lol, you have to get the car’s emissions system certified by a mechanic before you can pay the state of California an ungodly amount of money to register the car for the year.
Lots to respond to here. Why have we provided a car to a kid who isn’t responsible to care for it? She’s always been responsible, this is new. We gave her the car two years ago when she graduated from college because she needed something safe and reliable to commute to work. This is Southern California, there is no viable public transportation where she lives. We gave her dad’s lightly used car, little brother got her older car, dad got a new car.
We do not use money to control her or any of our kids. She chose to stay on our health insurance because she didn’t want the expense or hassle of getting on her own plan. She feels entitled to stay on the family plan until 26 because that’s what her older brother did. She’s now unemployed. She asked for help to pay $400 in copays to her therapist. It’s a reasonable question to ask if this is a good use of resources. I’m a teacher. I could not afford $400 a month in therapy copays. We’ve put two kids through college already and have the third in college now with one more to go. We are very careful with our spending to be able to make this all happen.
I’m glad therapy helps some people. I have not seen it be helpful in my experience. Here’s my underlying belief system- only you can fix you. My daughter is going through some things right now and we’re here to love her through that. We are not expecting her to share with us what she talks about in her therapy sessions. The way that she’s using therapy speak indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of therapy to me.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I could tell my husband I’m setting boundaries and he cannot ask me about money, ever, at all. Then I spent 5k shopping. Nope, that’s not the way anything works. We’re a team and we work together. Our daughter is still part of the family financial team because she is not 100% independent yet.
There are things you can do now to help ease the financial transition once your D gets a job (I assume she’s living at home?) For one, you can let her know that it’s important to learn about the benefits package at any job she’s being considered for- and that a generous health care package will mean more to her bottom line than an extra thousand dollars in salary. My kids had great difficulty with this concept (even the math major) until they realized we were serious. Grown up job, grown up benefits. Just because they CAN stay on your insurance doesn’t mean they SHOULD stay on your insurance. And the hassle? It’s one form to fill out for HR the day you start. A college graduate can handle it.
If you believe your relationship with your adult children is going to be parallel to your relationship with your spouse- you are in for a WHOLE lot of heartache. It doesn’t work that way. (I’ve got married kids, grandchildren, in-law children, their parents and sibs- the whole works). Yes, you and your spouse are a team. He buys a porsche you can’t afford and it gets repossessed- your credit rating gets trashed. This is not what happens with your kids. They are going to make financially stupid mistakes and you’re going to have to keep your mouth shut. But their debts are not your debts, and investing in somebody’s brothers crypto startup is going to be an expensive learning opportunity for THEM, not for you.
For sure I do. I went to college in the 80s. Jobs were hard to find. A lot of my friends, even my super smart engineer-minded brother, dropped out of school for awhile to figure things out. I distinctly remember a conversation with one of my best high school friends after we graduated from different colleges. She found herself very depressed and my advice after dealing with my own depression was just to get a job. She did (receptionist at a car dealer if I recall correctly) and said that helped.
I think a lot of the terms in the OP are just normal now — PTSD, trauma, boundaries, gas-lighting, self-realization. I don’t think there’s anything weird about using these terms and think it’s weird that some of y’all do.
And therapy can give you the tools to do just that. Therapy is not about the therapist fixing you. Therapy is about you taking a closer look at things going on in your life with the therapist and learning better tools to use in your life. This may be something as simple as circular/square deep breathing when you get anxious/panicked. Or it may be more involved than that.
I would not pay $400 in co pays monthly. We gladly pay $20-$25 for a weekly session in net work for D22 though. Older kid found someone out of network and handles that payment themselves.
I would encourage my kids in your D’s situation to get a job even if it’s just Starbuck’s. It’s definitely not a cure but getting out of your house and interacting with people and making a little money is really empowering.
I know someone who is going to therapy for childhood abuse - now in their 50s. They didn’t deal with it until their 50s so imagine how much junk there is to unravel (because that one experience leads to one unhealthy relationship, life choice, etc after another so it’s a lot to unravel). Her mom is asking why it’s taking so long (she’s been for all of a few months and was suicidal at the start of it).
People need to learn to deal with emotions instead of stuffing them down. The earlier you deal with them the better so I’m glad this generation is learning to value mental health - they need it. This is a generation that has interacted a lot through online/texting etc rather than phone/face to face interaction so they need even more help. And the longer you let things fester inside, the worse it is later, but guess what, it always catches up to you. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t deal with emotional junk in a timely manner, it will some how bubble up to the surface- whether through negative decisions, an emotional breakdown, or even physical symptoms. If therapy doesn’t work for some, I would advise them to find another therapist- unfortunately for teens/adolescents, there are not enough professionals trained to work with them. But it’s no different from another doctor - if one oncologist isn’t working for you, you go elsewhere but you don’t hopefully write off oncology altogether. But really, I don’t think anyone can say for another person that therapy isn’t working - it is the kind of thing that is one step forward, two steps back sometimes and unless you know details of their therapy/issues you don’t know whether its working or not either.
I was a mess in my early 20s. If I hadn’t gone to therapy, I don’t think I’d be where I am - but it was not an overnight fix. It took years of work.
She does not live at home. She has an apartment about 2.5 hours away from us. She lost her job in early October. The job was extremely stressful and she wanted to leave, but the decision was made for her. I think she thought getting a new job would be easy and it has not been.
She told her last job she didn’t need their health plan because she was on ours! She and her older brother play a bit of tit for tat, he was on the family health plan until 26, she should be able to stay on the health plan until 26.
Nothing wrong with being on the family health plan IMO. Our 22 yr old is even though they are working. It saves them a little bit of money and doesn’t cost us much.
I hope so. The father just found out that he has amyloid plaques and is undergoing testing for Alzheimer’s. One would hope the child would want to reconcile sooner rather than later.
I went to social work school and became a therapist very late in life. I am trying to remember where I first encountered the word “boundaries.” Yes it’s “therapy-speak” but IMHO it’s a very important concept.
I went to social work school after a remarkable therapist helped me transform my life, in every way imaginable. For sure it made me a better parent to my young adult daughter (my first semester started the same day she began her senior year in college). I will always be grateful to my therapist. I had others throughout the long years of my life (I am 75), some good, some bad, one transformative. Of course that’s just me, but whenever I have a new client at the community mental health clinic where I work, I tell them right off the bat about my last therapist, and that I hope I can be helpful to them too.
This thread has brought up many thoughts and reflections. I have seen therapy change peoples lives. I have also seen some stumble along the way with “therapy talk” with their parents. I have seen friends who therapy has saved their lives.
I grew up in a house where we didn’t talk about emotions. My dad struggled with mental illness and it was talked about. My parents divorced but both parents remained in our lives but my mom controlled the terms. We were not allowed to cry, if we did she would tell us she would give us something to cry about. She would say you have food, clothes and aren’t beaten and have nothing to cry about. My siblings and I grew up stuffing feelings and not communicating our wants and needs. I got help but several siblings did not.
One extremely helpful thing I learned is I could convey the same thought by saying it a different way. The way I said it made a huge difference in how it was heard. For example in the case of a car situation- we are taking the car because we are the owner and it is our responsibility that the car not be used to hurt an innocent person. This instead of “you aren’t responsible and the punishment is”. In the case of the smog test I might say “it stresses me and Dad out that the car hasn’t been smogged yet and we can’t register it yet”. I might offer to help by finding a site nearby that is open evenings or Saturday or offer to take it. Make it about your anxieties not her irresponsibility. With the copays I might try “ I’m glad you are getting the help you need but we can’t afford to continue to pay the copays. Or maybe we can afford to help with a smaller amount each month till she is employed.
Another thing a wise friend told me that to remember my family member was smart and didn’t need me telling her the same things that I felt needed to be done multiple times. She also told me that there will be times to absolutely help but also times to say “you are smart and you will figure this out”. When we do for them things they can do for themselves it sends the unspoken message we think they aren’t capable.
Also that sometimes someone can be in such a place emotionally that the simplest task seems impossible.
How is she paying rent… and if you are subsidizing it, have you given her a deadline?
IMHO this is more important to her launching than the co-pay or smog testing the car.
My kids know that we will never kick them out (unless a federal marshal comes to take them to jail for a felony they’ve committed). But they also know that while we want to be a backstop, we don’t pay their rent, mortgage, car payment, etc. “Figuring things out” when you lose a job IS adulting. If you haven’t made that clear to her, perhaps a neutral “What timeframe seems reasonable for us to stop helping you with rent?” could start a healthy discussion about her job search, her “adulting”, etc.
I remember the first time I was downsized and the abject panic that followed (and my spouse was employed, so for sure I wasn’t going to be homeless). It’s not fun. But truthfully, the abject panic was what spurred me to get another job. Not the “perfect” job. Not the job of my dreams. But a paycheck. Adulting 101. And I viewed the jobs I was considering in a very different light than I would have if I’d still been employed and had the security of the once a month direct deposit… It was better than graduate school, to be honest. The world’s greatest reality check is to be unemployed and watching every dollar.
We are not subsidizing her rent. She’s receiving unemployment right now. We provide her with a car, pay the maintenance and insurance, she’s on our health plan and we help with medical expenses, we also pay her phone. She has no debts or student loans.These are all expenses she will take over eventually, but has not started paying for yet since she finished college two years ago. She’s got one foot in and one foot out of childhood at the moment. Our home is always open, in fact our 26 year old has just moved in with us for a few months, but we don’t pay anyone’s rent after college. We’re paying $2500 a month for our kid’s college dorm at Berkeley, not to mention tuition. We’re not looking to pay everyone’s rent.
Our kids pay us rent if they’re home more than a month. I typically save the money and give it to them when they’re out on their own again.
Our youngest has been having a hard time making ends meet. It was tempting to give her some extra money, but we held off (we pay for her phone since it doesn’t cost much extra on our family plan). In a nice twist, her brother has gotten her a part-time, remote job at his company! She can keep her current job and do this one in her spare time. I’m proud of her for hanging in there and cutting expenses.
I am thankful to learn these new terms and share a common language with my Gen Z kids. One of these children “trauma dumps” on me frequently and I had to start seeing a therapist to learn how to deal with it because it caused me enough anxiety that it affected my day to day life (loss of appetite, trouble sleeping). So I told child that I needed to set boundaries on their trauma dumping and it really seemed like it struck a chord with them.
This exactly. In my early 20s when I said I was a mess - I racked up almost $1000 in parking tickets. My car was towed and impounded more than a few times. I was so desperate for independence by then that I was ok with it. My credit suffered until I unscrewed it but I didn’t go to my parents to fix it. Guaranteed had I even told them about it, I would have gotten an earful about irresponsibility along with a check to pay it off. Sometimes you have to let natural consequences happen so they can learn (and I did learn!!)
Huh. This is interesting. I don’t conflate “therapy speak” with the type of language that someone would use as a result of learning things from therapy. I don’t have an inherent problem with “therapy speak” – it is a tool. The buzzwords can be used by anyone who wants to use them to get what they want, regardless of having gone to useful therapy or not.
In my family’s experience with therapists over the years, even the ones that weren’t a great fit were not the type to encourage using these words to just get what you want without fulfilling your own responsibilities. The words are supposed to be tools to understand yourself and communicate.
One of my close family members has high anxiety and some other stuff. They often try to wiggle out of their responsibilities (this predated any professional treatment). Their various therapists and physicians have certainly not given them language or encouragement to manipulate people to get what they want. Instead, all the professionals, without exception, have held this person’s feet to the fire regarding responsibilities and relationships. The professionals have given this person understanding and tools to deal with their issues and to live a satisfying life as part of their community. The “therapy speak” is a small part of it.
I feel bad for people that have had such rotten luck with therapy. But I don’t tie that so much to the use of “therapy speak” language. I’ve also had people try to manipulate me with that type of language. But I guess I just view it the same as any other language people use to manipulate me, so “therapy speak” doesn’t bother me in particular.
I think the discussion of therapy speak started because this particular generation is adopting this language and using it sometimes inappropriately. Words like boundaries, trauma, self care have a particular meaning and become murky when employed in other context.
