Valley Parenting : Knowing When to Seek Expert Advice

Lindsey was having a hard time in fourth grade. Her fellow students were picking on her, teasing her, calling her names, even punching her regularly.

“I would tell her to be nice, to try to make friends,” said her mother, Elaine, who, like everyone interviewed for this story, asked that her real name not be used. “I didn’t really see it as a big problem.”

Finally, a friend pointed out that Lindsey was being victimized.

“I had never labeled the problem, but I saw it was true,” said Elaine. She took Lindsey to a therapist to learn some techniques to bolster her social skills. In the process, Elaine got a few pointers of her own.

“I changed my advice,” she said. “I said, ‘You don’t deserve that and you don’t have to take that.’ ”

In the day-to-day routine of child rearing, parents handle problems, give advice and expect certain behavior. But despite the best intentions, moms and dads don’t always have all the answers. So how does a parent know when a situation is out of hand and it’s time to get help?

“It’s a matter of degree,” said Herbert Blaufarb, a clinical psychologist with the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic in Northridge. Blaufarb said parents must consider each child’s uniqueness in determining what is odd or normal behavior, and then look at the big picture: Is the child functioning well in school? With peers? Has his or her behavior changed?

Blaufarb believes that unless there are serious behavior problems--running away or suicidal talk, for example--parents should try to handle problems themselves before seeking outside help.

“It’s always to a child’s and parent’s advantage to communicate with each other,” he said.

Bonnie Geary, a Northridge marriage and family counselor who lectures on parenting issues, agreed.

“Give it some time,” she said. “Always rule out medical problems first. Try different strategies. But when you get the feeling that nothing is changing, or things are getting worse, then you may need someone to look at the problem.”

Often, she added, it’s the parent who needs to learn new strategies.

One mom took her 12-year-old son to a therapist because “I was always yelling at him. I felt like I was losing control.”

The youth was able to tell the therapist what he couldn’t express to his mom--that he felt he couldn’t do anything right for her. She, on the other hand, learned that “my expectations were too high and I wasn’t really clear in what I expected him to do. We’re both calmer now.”

In cases where problems are related to divorce, death, illness, sleep disturbance or social concerns, short-term therapy may be an effective solution. More severe symptoms--suicidal thinking, withdrawal, falling grades or psychosomatic illness--could be cries for help and might require more long-term intervention.

Another signpost in determining whether to seek help at all is “if the behavior is making the whole family crazy,” said Geary.

Linda, a mother of three, knew that she needed help when she realized that she and her husband were “tiptoeing around my youngest child. I would be afraid to make him pick up his toys if we were ready to go out because I didn’t feel like dealing with his negative reaction.”

Therapy is helping Linda and her husband find more effective ways of handling Billy, now 8, and he seems to be learning to control his behavior and is feeling better about himself.

Children often have mixed emotions about seeing a therapist. Lindsey, now a happy and outgoing eighth-grader, said: “I was in tears about going (to therapy) because I thought it meant something was wrong with me. But I felt more comfortable over time. It helped, and I was glad I went.”

She and her therapist talked about school problems and ways that Lindsey could improve unpleasant situations.

After about eight sessions, Lindsey said, she told the therapist, “ ‘I don’t think I have to come anymore, I get it now.’ She helped me figure out my problems and she helped me change things I was doing.”