What's happening.
Your 15-year-old, after a hard week of family fights: “I told my therapist about the fight we had Tuesday. The whole thing.” You feel exposed.
What we usually say — and why it backfires.
You WHAT? That was a private family thing!
She's my THERAPIST. That's what she's for.
There are some things you don't tell strangers about our family.
(absorbs that the therapy is now contested territory; stops sharing real things there too)
- “You WHAT” treats therapy as gossip rather than the confidential safe-space-with-an-expert that it is.
- “Don't tell strangers about our family” teaches the teen that family loyalty trumps personal mental health — the most-cited harmful family dynamic in trauma therapy.
- Long-term: the teen will stop using therapy productively, OR stop using YOU as a confidant, OR both.
What works — and why.
Okay. Good. That's literally what she's there for. Was talking about it helpful — did anything come up for you?
...yeah, actually. She helped me see I was holding onto something from last year that wasn't really about Tuesday.
Huh. Interesting. If at some point you want to share that with me, I'd want to hear it — not to defend, just to understand. And separately — anything that comes up about me in therapy, you should feel completely free to bring up. I'd rather you process it there than have it leak out as resentment later.
- “Good. That's literally what she's there for” reframes the parent's exposure as the therapy doing its job.
- Asking what came up for them treats therapy as the developmental tool it is.
- “I'd rather you process it there than have it leak out as resentment later” is the mature parental position that makes therapy genuinely useful.
Key phrases to reach for in the moment.
- Good. That's literally what she's there for.
- Was talking about it helpful — did anything come up for you?
- Anything that comes up about me in therapy, you should feel completely free to bring up.
- I'd rather you process it there than have it leak out as resentment later.