Upholding Healthy Boundaries IS Caring For Clients

I used to work as a therapeutic mentor. I was always very clear that my working hours were 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, Monday through Friday.

A teenage client texted me on a Sunday over a three-day weekend. I didn’t want to leave them hanging, so I texted back.

Me: “I’m not working right now, but if you need to talk to someone, you can call our on-call person at [phone number]. I’ll call you on Tuesday.”

On Tuesday, I followed up with the teenager and the rest of our team. The teenager’s mom set up a meeting with me and three of my coworkers. She then screamed at me for half an hour for not talking to her teenager over the weekend.

Mom: “You don’t care about your clients! You shouldn’t be doing this job. You’re just cold and heartless! Just wait until I speak to your manager about this!”

And so on.

We dropped that family as clients.