Often we say as parents " I don't want to push him/ her " why? What is going to happen ? What is it that we as parents are ultimately afraid of?

We hated the" melt down" when they were little but as they've grown so has it .  

Is it the embarrassment of others watching or the fear of explosive rage, or the incomprehensible crying and screaming, The dropping to the ground with the emotional and physical exhaustion apparent for the world to see.

Is it the utter turmoil as the individual can withdraw and become lost behind unseeing eyes as they recoil in their comatose state.

I don't know but I do know that the biggest challenge as a parent is watching your teen become lost, watching them become isolated as they start to regress in the social / emotional steps they have walked before.  They regress back to the safer behaviors of their past, they  hide from the world and its oh so many challenges.

We hear often as parents "I can't do this", " I don't want to go" but sometimes scarily  we hear "I don't want to be here anymore". " I want to die". 

Our hearts rip  apart, our lives change forever. We stop pushing we stop challenging.   We wrap them up in cotton wool and we hold hem as close as we can. We watch, we listen and we pray.

We look for Help, we scream  for it, although so many times we have to wait, we're told to be patient.

We're told they're on the waiting list or according to the " charts" they're not a risk yet as the haven't done anything  and to come back when or if it gets worse.

So we sit, we wait, we watch as our child becomes more isolated, we read everything we can get our hands on and yet everyone says get the out there, but nobody ever tells me HOW.

So I go back to The Beginning

I know what the reaction will be if I push or I challenge, I know how much inner turmoil this causes my child. I know how scared they are, how unsure of the situation they are.  I know because I'm the parent, I know my child, I can not only see their pain.  I feel their pain. How do we do this ? How do we expect them to grow socially and emotionally when everything is causing them pain?

We break each thing down 

We show them how 

We tell them we believe in them 

We walk the journey with them 

Because the alternative of a life locked away in a room isn't the answer.