Quote from: Sophia Hawke on December 01, 2013, 07:39:01 AM
Kabit, i just think forcing it, can hinder rather than help. And being supportive, and caring, while trying to suggest a course of action has less chance of causing anyone(let alone a teenager) from clamming up. i can only speak from my personal experience though since ive never been a parent. I also feel like giving him or any young person going through this some advice/facts up front to be highly beneficial in getting them to explore it. One of those, if i knew what i knew now things. Like if i knew how bad the feeling was going to get, i never would have waited to figure it all out.
As a parent you can force the issue in such a way that makes the kid feel good about it. You can also force the issue in a way that makes the kid closet up for a very long time. I suggest the former... let the kid know that it's just someone to talk to... that (as long as he's not in physical danger to himself or others) the therapist won't be sharing anything that is said. That it's OK to just talk to someone and there's no stigma associated with that. You can force the issue by being very convincing, even if he doesn't want to do it. If he still doesn't want to... you may need to explore why -- parents are all therapists (and not often very good ones)... but if you and he both think he has a gender identity condition, it needs to be explored with a therapist sooner than later!
I was offered a therapist at ~15. . . after being told that I couldn't be trans (not gay), that I wouldn't make a very good woman, and that I wouldn't find love..... basically I saw the therapist offer as a chance to "fix" me and I didn't want to be fixed that way. I'd also seen one once before because of some school issues -- I did not feel safe telling him about my gender problems at that time because I was young (5th grade) and didn't understand any of it for myself. I may also have been "convinced" to let him know that I'm normal and OK - since it was more of a schoolwork issue than a personal problems issue (the teachers that year were absolutely terrible and the smarter kids acted out against it - they had problems with two of us like that).
