The social ecosystem that is a peer support group continues to fascinate me. March marked two years of Parents Living After Child Estrangement. I’d run countless groups of varying types before PLACE even began, and I plan to write a column soon about what a wild ride that was.
Each group session reveals complexity and nuance such I could not have predicted: causes, stressors, coping strategies, commonalities, ripple effects, outliers, and more. And I am struck by the irony of the emotional myopia with which our critics appear to be stricken. The insults, assumptions and generalizations are predictable to the point that we often discuss them like citations from a (fictional) publication called The Estranged Adult Child’s Trolling Playbook.
“Ah yes, chapter 1, page one: You’re All Narcissists!”
That aside, on rare occasions we do receive criticism from within. I bring this up because it happened a few weeks ago. Someone who’d attended occasionally reached out via text during group to express frustration that people were complaining, and at length.
By the way, if you need to message me directly during group, just select my name from the drop-down menu in the Zoom chat. I often do not look at my phone until we’re done.
Oh, and this person went on to respond to the next email newsletter by repeating the frustration, and telling me to unsubscribe them.
(An option to unsubscribe is at the bottom of every newsletter. Still I obliged.)
A moderator prioritizes good use of group time, and of course, that includes trying to prevent monopolizing. In the earliest PLACE groups, I rigidly tried to limit sharing to five minutes at a time. As I grew and learned within this community, I realized that our issues and stressors are difficult to fit into five-minute segments. Trying to manage the time this way was stressful, awkward, and unrealistic. This, and the fact that participants could probably tell what I was doing, did not lend to natural conversation flow.
Oddly enough, when I let that approach go, participants verbalized mindfulness of time use, and began to police themselves. People do sometimes go longer than they perhaps intended or realize. Part of managing that, as moderator, depends on the dynamics of the discussion. If someone is still talking and others are actively responding and engaging, that may not be a problem at all. On the other hand, if their share includes off-topic tangents and repetition, I promise I’ll be working to segue to our next person. Ours is a difficult and sensitive topic, and we know what it’s like to speak emotionally.
And if it doesn’t appear that I’m intervening sufficiently, it’s ok to let me know. It happens. Group is dynamic and unpredictable, and your moderator is improvising.
As far as the person who was, well, complaining about complaining, I say this:
Yes.
I mean yes, we complain. Ours is a unique setting and opportunity. If you’re going to complain about what you’re going through, this may be the best PLACE to do it.
But it’s not all we do, not by a long shot. If on one particular day the discussion mood doesn’t suit you, it’s ok to politely duck out and attend another.
That next one may find us crying, joking, expressing gratitude, sharing new sources of information or wisdom, engaging in practical discussions about estates and belongings, and so much more. Sometimes, all of those occur in one group.
Nonetheless, transparency is a key component of how PLACE groups are run, and you can certainly come to me with a question or concern. I find our almost nonexistent complaints reassuring. It is abundantly clear that we’re doing something right. Furthermore, we could not be doing it without you, our amazing participants.
