Tips for Engaging with Struggling and Ambivalent Parents

The main goal of the FiT program is to strengthen relationships between parents/caregivers and trans youth to improve safety within the home. But sometimes, parents and caregivers are really struggling with the idea that their youth may be trans. How do we collaborate with these parents and caregivers to restore and grow their relationships with their trans, gender diverse, or questioning children? We have 6 steps that could help. 

1. Communicate Understanding, Not Necessarily Agreement

When parents/caregivers share fears (“my child is taking an unholy path”, “my child is making rash choices that they will later regret”, “my child’s prefrontal cortex is not fully developed”), we can acknowledge those fears without agreeing/disagreeing with them. This acknowledgement can work to build and deepen trust between us and parents/caregivers. Other statements can normalize the fear and support parents/caregivers to feel less alone, without speaking to the truth of the fear itself:
"That’s a totally typical fear"
"Many parents/caregivers bring this up” 

2. Identify the Pathway of Intention

Most parents/caregivers act in ways that they feel are protective and/or in the best interest of their youth. Honouring that pathway can connect parents/caregivers with that intention, and help to explore how their actions may be supporting or delaying/preventing that intention from happening.

3. Keep the Conversation Relational (aka out of Beliefs)

When we challenge people’s beliefs, we are compromising alignment, and therefore contributing to less willingness to be curious, flexible, and/or to changing behaviours. We don’t necessarily need alignment on beliefs in order to support parents/caregivers to strengthen their relationship with their youth. When beliefs come up, try grounding the conversation back in the parents’/caregivers’ desire for a closer or stronger relationship with their youth. 
Questions like this can reground in behaviours rather than beliefs, and in the relationship rather than in values:
"When you tell your kid that you’re worried their trans friends are having a bad influence on them, what do you notice happens in your relationship with them? Does it bring you closer together, or push you further apart?"

4. Avoid Argument, Judgment, and Blame

Parents and caregivers often need a space to be heard and witnessed in their fears and concerns, without judgment. Use your connection to gently move parents towards identifying their desire for a stronger, closer, relationship with their kid.

5. Identify Polarities

Parents/caregivers may feel like they’re stuck between their fears/anxieties and their desire to do what’s best for their kid. Naming contradictions that you hear, can offer space for reflection and redirection (back towards the relationship), opportunities for behavioural changes, and gentle exploration of the harms they may be inadvertently causing. Here are some examples:
"It sounds like you want a closer relationship with your kid but you are also struggling to accept this part of them."
"I hear you say that you love your kid unconditionally and that you also believe that being trans is going against the word of god."
"It sounds like you’re really scared for your kid to leave the house dressed like that, and that your kid also feels unsafe expressing who they are, at home."

6. Clarify Goals

Almost all parents/caregivers, whether they have trans kids or not, struggle with their kid/youth individuating. Parents can feel grief, loss, anxiety, and other strong feelings in response to learning what they can and cannot control (about their youth’s life). Seek clarity around your shared goals (aka that the youth is safe, loved, that they feel safe in the house, that the relationship is stronger) then explore what parents/caregivers cannot control (how their kid acts, how they identify, what their gender journey looks like) and what they can control (the quality of their relationship with their kid, the kind of space that home feels like, etc).