In this video, we're going to cover the top 10
Mistakes that parents make after
their kid leaves rehab.
You know I usually save the most important one for last
but not today. Today, i'm going to start with it
right out of the gate. That thing is
that parents bring the kid home
from rehab. Those of you that know me, know how
adamantly against this I am and if you
haven't already, I've got several videos
that address this issue. There's a video called Reasons
Why You Should Not Bring Your Kid Home from Rehab
and there's a video called, Why Home Contracts
Don't Work. So if you
haven't, make sure you check those out. The
second huge mistake that parents make
after their kids leave rehab is that they try to
manage the kid's recovery.
They try to keep up with how many meetings they've gone to
Have you talked to your sponsor? What step
are you on? You can't FORCE recovery.
You can force compliance,
but not recovery. If you've got a bunch of rules
around this kind of thing, then either you're going
to end up in a power struggle or
Your kid is just going to be checking things off the list. Went
to a meeting, got a sponsor. That doesn't
mean that they're absorbing the information, that doesn't mean that they've had a change of heart.
any of that stuff, they're just checking boxes.
You can say things like, "I expect you to be clean and sober"
or you can say, "I expect you to attend your aftercare program"
but outside of that you cannot micromanage
their recovery program. Number three,
Parents too quickly
put a lot of focus
on the kid getting a job or going to
school. If they're right out of
a residential treatment program and they haven't
been working or haven't been going to school,
Then you need to ease this in
I know, if you've got a kid that's been to rehab they're probably
behind and you're feeling
frustrated because they're so behind their peers
and they're probably feeling frustrated and they
want to jump right back into school or work, but they need to get
a good solid recovery
community, plan, program
established before you
put all of your focus on these things. So many times,
parents think that having a good job, or being back
in school is going to fix the problem and it's not.
School and work should
definitely be secondary to recovery.
Number 4, big mistake parents make
after their kid leaves rehab. They think the kid is
actually cured. Parents are like "okay, great,
wonderful!" They went, we paid a lot of money.
They're acting better. They're fixed!
Wrong answer! You are not
fixed just because you went away to 30, 60, 90 days
of treatment. Trust me, there's a lot
more work that needs to be done
getting sober is not the hard part, staying
sober in real-life, now that's
the hard part! Which leads me to
Number 5!
Not having a really good
aftercare plan for your kid after leaving rehab.
any time that you're
leaving any sort of addiction treatment, you want to move from the
level of care they're at to the
one just down from that to the one just down from that, it needs
to be a step down process, so that might look like
residential treatment, recovery residence,
intensive outpatient program, individual
counseling, regular meetings. And you can
see how the intensity in the
duration and frequency of treatment
gets a little less all the way. You do not
want to have somebody at a very high level of care
go from this step all the way down to this step
because it just doesn't work.
little baby steps of freedom,
of letting the rope out,
of accountability. All
of those things need to happen in little increments, if you want
to set them up for long-term recovery. Number
6, Not seeking help for the
whole family! There's no way that you've
put a kid in rehab without it causing
at least some amount of havoc in your household.
Between you and your spouse, between you and your kids
Between your kids and themselves,
between your spouse and your kids. Just because
your one kid went away to rehab, doesn't mean that
that's all fixed. Make sure
that you're addressing the family dynamics.
The faster the family gets better, the faster
the person will get better. Number 7,
You've heard me mention this one before. This one is,
Home Contracts. At Hope for Families,
We don't think home contracts work, in
fact, we think when parents set up home contracts
it actually just backs the parent
into the corner. If you haven't already,
make sure you check out that video where Campbell and I talk
in detail about why that is and what you should
do instead. The 8th mistake,
that parents make when bringing their kid home from rehab is that they
act weird! They don't know
what to talk about or that they
only talk about the addiction or
the recovery. You know what? Yes! It's
important to deal with that, but it doesn't have to be dealt with
24/7, in fact
Sometimes we have to tell parents, what day and time
they're allowed to talk about that because if let to
their own devices, they'll talk about nothing else. Or
there are these weird purple elephants all the way
around. It's okay just to be normal.
Just to talk about regular things like,
the Netflix show or the ball game.
Anything that you would normally talk about, doesn't have to be stressful.
Most of your conversations should be regular
normal conversations and yes,
there's a time and place to talk about difficult,
therapeutic family dynamics, but it shouldn't be all the time. If you're doing
that, your kid is just going to start to avoid you like the plague! Number 9,
You're constantly reminding your kid
about everything. Constantly reminding them that
they've got to do their community service, that they
have to be at work tomorrow at 8
that they need to go to their meetings, they they haven't called their
sponsor, they they have a therapist appointment on Wednesday.
Constantly being on their case.
This doesn't allow them to develop good,
young adult skills in life. Period.
You're got to back up and maybe they miss a meeting
and maybe they're late for their job and that's okay.
The Universe works, if you'll just
let it. It will teach them what they need to know. You just have to back
up and let that happen. I had a parent
ask me once, "can I remind of this"?
"Can I tell him this" I said yes, you can
you can tell him anything you want to one time!
But that's it! No more after that!
No constant reminding! You know what that's called? Nagging!
and that's the best way to get someone to tune you out
You want to get someone to not listen to you? Do that! It'll work.
Lastly, number 10, is
parents arguing and power-struggling over
little things that really don't matter!
This is simple. I call it,
PICK YOUR BATTLES. When I used to work on the adolescent
unit of the psych hospital, we used to say,
"that's just not the hill I wanna die on"
Do i want to spend my time and energy telling this kid to
pull up their pants and eat their vegetables? Or do I want to spend my time
and energy worrying about this kid doing heroin?
That's right! Pick your battles!
vegetables and broccoli
and clothing, and some of these other little things
that you're worried about, i'm not saying they're not important
I'm just saying they're not nearly as important
as this bigger battle that you're fighting. So
Let it go! Stop.
Every time you do that,
You're damaging your relationship with your kid
and ultimately it's that relationship that
has the power to heal your kid. So every time you
do that, you're taking some of your own
power away. So those are your top 10
Mistakes that parents make after
their kid leaves rehab