Reply to Parent and child texting in front of partner while eating dinner

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Parent and child texting in front of partner while eating dinner"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]No phones at the table for anyone. You can raise this as an issue with everyone. You cannot set rules; however you can set an example.  Turn your phone off or on vibrate and set it on a side table while you eat.

Therapy for you as an individual with a focus on your beliefs about mental illness, mental health education, honest discussion with the therapist about why your step daughter might feel a need or want to hide her anxiety from you. What messages are you sending explicitly or implicitly about her anxiety attacks?

Talk with the therapist about how you can raise the texting secretly in front of you in a productive way, and that you are concerned that she feels a need to keep the anxiety secret from you.  Your going to need to ask her why in a non-threatening way.  So ask, and listen.  Apologize if necessary. State your beliefs about anxiety as a mental illness. 2hich hopefully are smthg like this: mental illness are real illnesses just like diabetes or heart disease.  Like diabetes or heart disease, mental illnesses can benefit from a combination of medicine with a psychiatrist and therapy with a psychologist. No one should feel like they have to keep their illness a secret. Because I care about you, I am here to support you, but because you are an adult and I recognize you have a special relationship with your father and mother, I also recognize that you are adult enough to ask for what you need and that you have other adults in your life who are helping you; nonetheless, I am here too, let me know what you need from me.

Whatever conversation you have about this, it can't be about you - how you feel left out or insulted, how you think it's manipulative or a betrayal, etc.  That stuff you need to talk to your own therapist about.

Consider taking a NAMI Family to Family Class, with or without your DH.

Your SD has some pretty serious anxiety, if she is having anxiety attacks at the dinner table - has she gotten a full neuropsych assessment? Is it affecting her at school? Is she working with a psychiatrist in addition to the therapist. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics