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The Counseling Center

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The Counseling Center
1534 55th Street
Boulder, CO 80303
303.449.7898
cscott@tccboulder.org

Somewhere in the community there’s a child who would cry if she saw the royal blue "betta" ripping into the beautiful feather-like fins of its teal-green mate. Or maybe this day the green one is doing the damage.

Two beautiful creatures tearing each other apart is a tragedy – especially to a young child.

But in this same community, there’s a child who’s seen similar vicious behavior at home, in the grocery store or maybe at the park, where she was meeting mommy for lunch.

They "can’t be in the same tank with one another or they wouldn’t be around," says Connie Antonelli, director of the Safe Exchange Program at The Counseling Center.

She spoke of five bettas – fighting fish is a more common name – that greet visitors to the program, which provides a safe, supervised place for separated or divorced parents to drop off children to former, or potentially former, mates.

Click on image for larger picture

Wisely, the pretty fish swim in separate spaces. Not always true for parents, so a "transition" window between one parent’s departure and the next’s arrival helps ensure "high-conflict" situations don’t develop.

Lots of "last straws" can trigger "nasty" aggression: how the kids are dressed, a stereo that was never returned, a girlfriend in an ex’s car as the kids arrive. Sometimes it’s a one-time thing. Sometimes it’s a lifetime thing.

Scary part is, some kids begin to learn it’s a normal thing.

Sometimes it takes time to realize that economic stresses, job losses, substance dependencies or long-ago traumas contribute to the "bad behavior" kids or adults face everyday.

It also often takes help to change such behavior, so The Counseling Center provides for safe exchanges as well as counseling, therapy and psycho-education for individuals, couples, families, young children and adolescents.

Last year, about 850 people took advantage of its sliding-scale fee schedule, which means on average clients pay just $9.40 per session. Some pay far less, some a bit more – as their means allow. None are turned away if they ask for help.

Sometimes therapists use play therapy, often over a six-month period, to "reparent" a traumatized child who has developed a slightly skewed version of "normal."