1.5
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[00:00:00] So the first wellbeing curve is, I mentioned the support cycle. And this also comes through the research that.
There's a positive support cycle that's possible or that occurs when a parent is support, strongly supportive of their child up here in the pink. And what we see is that parents support their child. The support allows the child to become And express themselves in more authentic ways. The child is happier or experiences greater well being and then the parent sees that the child is happier and feels more confident in their decision to support.
And so sometimes parents will support their child bit by bit and test out. Is this having a positive impact on my child's well being and mental health? And as they see that it is, they slowly are more and more supportive to the point that they that the child is quite well and the parent.
And that process can take a short time or a very long time, depending on how much support the parent gets really. And the level of articulation or resources that the child has to share with the parent. I, [00:01:00] this, I think this is useful, but it's fairly simplistic.
I I know this is slightly convoluted, but I think it is useful in that this. This is one that I put together based on what I see as a negative cycle in terms of the parent's experience, so that's in the black. So fear, which we discussed, confusion and doubt, which we discussed doubt and disbelief leading to overwhelm and inaction, leading to disconnection with the child, leading to the child experiencing poor mental health because they're disconnected from you and They haven't perceived you as supportive, potentially, or they've only perceived you as somewhat supportive.
And that then, because the child experiences poor mental health and there's disconnection, then there's greater fear on the part of the parent. So this is again, fairly simplistic and generalizing, but a common sort of sequence of events that I see occurring. And a really unfortunate one because, as you can see here, at any point in this, negative cycle.
[00:02:00] There are interventions that can happen which move you and your child both out into the green cycle. And so this is the way that we've developed this program is to try to bring in these things that then break parents out of the negative black cycle and into the green.
So at the point of fear, parents might be able to receive validation for the fear and insights about why they're fearful and whether or not those fears are accurate and helpful, or whether or not there are other more significant factors that they might focus on that they then feel more empowered to focus on because they have more information.
So validation insight can cause parents to move from fear to into a place of increased personal well being because their own emotional. needs have been somewhat attended to. Then, if they're experiencing confusion and doubt, of course they can be experiencing all of these things at once. But, with the confusion and doubt, they might need simply good quality information.
Which isn't very easy to come across, I've found. And in fact, [00:03:00] many of the parents I've spoken to have first come across misinformation which is very unfortunate. So really good information can quickly move parents from confusion and doubt to clarity. And that clarity is built layer by layer.
They have confusion and doubt about one aspect of it, and then they have clarity on that aspect. Then they have other questions and that leads to more clarity. And then they have other questions and that leads to more clarity. And they just build a picture that makes sense and is intuitive and logical to them.
Where they are able to understand their child's experience, they have a conceptualization around what's happening and how they can support their child. In the Overwhelming Inaction, there's a number of strategies and guidance that we've chosen to include in the course that I think support parents to enact support.
And with the disconnection, there's a number of strategies and tools that we provide. That regardless of whether or not there's understanding or clarity or fear there on the part of the parent, they're able to use that tool to respond to their child in a way that increases their level of connection, [00:04:00] which then would increase clarity because then you're receiving more information from the child.
If the child is experiencing poor mental health, And if the parent receives none of those interventions in the purple and is not able to any significant degree move into the green, then the only other pathway towards being both of you in the green cycle is through the child moving themself from experiencing poor mental health to increased well being.
And that that is just simply through time and probably therapy and finding community and online research and the child just growing and slowly over years, honestly.
Becoming more well, just through their own personal proactive effort and grip. And then the parent is able to say, okay, I see that my child is still identifying in this way and actually they look and seem much happier. Now I'm able to support and accept them. And then it becomes easier in their relationship.
But the child did [00:05:00] all of that work all alone. And there's a huge. relational wound there that they didn't have the support that they needed at the time of their life, which was probably the most difficult. So not only do we wish to support parents to support their child for the child's sake, because that's a painful long process, but also because the relationship between you doesn't need to include necessarily that distance for that long.
And also because some of these things in the purple don't need to be complicated either.
And particularly if you bring to group some of the questions that you have, or things that resonated or things that really didn't resonate, that you felt irked by, that's even more important
and just bringing whatever your experience is also just of how you're going the supportive cycle is one that is really rarely immediate or linear. And often people, parents get stuck at particular places because they receive and absorb misinformation.
And that frames gender identity as a pathology or a disorder. They fear regret, which we've discussed in [00:06:00] Cementation. By Cementation, I simply mean they're worried that if they, for example, use the language that the child is asking them to use, that by doing that, they're confirming something that's going to mean that name sets almost as if it's cement.
And that if that identity or that self identification as a transgender diverse person is incorrect, that they will be harming their child through having used that language with them and then, and contributing to that cementation of that identity. Very importantly, that is not how it works. What happens, actually, is that the child and the parent become polarized, where the child is again, like I said, not able to explore their identity, not able to reflect on their experiences because they're too busy defending against the doubt of the other and feeling hurt and rejected, frankly.
And and what really helps. And we'll talk about this a lot more when we talk about the Connection Week around language and reflection and [00:07:00] validation. Is that when we reflect to people what they say they are, how they say they feel, or the language they feel, they think might resonate for them. When we actually use that language back at them, they're able to hear it and sense whether or not it actually feels true and accurate and representative of them, and that there's some resonance.
So if someone's in a place of self, of gender exploration or gender questioning, or they're playing around with different names and pronouns, Or if they're saying, these are my pronouns, this is my name, I really want you to use them. You're not contributing to any form of segmentation by using it, in fact it's the contrary.
You're actually allowing them to feel and hear whether or not it resonates. And if it does resonate, you're likely to see feeling quite well and happy and closer to you. And if it doesn't resonate, They're free to change their mind because they don't have to defend against your doubt. And so the most powerful thing you can do to actually escalate their [00:08:00] process of self discovery is to simply reflect exactly what they're telling you the language that they're saying that they want.
And The other way that parents often get stuck is that sometimes they're supportive initially, but they just face so much criticism and doubt and judgment from people in their life, that they start to worry that they're wrong to be supporting their child in these ways, or that maybe someone sends them an article that's It's horribly misinformed and transphobic and they're not sure, like it's confusing.
And so they, they really don't know what to do and they get stuck. And so when there's a positive cycle that we can get into, and also we can slip out of that at times. And but when you, the further you move into it and the more well your child is and the closer you are in your relationship due to that, the easier it is to stay there.
And I just want to leave you with some kind of quotes of what it looks like to be on the positive cycle from the parent's perspective. This one says, the person who was Mary was a sad, lost, very hard person to reach. There was so many things that I don't [00:09:00] miss about that person, and I'm so happy that Eric is who he is, because it's like a 180 degree difference, literally.
This one is from another article . With the help of professional support, I realized that if he lived fully as a boy, he would be able to deal better with the anxiety with going to school and everything else.
And they were right. It was like magic. And this last one says, She seemed to walk taller and with more confidence. An assertiveness I'd never known in her emerged. All of my initial fears about her transition ultimately fell like dominoes. Her friends showered her with support and admiration.
Our family members accepted the transition with compassion. Her future was as bright as I'd always hoped and she was infinitely happier than she'd ever been. The enigmatic loneliness I'd always sensed in Steven was nowhere to be found in Sarah. Who is now thriving in her career [00:10:00] path, pursuing all her interests, and engaged to her adoring boyfriend.
So that brings us to the end of Module 1, and I just want to say thanks for sticking it through. And we're really looking forward to having you all together on Thursday night at 7. 30, Melbourne time. And we'll see you, we'll see you then. Please come as you are and it will be wonderful to chat. Alright.
