With all that Courtney has been going through these past couple months, I’ve been asking myself a lot if she’s in too much therapy. This week it’s been on my mind even more because one of her private therapists recommended an additional hour a week if interested.

I decided to seek the advice of Courtney’s teacher and one of her therapists from school. There response was very thoughtful and helpful and pretty much what my gut was telling me. But something in the email got me emotional. I’m well aware of how many hours Courtney is in school and how many hours of therapy she has but her therapist put the total number of hours in her email response and for some reason it was hard to swallow. Between school and outside therapies, Courtney receives 47 hours of intervention. 47 hours!!! Most work weeks are 40 hours! Heck, most work weeks are just 5 days and she has something 7 days a week. What am I doing to my little girl?

Mother’s guilt hit me and hit me like a ton of bricks. It hit me so hard that I couldn’t even get the words out of my mouth without crying when asking my close friend at work, “am I harming Courtney”?

Of course I realize now that was an irrational question. Of course I’m not harming her. Huge thanks to my friend and co-worker who talked me off that ledge!!! Though I now ask, if I have it all prioritized for what is best for Courtney and my family.

Up until this point I had the mindset of get her all the help she needs. The more help the better. Courtney could benefit from intense ABA therapy. Sure, sign her up. Courtney could benefit from speech and feeding therapy. Sure, sign her up for both. The list goes on until suddenly your family’s life revolves around therapies.

Courtney’s therapist said something else the both got to me yet made me think. She said, “more isn’t always better”. Like you can say with most things in life, it’s not about the quantity of therapy but the quality of therapy. And not necessarily the quality of the therapy itself but is she getting anything out of it if she’s tired and stressed?

Since Courtney does not have the means to tell me if her schedule is too much, it’s left up to me to decide. How much can she handle? What are the therapies she needs the most? How much of each of these therapies would she benefit from? What can she handle and just as importantly, what amount is healthy for our family.