![]() June is the month to explore men and male related issues. What is it like to be male? What has influenced you to be the person that you have become today? Being a therapist, this subject comes up more often than you might except. Just last week, my Facebook and other news feeds seem to have settled down with their fixation on the Bruce-Caitlyn Jenner transformation. To some the question of being male is instinctual, loaded with all the assumptions we take for granted, but to one who is trans-gendered, the question itself becomes a process to dissect and organize. I do not pretend to be an expert in such gender related issues, but as I write this article, I currently have a 4 year old child and a seventeen year old teen on my caseload struggling with gender identity questions. In addition, I see a preschooler with two mommies and a married bi-sexual woman. I was born with curly hair; my daughter has red. Two of my brothers are left handed and an uncle is gay. Genetic variances are all around and everywhere; they are what set us apart and distinguish us from others. Is this how we explain the one confused about their gender identity or knowing that they were born in the wrong body? I really do not know the answer. Two years ago I saw a little boy in play therapy struggling through a divorce. His little 2 year old brother waited for him in the waiting adorned with beads, wearing a princess costume. Week after week his toddler sibling wore something fun and feminine. I never gave it a second thought until mom called again 2 years later. Now little brother is in pre-k and is determined that he is a girl. Mom and dad have allowed “her” to grow out her hair, wear girls clothes, and use the “she “ pronoun. This little one is not choosing to dress like…in her mind she IS a girl. Just a girl with an unfortunate penis. Another child is a senior at a prestigious private school for the gifted. I am seeing her primarily because she has Lyme disease and is struggling to cope. She talks about what it is like to be a girl but to also feel like being a girl is not right, not her. So, she wears baggy sweatshirts to conceal her breasts and cuts her hair in such a way that she looks a bit neutral. To this bright teen, she feels as if she is destined to be a boy, yet she really wants the easy road. What she really wants is to feel congruent in her own skin. To feel at home being a girl. I am not here to pretend I understand what this feels like or why an individual feels trapped in the wrong gender identity. But one thing I know for sure. These individuals are not choosing it, but rather the path is choosing them. What must it be like to feel incongruent every moment of every day. If there is one thing I can trust, it is my gender and the idea that I am without a doubt a woman. To me, this is a basic fact that I do not think about or wonder about, it is just an is. To worry about which restroom to enter or what pronoun to use and to always feel like someone somewhere was not going to accept you and was probably going to hurt you is unimaginable. To walk through life with people who are vocal and do not understand you or for whatever reason could not find love and tolerance to allow your differences to be yours sounds exhausting. The teen I mentioned above is in the hospital now, wanting to die. Wanting to end her life and stop the suffering and anguish. A week before she tried to take her life she asked me a breath-taking question. “Gabrielle, do you think my Lyme disease could be effecting my brain and making me not want to be a girl? I can’t stand this inner fight any longer. I just want to feel right and ok.” How can we not show love to such a person? How could I feel anything but compassion and understanding for someone who has a road so challenging and difficult, she would find it easier to end life itself? Tolerance. Love. Understanding. Support. Sometimes the road to be a successful man or a virtuous woman is harder than we could ever imagine. Maybe, just maybe we can open our hearts and minds to allow ourselves to remember that we almost never have the full story or the entire picture of what one’s daily walk is truly about. Offering the kind of love and support any of us would need to feel congruent within ourselves would seem the only response for anyone with a compassionate heart. I can’t imagine a more loving path than to demonstrate acceptance and understanding ourselves.
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![]() I am a mother of two. I hear myself frequently talking about the act of practicing with my children. Now that my daughter is approaching her teen years, the talks become more focused on her actions of practicing to be a woman and all of the roles that that could entail. What is it like to be a woman? What type of woman do I want my daughter to become? I ask myself these questions and find myself growing within the process too. Helping a young woman find her feminine balance is not an easy task. When helping a teen in my office navigate this path, I take the job very seriously. What responsibility we have, those of us who offer guidance to girls of all ages. How much of our guidance comes from our own pasts? Our own experiences. Helping Teen Girls Evolve Their Core IdentityGirls hear messages from so many places and find what they believe to be facts from many faulty sources. Teaching teens to mindfully choose their paths means that these girls need to have a strong well-rooted core identity. I often find that this is not the case. How can a girl know who she is in her relationships if she is unsure of whom she truly is? One of my favorite things to do in the therapy office is to help middle and high school girls identify and evolve their authentic selves; to piece by piece develop that core identity. I can’t tell you how many times I have received a phone call from a parent looking for a particularly labeled therapy to stop their daughter from cutting or thinking about suicide. SO many times, I find myself coming back to helping these girls love themselves and become in touch with their core identity When girls practice being a woman, they make conscious decisions to bridge the lives of today with their lives of tomorrow. Children learn that babysitting is practicing to be a mother and diligence with chores is practicing to be a reliable employee and loving a sibling is practice for loving a spouse. None of it matters if our girls are not well rooted in who they are. Our Responsibility to Model What it is Like to be an Authentic WomanIt is our job as the adults in these girl’s lives to mentor them with love and respect. To explain the ways of life and the world and to teach them what it means to be authentic. Our children need our guidance and support. Our girls need us to not only tell them what it is like to be a woman, but to show them what this is like. To model for them a love of one’s body. To show love and kindness to their dad and friends. To be authentic both at home and within their community. Finding the Portal into Our Girls' Feminine WorldsGirls today have so many sources competing to teach them what it is like to be a woman. Making sure that our example, our voice is the loudest and most believable of them all has to be a deliberate focus. Sometimes this means as parents that we look for the openings that our children present to us and use them as opportunities to help teach them about life. I find myself brainstorming with parents of teens often to help them identify these doorways. Some children are more open in the car, others become vulnerable and connect when alone with the parent at a restaurant. I remember one mom of a distant teen found value in climbing into bed with her daughter to have night chats in the dark. Look for the portal into your child’s world. Although it is often camouflaged with brush and other prickly bushes, chances are it does exist. Girls do not learn to navigate life on their own, but they will find information both right, wrong, helpful and detrimental. It is our job as parents and the helping professionals in their lives to guide them and teach them how to be authentic and women they can respect and love. Gabrielle Anderson is the mother of 2 and the director/owner of the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc
![]() When I first became a therapist, I worked in a handful of hospitals, day treatment centers and school settings that implemented behavior modification systems. I think it is just as important to notice what works as well as pick up on why a system might not be effective. In my experience, it is important to have a system that is balanced. One that looks at stopping negative behavior all the while shaping positive behavior that you want to see. Systems that focus on praise alone will miss the opportunity of teaching a child self discipline and natural consequences. Reflectively, systems that focus on punishing negative behavior or discipline alone miss the chance to build up the child and help him strive for positive behavior. Avoiding punishment is not the same as an internalized locus of control. Behavior Plan Part 1: Stop the Negative Behavior: |
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