13 yo’s neuropsych results Debrief - both parents requested

[Anonymous]

Other parent has Dx of autism, bipolar II, anxiety and depression. Works a lot and ignores family, is difficult to live with.

13 yo who’s exhibiting increased adhd, depression and oppositional behavior has just had second neuropsych. Last one was age 9, was told adhd.

The child also brought up fears about divorce and parents arguing a bunch. The write up won’t go over well with the other parent.

Don’t know what to do. Hand over report sprinkled with stressful home life comments, suffer the fall out? Bring them to debrief and watch the DARVO game? Will this trigger a divorce- they skip town, dump us all?

Surely the psychologist has a plan for this narcissist/ absentee parent talk… I sure don’t.

[Anonymous]

Get couples counseling and individual therapy. Set your own issues aside. Try to circle the wagins and come together for your child's sake

[Anonymous]

No family therapy with someone emotionally or verbally abusive.

Nothing will be more damaging than kids watching one parent lie and gaslight at therapy. Worse than that BS Restorative Justice they do at school with bullies, victims and witnesses.

[Anonymous]

Be honest and go alone. They can request both parents, but both don't need to come.

[Anonymous]

Parents go one at a time with child present. You go first. Explain other parent concerns. Ask therapist to be constructive IF you trust them.

3 with issues in one room is a tinderbox of emotions. I agree you need a calmer environment.

[Anonymous]

The report will likely allude to family stress without giving details. They know you are going to share the report with school and don't want to air your dirty laundry.

[Anonymous]

PP. I think you need to talk to your child and tell them you understand they have concerns about their parents' relationship but their therapy is not a venue for confronting other parent about the state of the marriage. Just acknowledge their feelings but tell them you will work on their issues and the most ready to work on issues first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get couples counseling and individual therapy. Set your own issues aside. Try to circle the wagins and come together for your child's sake

Btdt. Waste of time. His marriage and children’s health at stake weren’t enough for him to improve his bad habits and explosions.

[Anonymous]

You need to call the psychologist's office before the planned debrief and explain your concerns. I think you should attend separate debriefs, but perhaps they will request a supplemental fee for that.

Is your spouse going to be physically or verbally abusive during such a meeting, do you think? One of my friends attempted to get her child evaluated several times and her husband sabotaged the process the first couple of times. He yelled at the psych and stormed out of one of the meetings. Since these were in-person intake meetings, they never got to the evaluation stage. They lost more than a decade before finally getting an anxiety, ADHD and dyslexia diagnosis combo...and that's just because the kid grew up and requested to be evaluated himself!!! You can imagine the consequences.

Just make sure to focus on your child's wellbeing, despite the suboptimal home environment. My ASD husband was verbally abusive to his ASD child, and I had to operate as my kid's defender for years. Now he's an adult, they get along better, but it's never entirely peaceful, mostly because neither can compensate for each other's socio-emotional gaps, so there's always some sort of misunderstanding leading to frustration. My other child and I have the bandwidth to deal with each of them pretty well, but we can't always prevent friction between those two.

[Anonymous]

In my experience w couples counseling, that profile of a spouse lies and plays the victim with the counselor, then lashes out at home. It’s really destabilizing. I cannot imagine doing family therapy with an adult like that. Sorry. The neuropsych probably mentioned it thinking everyone was rational…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The report will likely allude to family stress without giving details. They know you are going to share the report with school and don't want to air your dirty laundry.

Give them the scrubbed school copy, it omits the family history part and marital difficulties part.

Getting the child a therapist but having you looped in so things don’t get out of hand or exaggerated will be helpful. At that age so much is going on in their heads and bodies, they shouldn’t be latching on to their parents’ issues as an escape from their issues.

[Anonymous]

There’s obviously a lot more going on here than the request to have both parents present. I was a kid whose needs were not adequately addressed in school because of my parents’ martial and mental health issues. Both refused in their own ways to help me: one through anger and denial, one through avoidance and hand wringing about the other’s potential reactions. And this was in addition to their general level of emotionally neglectful parenting, which would have affected a NT kid. They are still married, still unhappy, still in denial about the full extent of their mental health and marital issues. Except now they are old and frail and isolated and have an extremely surface level relationship with their kids. I lost years of potential over their selfishness. I used to hate them for it and now I am just sad for all of us. It didn’t need to be this way. Find the way through that gets your kid the help they need.

[Anonymous]

They can request whatever they want but I do what's best for my child. His absentee father wasn't paying, wasn't raising the child, and wasn't aware of any of his issues. I went alone because I alone was going to do the work of dealing with the kid's issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The report will likely allude to family stress without giving details. They know you are going to share the report with school and don't want to air your dirty laundry.

Give them the scrubbed school copy, it omits the family history part and marital difficulties part.

Getting the child a therapist but having you looped in so things don’t get out of hand or exaggerated will be helpful. At that age so much is going on in their heads and bodies, they shouldn’t be latching on to their parents’ issues as an escape from their issues.

Yes, you can absolutely give them a partial copy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s obviously a lot more going on here than the request to have both parents present. I was a kid whose needs were not adequately addressed in school because of my parents’ martial and mental health issues. Both refused in their own ways to help me: one through anger and denial, one through avoidance and hand wringing about the other’s potential reactions. And this was in addition to their general level of emotionally neglectful parenting, which would have affected a NT kid.

They are still married, still unhappy, still in denial about the full extent of their mental health and marital issues. Except now they are old and frail and isolated and have an extremely surface level relationship with their kids. I lost years of potential over their selfishness.

I used to hate them for it and now I am just sad for all of us. It didn’t need to be this way. Find the way through that gets your kid the help they need.

Can you, as an adult, see what was driving the “hand wringing”?

It’s not like the one functional parent had a clear good option when married to a dude and looking at divorced coparenting. That’s not good for a highly sensitive SN kids either- two houses, vastly different parenting styles, parents still arguing, one parent doing everything but from afar half the time.

But yes, get the kids adhd treated, unlike their adhd parent. And get them some talk therapy. Tutors, what they need. It’s all the functional parent to do that.

Dysfunctional parent can skip the meeting, the neuropsychologist doctor is not going to save the marriage. In fact she may create an excuse for an immediate drawn out, expensive divorce. Untreated asd bipolar adults not treating their symptoms will just punch out. Go work and be a bachelor again. It’s easier that dealing with this.