When you are legally or financially reliant on your parent's permission, it can be difficult to know how to ask your parents for therapy so you can get help for your mental health struggles.
I would love to introduce you to a strategy called DEAR MAN.
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What is DEAR MAN?
DEAR MAN is a communication strategy that we use in Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help you ask for what you need more effectively.
Now again, this is not a 100% guarantee.
You could potentially execute all the strategies absolutely 100% correctly and clear, and the answer might still be no.
Stay open, stay curious:
→ It could be that your parents might need more time to process this new information.
→ It may also be that they don't necessarily have the time, energy or resources to dedicate to this request right now.
→ It doesn't mean that it could be potentially a forever no, or maybe it really will be a no while you're a teenager.
→ That doesn't mean that you can't make some efforts to improve your mental health now, while you are waiting to become a certain age or a situation where you are more independent and autonomous and able to make these decisions for yourself.
I will tell you the teen years end for everybody, hopefully successfully, but once you enter into that next phase of life you have a lot more legal choices and options. Now, of course, those have outcomes as well and consequences but right now let's stay focused on why you even came to this video, which is how to ask your parents for therapy….
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I happen to really love group therapy as y'all know. I have several Teen Growth Therapy Groups that I run out of my office for teens that are physically based in Connecticut and New York. *That's because of licensing laws, that's not my choice. Take it up with the law, it's not me. I don't make the laws, but I do still gotta follow them.
So group therapy is a little bit different than individual counseling. And so it might take a little bit more to ask your parents to consider group therapy as an option which is why I’ll use this for my example.
So let's jump into how to use this strategy using the example of asking your parents to sign you up for Group Therapy.
How to Use DEAR MAN to ask your parents for therapy
The DEAR part of DEAR MAN is what you say, and the MAN part is how you say it. So let's start with the MAN part.
M= Mindful
Is this a good time for you? Is this a good time for them? I happen to be someone who gets very stressed out when I'm cooking. If somebody tries to have a conversation with me when I'm in the kitchen, trying to make something even if it's just boiling a pot of water I get very emotionally dysregulated, very easily. The people in my life know when Mallory is in the kitchen just like let her be until she's got some food in her belly, then you can talk, or at least if you don't want monster Mallory coming out.
So if somebody were wanting to have a serious conversation with me, I already know that my stress level is gonna be super high when I'm in the kitchen, trying to make food. So I would recommend that they wait until after, or let me know, like, "Hey after you're done here, "can we talk about something?" Then I could say, "Yeah, no problem." versus just kind of entering the room and saying, "So there's this situation I've been wanting "to talk with you about. "It's really been bothering me."
Make sure that your parents are in a good state of mind where they can give you their full attention and focus as well.
A = Appear confident
You wanna be very clear, direct, and kind in what it is that you're asking for with your parents. If you leave it open and you say, "Oh, I'd like help,” or “I'd like to work with a therapist," and you know that you want a certain kind of help or a certain type of therapist to work with, you've gotta be clear in that request too. Because maybe they link you up with somebody who does music therapy, which could be awesome and excellent, but that's not the kind of help that you were looking for.
Definitely be clear in this and do a little research ahead of time, practice it, write it out. You reading or watching this video post right now is already great in terms of improving your self-esteem and asking for what you want and what you need. So you are doing an excellent job already.
So if you've been here a few weeks, you already know I'm doing some major upgrades to the Coping Skills Crash Course right now.
This Coping Skills Crash Course program is all about helping you learn different coping skills that are available so that you can personalize them to your situation and your needs.
We have a whole breakdown on the different types of coping skills and when and how to use them, and there are some really cool bonuses in there as well.
Definitely wanna sign up for that, if you're wanting a deeper dive into how to coping skills for your unique situation.
N = Negotiate
Be willing to negotiate. Perhaps your parents can't afford a therapist right now for you, but they can save up, and in a few weeks they can consider getting you a mental health therapist.
Maybe they don't necessarily believe in mental health therapy as an option right now, but they do believe in consulting with another type of healer or helper. That's okay too.
I will say I tend to be partial to mental health therapy because that's what I personally have found helpful. I've made a career out of it and I make these videos about it, but I will also tell you that there is value in a variety of different helpers.
There are many paths to healing, mental health therapy is not the only way, though it is a pretty great way.
Okay, so let's get in into what to say when you ask your parents for therapy
Remember, for the DEAR part for what to say:
Describe the situation
Express your thoughts and opinions
Ask for it
Reward the other person
So let's walk through an example of how to ask for group therapy because you've been feeling really moody and irritable lately. I think most teenagers can relate to that, right?
So to describe the situation you want to literally say something like,
"I'm sure you've noticed I've been a lot more moody and irritable lately."
Most parents, if that's true, aren't gonna disagree.
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Then you want to express your thoughts and opinions.
This is an excellent opportunity to speak from an “I” perspective, use those “I feel” statements to share your thoughts and opinions about the situation that is leading to this request.
When your parents can understand why this is important to you, and how you think that this could be helpful, it's more likely that they're going to say yes or at least consider saying yes in the future.
Keep in mind they might need more information or they might not be able to give a hard yes or no right now.
So an example of expressing your thoughts and opinions on this is,
"I feel really overwhelmed and out of control when I feel irritable and angry like this because I think I just don't know what to do."
Then you want to ask for it. What is it that you're wanting to request from your parents?
In this particular situation, a really simple way to ask for it is,
"Can you sign me up for group therapy?"
Clear, direct, and kind.
Then you wanna make sure that you are rewarding the other person. Now, this is where I see people get this part wrong over and over again because they're trying to think about what information they would need to convince themselves to say yes to themselves.
You've already done that. You already know what you want, and you've already understood why that would be beneficial for yourself. Now you've gotta think about it from the other person's perspective.
So from your parents' point of view, why would signing you up for group therapy be beneficial to them? I mean, they're gonna have to put a lot of time, energy, financial commitment, and potentially scheduling to make this happen for you. So why would they put that energy and effort out that in a way, that's going to be beneficial to them?
And it's gotta be more than because they love you and you are their sweet dear child. Of course, they do, and of course, they would probably move mountains for you but that's not the situation here. So you've gotta make it particular to the situation and not just this warm, fuzzy feeling.
So when it comes to rewarding your parents in this situation, you wanna think about how this would be beneficial and useful to them too.
A simple way to think about potentially rewarding your parents is to say something like,
"Connecting with other kids who are going through similar situations as me would definitely help me feel less lonely and isolated, and it might actually help me feel better to learn from them. Then I can teach you guys the strategies that I learn too. And wouldn't that be cool if we could have a conversation without biting each other's heads off?"
That's probably the big reward.
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