Amber Hollingsworth gives a short, practical YouTube talk for parents of adolescents/young adults who completed rehab, arguing they should not bring their child back home. She lists five reasons: (1) recovery requires changing "people, places and things," (2) returning creates a parental "bad cop" role and power struggles, (3) those dynamics prevent the child from learning from mistakes, (4) it harms spousal and sibling relationships and family system stability, and (5) it blocks development of young-adult life skills and self-confidence. She notes exceptions for minors (<18) and points viewers to a related video about home contracts.
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This is the top five reasons why you should never ever bring your kid home. As in back to your house from rehab. Parents, I really cannot emphasize enough why this is so important all the time. We see parents spend years of time, money and heartache trying to get their kid into rehab. And as soon as it's over, of course the kid wants to come back home. Of course they say I'm gonna go to meetings, of course they say I'm gonna be good or whatever it is, and they probably mean it. And it's easier to bring them home, it's less expensive. They're acting so much better now and you miss them and you want to bring them home. And, and in this video, I'm going to tell you exactly why it's a huge mistake. In fact, I'm going to tell you five reasons why it's a huge mistake. And number five is probably the very most important reason. Number one, why you shouldn't bring your kid home is a very simple recovery rule. People, places and things you see in recovery, we say you have to change your playmates, your playgrounds and your play things. Because if you keep putting yourself in the same old situations, you, you're gonna keep doing the same old behavior. That's a basic recovery early on skill. You really have to change all that. And so if you have a teenager or young adult and you're bringing them back into the environment where they were previously drinking or using, it's gonna be so much harder for them to stay sober. They're gonna have lots of friends in town or that they run around with that have that expectation. And probably one of the things that they're gonna think is gonna be, you know what? I'm not gonna drink or use, but I'm, I'm still gonna, but I'm still gonna hang out with my friends. I'll just tell them not to do it around me or not to let me do it. Trust me, that's a terrible, terrible, terrible plan and it will not work. People, places and things. And I know you might be thinking, well, they can get drugs anywhere. That is so true. But it's a different ball game when you're looking at avoiding finding new people, places and things than it is when you feel like you can't even walk into the gas station to pump your gas and there's a friend there that says, hey man, I hadn't seen you in forever, you want to go smoke a bowl or whatever it is. It's really hard to say no to people that you already know. And Have a relationship with way harder than it is to stay out of trouble in a different place. Reason number two, this is a biggie. It's going to put you there. The parent in the bad cop role. This is probably the number one reason why I don't want your kid to come back home. Because even if they're not planning to relapse, even if they don't relapse, they're still going to make mistakes. They're still going to do dumb things. They're still not going to eat their vegetables or stay out too late or not get enough sleep or sleep too late in the mornings. And it's going to drive you crazy, and you're gonna have to say something about it. And when you do, they're gonna get defensive. And when they get defensive, you're gonna get defensive. And before long, you guys are back in the same old power struggle that you used to be locked in. Which leads me to reason number three. Once you're in that kind of power struggle with your kid and they make a mistake and you're the one that has to have a conversation with them and correct it, then they don't learn from those mistakes. The reason they don't learn is because they get really preoccupied, mean you are, how unfair you are. They build these resentments, and they focus on the parents as the problem and not the behavior or choice as the problem. And the first thing we do at Hope for Families is get parents and kids out of that dynamic. Because as long as the kid can make the parent be the bad guy, the longer that they'll stay drinking and using because they feel justified, it helps distract them from their own stuff that they need to deal with. So it will slow them down from learning the lessons that they need to learn. Reason number four, it's going to cause problems between you and your spouse and. Or the other kids in the house, that is your child's brothers and sisters. Because what tends to happen in family systems is you've always got the good cop parent and the bad cop parent, and there's a lot of disagreement on how to handle it. Oftentimes the siblings feel like it's not fair how mom and dad are treating their brother or sister or. Or they resent the fact that everything in the family revolves around this one person and this one issue. It's going to cause problems in the family dynamic. I bet once your kid was away in rehab, you noticed pretty quickly the calmness in the house, how everything was so much better. Well, if you've enjoyed that so much better. Do not bring this person back into your home, even if they're better. That's exactly why I'm telling you not to bring them back home so, so that they can stay better. Okay, this is the last reason, and I told you this might be the most important one. Number five is if you bring them back into your house, it doesn't allow them to develop those young adult. Those young adult skills that are so necessary for life. And they don't develop that sense of competency, which leads to confidence, which leads to a good self esteem, which leads to, I'm proud of myself, I feel good about myself, I know I can handle my business. And that is so very important to recovery. In fact, I say recovery is all about becoming a person that you like again. And if mom and dad are still doing everything for you, not only do you resent them for it, but secretly, deep down inside, you don't like yourself because you don't feel confident, and you don't feel confident. Got to let them get out there and prove to themselves that they do have what it takes. I know there are some circumstances where you just have to bring the kid home, mostly if that kid is under 18 years old. And the reason that is is because you can't find recovery residents for kids that are under 18 years old. You can find treatment centers, but not those like halfway house programs, because you have to have lots of training and licensure and a whole bunch of stuff to be dealing with teenagers. So if they're less than 18 and you got to bring them home, then for goodness sake, you can jump off of this video and go over and watch my video called Home Contracts Don't Work. Because in that video we talk about what to do if you bring your kid home. Or more importantly, what not to do if you bring your kid home. But I'm telling you, don't bring them home. I know that they're gonna promise everything. I know that it's more expensive, but I'm telling you, if you do it, you're going to undo all the really awesome things that have happened in treatment. For tons more information on all things addiction and recovery and lots of free expert advice, make sure and subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss a thing.
