As a parent, you’ve spent so much of your life making decisions and appointments for your child. There is a lot that kids aren’t even allowed to do, so it makes sense that you were responsible for things like dentist and doctor and even counseling appointments.
But what happens when your child isn’t exactly a child anymore? What if your child is now over 18 and legally an adult? Can you set up a counseling appointment for your adult child?
At (or before!) your first appointment, your counselor should explain to you that everything you say will be kept confidential. This means that they won’t go sharing your business with other people without your permission. No, we can’t go home and tell our families what you tell us in session. We usually can’t even tell YOUR family what you tell us in session. There are a few professional exceptions though, and these are the only occasions when it is appropriate for a counselor to share what you’ve shared with somebody else.
January tends to be a time for new year’s resolutions - commitments to pick up new habits or maybe kick old nasty ones. The problem is that even though most of us start strong, our resolutions are usually toast by MLK Day. If we start out SO committed, then how and why do we fail to keep up with our resolutions?
While it might not feel strange to check your bank account online or FaceTime with a friend, the idea of video counseling can challenge our ideas of what feels comfortable to do online. Most of us have an idea of what counseling looks like, and it usually involves a couch of some sort and maybe some questions about your mom. Never fear: With video counseling, you can still have the couch (and the questions about your mom), but it just might be your couch instead of a stranger’s.
