Archive

At long last we have had our child and adolescent mental health referral. James and I saw the child psychologist last week after a wait of more than a year.

We went into a homely room with lots of toys and she introduced herself and told James to call her by her first name (something that every doctor we have ever seen has singularly failed to do). She asked me lots of questions about James’s life - from birth through to early years to now. She wanted to know about our family - who was in it, what were they like, what we do - and James revelled in having the chance to chat away to an adult he hadn’t met before.

He told her all about his sister, his pets (in great detail), about his worries and his feelings. I had been very anxious about how he would cope with this, but he really seemed relaxed and managed to tell her about a lot of the problems he is having and how that affects him. Towards the end of our session, she asked him what he would choose if she could make three wishes come true. He said that he would like children at school to be nice to him; he would like to be very clever and build a big Lego model; and he would like to have some friends.

It’s hard, so hard, to listen to your child talk about how they are not happy and, despite having waited so long for this appointment, it was a bitter sweet experience. As the psychologist helpfully pointed out to me, dealing with very difficult behaviour and riding the emotional rollercoaster that goes with having an unhappy child is not part of your game plan as a parent. It was really helpful for me, and ultimately for James, to have an acknowledgement of how difficult parenting can be, to be told that it’s OK to get it wrong sometimes because you are only human.

But, it was great for me and for James to know that we have some support. We already have follow-up appointments booked in and have some "homework" to do that involves playing, praising and having a good time.

We’re off on holiday soon and it will be so great to be able to be together as a family away from home, school, work and all the usual pressures - we’ll have lots of time to practise.