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I knew I had only one shot at helping this family. The 12-year-old girl had been slapped by her stepmother and appeared in school with a reddened cheek. The child welfare worker scheduled a family assessment with me, the father and stepmother, the girl, and the parents' two younger children. The mother was, as they say, out of the picture. I wanted the point I would try to make to be immediate, lively, and engaging. I walked into the consulting room, introduced myself, and noted that if the oppositional girl caused any trouble, I would handle it by slapping her.

The father, initially slumped in his seat and appearing resigned, perked up. “You can’t hit my daughter,” he said.

This led to a discussion about who was authorized to hit her and who was not. Only a parent could hit a child. I asked, “Who decides who’s a parent?” They unloaded on the birth mother, agreeing that she would not be allowed to hit the girl. Then, the penny dropped, and the stepmother and the girl had a conversation about whether she, the stepmother, was her parent. I asked the girl if it would feel like a betrayal of her own mother to accept the stepmother as a parent. This helped frame the girl’s reluctance as an issue between the girl and the birth mother and not as a direct rejection of the stepmother. I think they got a lot out of this session.

This was in the days before the internet. Would I have started so dramatically if they had a way to post online that I had........

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