Dear Therapist  

My 18 year old daughter has been having issues with frumkeit, and seems to be moving in the wrong direction. She has had trouble with anxiety and trust issues in the past and seems generally unhappy. My other kids are being affected by her constant anger and comments.  My husband and I find ourselves constantly arguing over the proper way to handle the situation, and we feel that there’s no one to whom we can turn for help.  How can we properly deal with this as a couple and as a family?  How can my husband and I help my daughter deal with all of her issues while respecting her choices even if we don't agree with them?

Response

Very often, a significant portion of a parent’s emotional reaction to a child’s behavior is due to the parent’s sense that she must have done something wrong, or that she is being judged by others as based on her child’s actions.  It’s important to recognize that your situation is not at all unusual.  Though it’s easy to feel that you’re alone in this and that everyone else seems to have kids, families, and lives without major issues, this is in no way true. 

When we have strong feelings about something important to us, we often get the sense that we would clearly see such strong emotion in others if they were going through something similar.  Therefore, if we don’t see these emotions, we assume that all is well with others, and that we’re the only ones dealing with these kinds of issues.  Even when we intellectually recognize that someone else has a particular problem with one of their kids, since we don’t see or feel their pain—and we don’t judge them—our level of emotion with regard to the problem is significantly minimized.  We can therefore see the issue much more clearly.

If your husband has considerable insecurities related to the situation and you don’t, or vice-versa, or you each have different insecurities (i.e., one of you wants to be seen as open-minded and the other wants to be seen as perfect), this can lead to substantial differences in your responses.  This could also lead to one or both of you feeling that the other is uncaring or unsupportive.  In addition, when parents are in constant disagreement about something so important, the children pick up on this (even when the parents believe that they are being surreptitious about it).  Often, the negative impact on the family and children is caused or exacerbated by the parents’ reactions rather than those of a particular child.

Sometimes I will ask a client to imagine a close friend confiding in them about the exact same predicament that they are experiencing, and to imagine their own response to their friend.  The result is often that they much more clearly identify an appropriate response, and sometimes are quite adamant about it.  When this occurs, they can more easily separate their situational concerns from their own insecurities, and focus on the former.  Your husband and you can try doing this together in order to isolate the actual problem and to appropriately deal with it.  No one knows your daughter better than you do.  Once you’re able to focus on the issues with less emotional interference, you might find that you know exactly what to say and do in order to help your daughter.

If your daughter feels that her role in the family (and perhaps in the community and in life) is being defined by her family’s sense that she is a rebel or a maverick, she can easily accept that label and allow it to become a large part of her sense of self.  If your husband and you are on the same page, it’s likely that your daughter’s actions within the family will moderate, and you might find her being less obviously angry. 

If she feels that your husband and you are reacting from a logical place without emotional judgement, your daughter’s anxiety and trust issues can also improve.  That being said, there may be a deeper source for her issues with trust and anxiety.  If you believe that this may be the case, it would be a good idea to broach with her the subject of seeking professional help, bearing in mind her level of sensitivity to her sense that she is being judged as problematic. 

With regard to your daughter’s issues with frumkeit, there are many rabbonim who have experience in these matters, and who can help you to handle the situation with sensitivity so that neither your daughter nor you feel like you’re being judged.

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