Parents: Launching Pads and Guidance Systems

At fourteen she was fawning over a guy. The guy was also fourteen.

School was a distant afterthought for her. What she wanted was that boy.

He was a decent boy. Naïve. Good family. She certainly distracted him.

He was also her distraction. She needed distraction from her life at home.

She put on a brave face. She presented so lovely. It was a mask.

The mask covered all that she saw. All that she lived. It was the stuff of nightmares.

With that boy, she was a million miles away.

It would catch up with her. Her life was a house of cards. She would find herself lost. Her family imploded. She had nothing. Nothing but that boy.

As he became her everything, his life was being derailed by hers. He couldn’t meet the intense needs, the high emotions, the shifting moods.

It was a relationship that couldn’t last. He felt trapped though. He needed to let go. He worried for her welfare. He felt responsibility. He was in over his head. It was beyond his ability to process.

Eventually his parents jumped between. They took the weight of decisions the boy couldn’t.

It left the girl with nothing. She became a ward of the state, her development frozen.

His relationship with his parents was rocky for a bit. Eventually he moved on. It wouldn’t be until his thirties that he could more fully appreciate the dynamics of these times.

Her trajectory was like a rocket whose tank exploded on lift off. Pieces scattered.

It would take years to put together the pieces of her life and personality.

Families are launching pads. They send their kids off like astronauts to the stars.

Hopefully we are not only launching pads, but also their guidance system.

We can see the difference come adolescence and adulthood between those whose ascendance to the stars are from a sturdy launching pad and good guidance system and those who are from neither.

---

Are you following me on Facebook yet? If not, you are missing many more posts!

I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

gary@yoursocialworker.com
www.yoursocialworker.com for counseling and support

www.garydirenfeld.com – to build your successful practice

Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.