With everyone's world and calendar in upheaval, many parents with teens or young adults in treatment are at loose ends about what to do. Though our first instinct may be to gather everyone home, Dr. Thayne discusses why managing our emotions and assessing the situation with a long-term view, not just the current picture, is what will be most helpful for our son or daughter.
With everyone's world and calendar in upheaval, many parents with teens or young adults in treatment are at loose ends about what to do. Though our first instinct may be to gather everyone home, Dr. Thayne discusses why managing our emotions and assessing the situation with a long-term view, not just the current picture, is what will be most helpful for our son or daughter.
I want to talk about what's on everybody's mind right now and at the risk of, of over-talking about the Corona virus. I think there's some really important things to discuss right now as it relates to parents who have teens in treatment and the feelings we might have right now around not being with them or just concern over their health and safety. Um, I'm going to do this by, by invoking a phrase I think we've all heard many, many times. You might even be sick of it, but it's the British phrase, keep calm and carry on. Now, the backstory of this is really interesting. This was created in 1939 as a part of three posters that were the PR for world war II to kind of evoke the, the coming together against Nazi Germany. But this, even though 2.5 million copies were printed, it was overlooked at for a time and then completely forgotten and never used over a 60 year span. The copies were lost somewhere or not used. Maybe it was a, maybe they were recycled because paper was scarce back then. Uh, but whatever the event, it never really came to light until the year 2000 when a secondhand bookstore owner found a copy and his wife thought that that really had a sort of Britishness to it, a stiff upper lip resilience. So these amazing qualities that help them get through the war. So copies were made and it slowly grew, but it really never became a phenomenon until the year 2008 during that global financial crisis, it was now evoked to help people stay calm during the stock market plunge and the financial crisis and carry on move forward in the current crisis that we're facing. It would be really easy to disregard this great advice and let our emotions really dictate our actions. My advice is that oftentimes if we don't have a clear path moving forward, we're not exactly sure what it is that we need to do. The best thing to do is to pause and wait and assess a little bit more. Um, I've been in this field a long time. I've been a treatment program owner. I have worked in the field for over 20 years and I've come to know the, the intentionality, the commitment, uh, the, the desires for, for truly helping these, uh, children, adolescents and young adults who are in treatment. Uh, it's genuine. It's real on the part of these program owners and at, as far as the people that I know, I think I can tell you that they're doing everything they can right now to mitigate against this issue that's happening, to protect the health and safety of those in their care, including the staff and the families and other people who come in contact with their program. So I think it's wise advice to take this, this keep calm and carry on to heart as it relates to what should happen with your team that's in treatment right now. If you have questions or concerns, certainly reach out to your program and make sure you understand what their protocol is and what their contingency plans are in case something happens there. That virus is contracted by somebody. Uh, but once you have those, those answers to those concerns, again, I would say stick with your investment. You know, it very well might be that your child is in a better place than if they were to come home right now. I actually spoke with a mother today that had that perspective. She, uh, when I asked her how she's doing and how her son was doing in the program, she had a really chipper, optimistic attitude. And, and I was impressed by that. And I said, you know, I, I sense that you're, you're feeling pretty good about where he's at. And she said, you know, my program is notoriously not very good at communication, but I really trust them. I know they have his best interest at heart and he's safe there. He'd be worse off if he came home. She said. And so my message really is around that idea, you know, check in with yourself and ask yourself, you know, what, what are the emotions at play here? What's the driving force behind what my decisions are right now? And, and if you're acting out of fear most of the time, it's a good idea too, to ask yourself this question that my wife had my son who was going to do a little, uh, he wanted to do a little karate class for some of the kids in the neighborhood. And so they were delivering flyers one day to some of the parents who had children that age and they pull up to, to a home with this big guy, a dad. He was actually out on the lawn. And all of a sudden my son became afraid to actually go out and, and deliver this flyer to the dad. And, and Roxanne said to him, uh, what would you do if you weren't afraid right now? And his answer was, well, I would get out of the car and give him the flyer. And she says, okay, then do it. And in some ways, I think that's really good advice. If you weren't afraid right now, what would you do? And in most cases, following what you would do if you weren't afraid is probably a really good idea. So, um, let's, uh, keep that in our minds and manage our emotions well and, and think long term, not just immediate because there are long term ramifications for the decisions we make and um, allow this process to unfold as we go forward. I've, I believe strongly that, that we're all going to learn a lot from this. And in some ways in the cloud of uncertainty that exists out there, there really are some opportunities that we can really take hold of and get the most out of. Most of us have had our calendars freed up in some ways that we didn't have before. And so being able to deliberately sort of create the, the outcomes we want by using our calendar, our time, the most precious commodity we have right now in a very intentional way within our families is phenomenal. Probably never had this opportunity before. Of course, our concerns are for all those who do get sick. We were worried about, you know, uh, the economic impacts this might have on us and, and others and, and businesses out there. But in the end, if we stick together, if we stay calm and work together, then we're going to have a much, much better outcome. So I wish all the best as we wait for and let this thing play out and stay calm and tell Corona is gone. We've all heard the phrase, keep calm and carry on. This is a great time to actually apply that mantra. It's a usually calm, cool. Mine's in a pandemic like this or any other kind of major crisis like this can have ripple effects in positive ways throughout our communities, throughout our families, and so that would be my advice today is let's keep calm and carry on. This will pass in time and we'll all be stronger as a result of it. It'll also allow us to have cool heads as we think about how can this actually in in some ways, even though in other ways it's very negative, how can, in some ways this become a positive thing in our lives and in our family's lives. I'm wishing you all the best as you deal with this pandemic, that we're all, you know, being affected by and hope that all is well with you and your family.