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Expert Q&A

	By Paul Coleman Psychologist Family Therapist

I feel my 11-year-old daughter needs to see a therapist, but my wife thinks I'm overreacting. What should we do?

Most people consider getting professional help when their child exhibits symptoms or behavioral problems that are recurrent, difficult to change (or reduce) through common sense methods, or which interfere in the child's or family's life. So for example, many children will act defiantly. But if defiance persists no matter what the parents do, or if the defiance leads to risky activities or interferes with normal functioning (sneaking out of the home at night; school refusal, etc.) then professional help is a good idea.

It is not unusual for one parent to think therapy is a good idea and the other to think it is premature or unnecessary. A good question to ask is, "Under what conditions would the other parent think therapy would be warranted?" (Or think that therapy was no longer warranted.) Sometimes, the parent who thinks therapy is helpful has had a good experience with therapy or is the one most adversely affected by a child's problems.

A more subtle problem exists when the parents often disagree about childrearing and the therapy issue is just one more area of disagreement. Then, each may take a more extreme position as a reaction to all the past parenting disagreements. When that is the case, a better idea would be for the couple to see a therapist first. Recurrent disagreements about parenting can be a major reason why a child's behavior problem is not going away.

Lastly, many childhood behavioral problems are caused or made worse by other family problems (usually marital problems). If the parents are not satisfied with their relationship, it will be difficult for them to work as an effective team when parenting.

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