Page 45 - Meeting with Children Book

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attention is pulled away from the adolescent tasks and
the spotlight shines on the parent needs.

Johnston, Roseby and Kuehnle, (2009) identify risks to
adolescents in high conflict and provide a summary of
interruptions to normative development. These
include: Emotional Lability; Separation and
Individuation; Sexual Anxiety; Experimentation with
Personas and Ego Diffusion; Perception and
Judgement Deficits; Diminished Capacity to Relate to
Peers; and Capacity to Achieve Distance from Family
Conflict.
As it is, adolescence is normally a highly emotionally
turbulent period of development. Emotional lability
(erratic emotions that shift quickly from excitement to
anxiety to agitation and depression) which is typically
modified by caregivers is further exacerbated by high
conflict parents who are often preoccupied with their
own emotional distress. When gaining the voice of the
adolescent, the intensity of emotion is a considerable
factor. Is the emotional intensity of the youth related
to his/her distress or the distress of his/her caregiver?
Careful listening is necessary when meeting with the
adolescent.

Another area of risk is that of the separation and
individuation phase of the adolescent. This phase is
important developmentally as the youth needs to
identify ways in which he is different to each parent.
The idolization of parent is diminished during this time
and rejection of the parent(s) is intermittently normal.
But, when parental authority is divided and
cooperation in parenting is low, the youth is able to