+ Do the issues of the parent affect the treatment of the children? – October 05
Hello John,
I am treating a 3 year old boy – Toby, for
behavioural problems. He is responding well. I
see noticeable changes in him and I can feel him
releasing energy cysts in each treatment.
The problem is his mother says he has not changed
at all. She just won’t admit he has made any
progress.
I am starting to think that she has something
wrong with her. I Think SHE needs treatment.
I don’t think Toby is going to advance until she
sheds some of her baggage.
Is that right or am I just making excuses for my
own inadequacies?
Any thoughts would be helpful.
Kind regards.
P.M. Perth.
>>>MY COMMENTS:
I have found that if parents are reluctant to notice
changes in their child it’s because they are afraid
of getting their hopes up.
They want their child to improve so much that they
don’t trust themselves anymore. They’re afraid
they are making it up and only seeing what they
want to see.
USE A PATIENT DIARY
To help parents focus on what IS changing, I
use a patient diary. Which, by the way, works
just as well on adult patients who have difficulty
recognising their improvements.
Here’s how it works. At the first session you
get the parents to list the child’s symptoms and
get them to give each symptom a rating between 0
and 10.
0 is perfect and 10 is the worst it’s ever been.
Then ask the parents to record a new figure for
each symptom at the end of each day. When they
come back the following week they will have a
record of the child’s symptoms and how they
changed for that week.
That helps to keep them focused on what is
changing rather than on what is not changing.
CULTIVATE AND ENVIRONMENT OF CHANGE
With children who have been labeled
“difficult”, a lot of your work is in helping the
parents to see that the child is now in a position
where they can CHANGE.
You need to help the parents and the child
understand that the child’s symptoms are caused by
physical restrictions. For example a bone in the
child’s head is compressing on their brain and
that when it has released, there is a good chance
that they may not have the symptoms anymore.
You’ve got to convey to the parents and the
family that they need to drop old ways of relating
to the child.
‘Oh Toby doesn’t like to eat with the rest of
the family. That sets him RIGHT OFF. It’s just
the way he is.’
All those kind of opinions will need to be re-
evaluated. You need to get the family as a
collaborator in the treatment.
KEEP OFF TARGET.
It’s also is important to point out to parents
that the initial improvements in the child’s
condition may not be in the areas that they expect
them to be.
I explain it to them in terms of a target. The
bulls eye is the main symptom the parents want to
change.
For example, when a child comes with autism and
are displaying classic autistic tendencies, like
unemotional, obsessive behaviour, it’s really
important to point out to the parents that the
first indication of change may not be that the
child will suddenly throw their arms around their
parents.
More likely it will come in a peripheral way.
The child may start singing or start building
things or take an interest in something that isn’t
inanimate, like a pet.
INFORMING THE PARENTS
It also goes a long way towards greasing the
wheels of change if you explain the process of
cranio sacral therapy to parents as much as you
can.
Get across to them the length of time cranio
sacral therapy takes to have effect. Sometimes
with the children you can treat them two or even
three times before the parents will start to
notice an effect.
That may not seem like a long time on paper but
it is two or three weeks that they have got to
keep coming back for treatment, in the face of no
apparent improvements.
Get the family involved at the beginning of the
treatment program. Then if there is no apparent
improvement for the first couple of weeks they
will be more inclined to persevere.
Seem like a lot of work?
The difference between a child and an adult
coming for treatment is an adult comes of their
own accord and they have control over whether they
come back or not.
With a child, the parents have that control and
if the parents get the feeling that the treatment
is not really helping they won’t come back.
Having said all that. The ideal is treating
the whole family. This is particularly so with
learning difficulties or behavioural disorders.
As a child begins to change it will help the
process enormously if everybody in the family can
be NEW about that and allow them to change. A lot
of families won’t be new and they will still
relate to the child as they where in the past.
In a way they will keep the child stuck in the
pattern long after the cause of the pattern is
gone.
For example, if a child is having big tantrums
as a result of a compressed parietal and you help
the parietal to release. The cause of the tantrums
will be gone. But the child may still have
tantrums because that’s what is expected of them.
There is a space within the family that expects
them to have tantrums.
Treating the whole family helps create a shared
state of change in the family dynamic and in that
is a window of opportunity for the changes that
you have helped to facilitate in the child to
become permanent
If you are not treating the whole family you
will be treating the child in isolation. The other
members of the family may not want things to
change. Particularly older brothers and sisters.
If you can’t treat the whole family you will be
indirectly treating the family through the child.
And that ain’t easy. It’s like trying to wallpaper
the house through the letter box.
Don’t be afraid to ask Toby’s mother to come
for treatment. Chose your moment well. Put it
tactfully. Avoid implying that she is holding
Toby’s progress up.
She may really want to come for treatment but
doesn’t know how to make it happen.