Parents at the Appointment: Tips for Navigating Your Child’s Mental Healthcare

The following is an excerpt from my friend and fellow mental health advocate Kirsten Panachyda’s new book Among Lions, available for sale now at Amazon.

As a parent with children with mental health issues, she has taken her tests through those times and turned them into a testimony and guide:

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The entry on the calendar constantly stabbed at the back of my thoughts, even when I managed to push it away from the front. Big, heart-rending decisions loomed once time had ticked by to The Day. Instead of preparing, I made the mistake of checking out mentally as much as I could. I pushed through, disconnected and anxious. I reduced all effort to bare minimum, thinking I could preserve myself that way. Instead, I cut myself off from friends, life-giving activities, and even from God.

 

The week before, I was as nervous as I get. It was like the morning before a big race, the walk up to the stage, the seat outside the principal’s office, the night before surgery. I couldn’t eat, or else I ate a box of cookies. I couldn’t sleep, or I took a long nap instead of taking care of necessary tasks. I shook and had trouble catching my breath. I was a mess.

 

The day came and our son Nicholas went first. My husband Dan and I sat in the waiting room. I stared blindly at my book, hardly bothering to pretend I was reading. Dan fidgeted and worked on a crossword. Someone on the other side of the partition wall used a microwave to heat up a TV dinner and the vaguely plastic smell of the food made my stomach feel sick. My trembling fingers shredded a tissue. Finally Dr. Duncan, our son’s psychiatrist, came to the doorway and gestured for us to head into the office.

 

Appointments for our kids can be emotionally charged and intimidating. This is true whether we are at the beginning of a journey or the kid has been struggling with mental or emotional health for a while. I wish I’d had the tools to navigate appointments better early on, but I’m grateful for the wisdom that eventually came from experience and the advice of fellow moms.

 

For other moms coming after me in the journey of caring for a kid with mental illness, I hope for that wisdom sooner. How can we make the appointments as effective and helpful as possible? And just as important: how can we navigate the appointment as the parent while guarding our peace?

 

The very word “prepare” gives the reason why tucking some pointers into our toolboxes now is a good idea. “Pre” literally means “before.” So the time to think through an upcoming appointment is well before the moment you enter the building.

 

Before the Appointment:

• Write down a list of topics/questions you want to address.
• Check over medications: do you need renewed prescriptions? Are there any changes you think should be made?
• Mentally prepare. There might be distressing surprises. Your kid might make you the object of blame.
• Bring a pen you like. (There are always more forms.) This one little thing makes me feel better. For you, it might not be a pen. It might be your water bottle, or a hard candy, or your comfortable shoes.

 

During the appointment:

• Know the provider will probably speak with your kid alone first.
• Be honest and share anything you think will be helpful.
• Remember it’s not your appointment; save your therapy for your therapist.
• Don’t press the provider or your kid to divulge what they talked about in private. The provider will tell you (if your kid is a minor) if she believes there is danger, but most will otherwise keep confidentiality if the kid requests it.
• Respect the provider’s professional opinion and expertise, but don’t be afraid to ask questions or disagree with a course of treatment.
• Don’t answer for your kid or your spouse.
• Listen to everyone in the room with the goal of understanding. It’s easy to get defensive; try not to be overtaken by that feeling.

 

Can you help expand this list? What do you do to prepare for an appointment? Are there things you wish you had done/known? If you are or have been “the kid” in this experience, what do you think parents should know?

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Kirsten Panachyda is a writer, speaker, Bible teacher, and “retired” homeschooling mom. She lives in Central New York with her husband, Dan. They have two young adult sons, who were homeschooled from birth through high school. They are not a bread-baking, gardening, matching-outfit-wearing kind of family. They are a roller-coaster-riding, travel-loving, blue-hair-dying kind of family. They love Jesus and each other, but there is still a certain amount of sarcasm and sass.

Softened by the experience of parenting a son with mental illness, Kirsten writes and speaks to infuse courage into the soul-weary. Her blog can be found at Kirstenp.com. She also writes historical fiction. If you see a dreamy look on her face, she is probably either wandering the byways of ancient Britain in her imagination, or wishing for a cup of coffee.