Dear Prudence,
Our oldest daughter graduated from college in May and will start her career in October. For the past two years I’ve been paying for her to see a therapist weekly, which costs $750 a month. She found a therapist in her new city that isn’t on our insurance plan. When we asked her to switch to someone in-network, she complained about “having to start over with a stranger” and wasn’t able to get the therapist to give her a sliding-scale rate.
Our daughter says she hasn’t had anything traumatic happen to her but sees her therapist about feeling stressed and anxious. In seventh grade, she went to a therapist for about a year and a half for “disordered eating.” She generally doesn’t seem very happy when we see her, and while she’s kind enough to us parents, she treats her younger sister horribly. But she’s quick to laugh with friends and around other adults. At this point I’m not sure what coping strategies she’s learned from therapy. She never mentions an end in sight, and frankly I’m tired of paying for it. I only work part-time. How do we tell her that we’re not footing the bill anymore when her job starts providing her health insurance? In a way I worry that we haven’t prepared her enough for the “real world,” even though she’s been working since she was 16 to buy things she’s wanted. My husband insisted that both kids not have any college debt, so we’ve done a lot for her over the past four years.
—Are We Coddling Our Daughter?