These past couple of weeks I’ve been under COVID protocol due to contact tracing and thus all of my sessions have taken place via Zoom. My office at home is located in the 2nd floor in a nook between the master bedroom and the stairs which makes my voice travel when I’m talking to people or music blare when I get lost listening to my fav playlists.
Even though I wear headphones and my conversations are kept private, my kids can’t help but know when I’m “on air”. They adjust their volumes downstairs, do not come upstairs, and keep a low profile. When I ask them how do they know I was in a session, they say “we could tell because of how upbeat you were talking”. This is different than when I’m FaceTiming friends and family. Apparently there’s an aura/energy given to clients, that doesn’t translate to family and friends. It’s neither good or bad, it just is.
This is why it’s simply not possible for me, or Tracy for that matter, to be our kids’ therapists. We can be their parents, but not their therapists. Therapists can give my kids things we can’t, and the other way around is also true. In short, we all need each other. It’s funny, sometimes our kids tell us things their counselors have told them and we have to literally bite our tongue since we have said the E X A C T same thing to them before…. but it doesn’t land the same way. As the old adage goes, it takes a village.
Thank God for community, for support, and the gift of interconnectedness!
