Parenting and Coparenting Counseling & Consultations
“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..”
~John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
— Kahlil Gibran
Parenting and Coparenting Counseling and Consultations
Family Counseling with Teens
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This could not be more true than when speaking about families. The complexity is exponential and that is before incorporating external stress, worry, and traumatic experiences as has happened collectively this past couple of years. Belonging is a fundamental truth. We belong here. But it’s difficult to feel a sense of belonging if we don’t feel known and accepted by the people we share a home with. When stress, fear and threat become the water in which we swim, it is no wonder why families would have disagreements, conflict, misunderstandings, and develop negative communication patterns. Family therapy gives individuals the chance to voice thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in a safe and trusted environment. When there are boundaries of care and a collective willingness to work toward peace, hope can come to the surface. We can’t grow on the inside when our world won’t stop shaking on the outside. By working with a therapist, families can walk forward; they can find a sense of belonging and peace together.
Parenting Consultation
Parenting is an art and a science. The problem is as soon as we figure out what we’re doing, our kids change or the environment changes, and more is required. And, any parent will tell you that they might have figured it out with one but have to learn something completely different with a younger one. As a mother of two teens and a college student, I will be the first to say, I don’t have parenting all figured out. What I have done is study parenting, family dynamics, attachment, neuroscience, and child development for the past 20 years. With this knowledge and my experience as a parent and therapist, we can look at your family or child’s situation together. Sometimes it’s helpful to go to family counseling or for children/teens to have their own therapist, but that’s not for everyone, nor is it always necessary. Parents are their children’s best therapist and a 2-hour consultation can give you what you need to get things unstuck and back on track. It is a private parenting workshop that gives you the resources to help your child or teen continue on a healthy developmental path.
Divorce and Coparenting
At a minimum, divorce is stressful for the whole family. Roles, responsibilities, and notions about the future are dismantled and suddenly unknown. Individuals within the family face feelings of loss, grief, mistrust, anger, mourning of what was, and heartbreak. However, like a grove of aspens, families with children are a part of a shared and growing ecosystem. Divorce does not have to cause trauma that touches every part of the future, it can simply be a change in family structure. Peace can be found once again and children can go back to growing as they’re supposed to grow. Research on divorce shows that when parents work together, engage in minimum conflict, and children remain securely attached to both parents, their family story becomes one of resilience and compassion, for self and others. Coparenting consultations weave together key concepts in child/adolescent development, attachment theory, brain-based communication strategies, and interpersonal neurobiology in a way that works for your family and situation.
“The best thing to hold on to in life is each other.”
— Audrey Hepburn
“Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up.”
— James C. Dobson