The word “boundaries” can sound strict or harsh. Yet, boundaries are helpful and can assist people in all areas of their lives. In the process of treatment and recovery, people learn to set boundaries to preserve their integrity and authenticity. Without boundaries, they may not be able to accomplish their goals and live according to their values. At times it can seem like treatment requires a lot of rules – perhaps too many. However, maintaining guidelines and setting boundaries is what will continue to keep your daughter healthy.
At Clearview Girls Academy, we believe that boundaries are important during treatment. However, they are just as important when your daughter returns home from her treatment program. Keeping boundaries can help pave the path to success. Boundaries can also help create the parameters for a healthy life and help prevent relapse. Relapse can be an intimidating possibility when on the path of recovery, but boundaries can keep your daughter from experiencing that.
Setting Boundaries as Care
When your daughter or other children are going through addiction or other struggles, it can feel overwhelming. It can feel like there is nothing that you can do, or that there is no hope. Working through this with your loved ones can feel like an uphill battle. When you finally do get a handle on it, then the situation may feel stifling.
The truth is these boundaries are a form of care, and they help guide your loved ones to the right path. If your daughter is struggling, the effort expended to ensure she is in a healthy place is not wasted. Boundaries can be used to help get someone through a tough situation by giving them guidelines for healthy ways to respond.
These boundaries don’t necessarily have to mean taking something away. They can, instead, provide meaning and purpose to your loved ones. Boundaries can help enforce healthy behavior over and over to make it routine. Each boundary is meant as an instruction about the best way to make it through to the other side.
The Importance of Parental Guidance
An article published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment about substance use disorder (SUD) in youth explains the importance of familial involvement. “Developmental science indisputably asserts that supportive family relationships are a vital predictor of healthy development for youth,” the article reads. In other words, when you are involved in your daughter’s recovery, this can ensure she makes healthy advancements.
Guidance from parents and guardians is the best way for your daughter to find the path to success. Parental guidance and involvement can make or break recovery for your child. Being involved in guiding a child to the right choices and a healthier lifestyle will set a pattern in her life that becomes routine. This guidance will also give her a healthy structure to model her life after and that will help her work through issues.
For example, you can work with your child to find healthier environments and healthier friends. You can also maintain an open line of communication with your daughter. What’s more, you can work to monitor your daughter as she settles back into the home environment after treatment. As she works with you and follows boundaries meant to keep her healthy, this can keep her out of trouble. It can also help prevent a relapse.
Preventing Relapse by Setting Boundaries
Relapse can be a part of recovery, but by working together with your daughter, you can help prevent it. Clearview Girls Academy offers many types of therapy that can set your daughter up for success. These therapies and the work she does in treatment will help prepare her for the world after treatment. She can turn to those tools when things get tough again.
The skills your daughter will learn in treatment include things like working to surround herself with healthier influences and managing emotions through coping skills. Relapse happens when someone slips back into old habits and doesn’t rely on coping skills or support systems to help. The boundaries you set as a parent can help instill what is learned through therapy and support her in using her newly acquired coping skills.
Setting boundaries is meant to be a guiding hand that will stop situations like relapse from happening. Monitoring your daughter and ensuring she stays on the path of recovery is paramount to her future in recovery. If there are no boundaries in the home, it can be easier for your daughter to slip back into unhealthy situations. Boundaries provide a healthy structure to live life by and keep your daughter’s eyes focused on the future.
Looking Forward
Life after treatment can feel overwhelming for anyone. However, the work done in recovery is some of the hardest work of all. Maintaining this newfound success is the goal for students and their families when the treatment has ended. Settling back into day-to-day life can have its challenges, but when there is familial support and healthy boundaries, things are easier.
Boundaries do not have to be seen as a bad thing or as a lack of trust. Instead, these boundaries help enforce the recovery guidelines that treatment introduced. You can work with your daughter as a team to overcome her challenges as they appear. Keeping your daughter on a healthy path after finishing treatment is the key to reinforcing her progress, avoiding future struggles, and preventing relapse.
Our students who are have familial support and direction have a higher chance of success. Maintaining boundaries with your daughter is often the best way to ensure continued sobriety. These boundaries will help her avoid negative situations and influences after treatment. Boundaries can also teach her the best way to live a structured, healthy life. Setting boundaries doesn’t have to be about control, but rather about continued learning. The support you offer as a parent or guardian is integral in helping her remain sober and healthy. For assistance setting boundaries with your daughter after treatment, call Clearview Girls Academy at (888) 796-5484. We can help you stay strong as you help your daughter to thrive.
