06/06/2025
The Unskilled Pilot
(A Lack of Trust)
So the children were born on a plane. The plane took off (scary) they often couldn't see who was the pilot. The pilot was rubbish, lots of turbulence, swopping, falling, lurching. The children didn't have a seat belt on and fell about all over the plane. They got hurt, Sometimes the pilot couldn't be bothered to fly the plane. There were some quite dreadful crashes.
Then the airline moved them to your plane.
Brillant! You are a good pilot. You regularly check on your passengers and know they are safely buckled in. You are sitting up front. You can see all the controls. You can see where you are going.
But the child can't
All they know, all they remember is, the falling, crashing and fear. They keep trying to break into the cockpit to fly the plane themselves, even though they don't know how to!
You are going to have to fly a long way, make loads of good landings and give tons of reassurance to your little passengers. Then slowly, very slowly they will start to really let you fly their plane.
You are a Therapeutic Parent Pilot!
Taken from an extract in Sarah Naish's book 'The Quick Guide to Therapeutic Parent Parenting'
