Your child comes home and says something about you that sounds like it came directly from the other parent. Maybe it is an accusation. Maybe they suddenly reject something the two of you have always enjoyed together. Maybe their entire way of speaking to you has changed. Your first instinct may be to correct it. …
The relationship ended two years ago. She still checks her email before bed because another filing may have arrived. She has missed work for hearings, paid another retainer, gathered the same records for another professional, and responded to another allegation about an issue she believed had already been addressed. The case file may call this …
You finally got the referral. The therapist had a Tuesday opening right after school, and for the first time in months you felt like you were doing something for your child instead of watching something happen to your child. You told yourself this would help. Maybe the one thing you could control when almost nothing …
You’ve asked it… to yourself, to your family, to your friends, probably more than once. Why is my child turning against me? Why are they pulling away, repeating things that aren’t theirs, looking at you like you’re the one who did something wrong? What you’re seeing didn’t start when you noticed it. It started a …
It’s a school night. Your daughter was supposed to be home at nine. The door opens at ten-thirty, and she walks past you without looking up, goes straight to her room, closes the door. You’re standing in the hallway holding the conversation you’d prepared. You’d thought through exactly what to say. You’d rehearsed the part …
We have been told that forgiveness is the proof you have healed. That until we let go of what was done to us, we stay stuck inside it. That forgiveness is the final stage of healing. The mature response. The thing we do for ourselves. In your situation, that script is wrong. You don’t have …
Someone called it estrangement. Maybe your custody evaluator wrote it in their report. Maybe your child’s therapist said it in the meeting. Maybe your own attorney said it on the phone, lowering their voice like they were delivering a medical diagnosis. I want to tell you, before anything else, that it’s the wrong word. I …
You know that feeling when you hear the door open. There is a moment, just before they walk in, where you hold your breath. You’re not sure which version of them you’re about to get. The child you know, or the child they send back. Then they walk in and say something that doesn’t sound …
I want to speak directly to protective parents who have been ordered into reunification therapy, or who are considering it, or who are watching their child come home from it and wondering what has just happened. Reunification therapy is presented as a way to repair the relationship between a child and a parent the child …