When a parent insists their child has problems, despite evidence to the contrary, my heart sinks. The NHS is designed to support and empower, but cannot help those who feel there is something wrong when evidence points to normal development. We spend a lot of time explaining the normal range to such parents. Help is available for those who need it, and that’s how it should be.
Our concern is to meet the child’s needs. A pushy parent may slowly be eroding their child’s emotional resilience through such focused scrutiny and criticism. Some have extraordinarily high expectations. The mum who wants her daughter talking “normally” aged three, because she “sounds like a little girl”. She wants therapy for her child on the NHS. However tactfully we say, “She sounds like a little girl because she is a little girl,” the desire for therapy will not diminish.
It’s sad that our professional opinion is disregarded, and after a while our own confidence erodes. Sometimes a parent’s concerns are so out of range that it becomes a safeguarding issue. The fact that there is an issue doesn’t always mean that our role is to sort it: “lisping” at age four is normal, and releasing a tongue tie does not automatically lead to better speech. Some diagnoses mean a child may sadly always struggle. The media supports a perfectionist and complaining culture, which assumes that if a parent wants something, something will be done. Our obligation is to provide the best level of care. Sometimes we explain it in the same way you can’t make hair grow quicker by pulling it; we just have to wait.
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