness is never a guarantee. I would rather have both obviously.
I am surprised no one has mentioned cost yet. If a school suggest parents send their kids to therapy, but the bill is completely on the parents and they can’t afford it, that’s a pretty short conversation.
Everyone should be in therapy.
Sounds nice but therapy is so expensive.
Not that everyone wouldn’t benefit from having a wall to bounce ideas off of, but the thing I’ve noticed about much of the therapy I’ve experienced was the lack of focus on addressing (enforcing respectfully but in a non-negotiable way) needs as an effective and commonsense proxy for wellness.
There is so much people-pleasing and self or forced martyrdom that really must be addressed. There’s no drug or habit or professional that can save you if your life is chronic hell the moment the door locks clicks and there’s an external locus of coercive control coming from within the house or that lives on through ones nervous system as a background process that you can’t put a name to and how to shutdown
There’s huge difference in quality and approach from one therapist to another. I would avoid therapy with a licensed clinical social worker or certified counselor or that sort of thing, The absolute best practitioner in my experience will be someone that went to medical school, an MD or DO, or a PhD in psychology from a good school. A good behavioral therapist will draw out these processes and help close them down. I like to think of them as browser tabs.
