Does your child say that you don’t understand them?
Do you feel disconnected from your child? Is it hard to get on the same page with your partner about parenting? Are you concerned because your child seems to be avoiding you? Maybe your child wishes they could live with a different family. Do you feel like giving up? Maybe your child seems to favor your partner over you. Are you burnt out, overwhelmed, or stressed by your role as a parent? It may be that you just want additional strategies and support to use in your relationship with your child at home. If so, our parent & child counseling team is here to help!
Many parents feel this way at some time or another. When challenges occur such as having arguments or feeling burnt out, it can be hard to maintain a positive relationship with your child. For example, when your child says something mean to you, this can result in your feeling inadequate, confused, or frustrated. It may be hard for you to watch your child go through something difficult. Whatever you are struggling with, it may be useful for you to learn more skills to maintain a positive relationship, use conflict resolution strategies, communicate effectively, set clear expectations and limits, and reward your child for good behavior.
In addition to the challenges above, there are many myths about being a parent such as “You should always enjoy it,” “Parenting is the best job you could have,” and “You should only love and not feel frustrated with your child.” These myths can leave you feeling stressed, lonely, confused, and even isolated from other parents. The reality is that parenting is hard. Most parents at one time or another might have the thought that “I don’t like my child right now even though I love them” or wish they could just take a break from parenting. Parents might also wish that their child was different. Any of these thoughts or beliefs can be distressing and it is important for parents to have support throughout the parenting process. It can be helpful to understand that most parents experience these thoughts at one time or another.
These are common challenges experienced by most parents.
As your child grows and develops, your role as a parent typically changes as well, which can contribute to some confusion and possible friction in the relationship. You may notice that your parenting style feels different than it used to or that the strategies you utilized successfully in the past are no longer helpful. You may find yourself getting frustrated, short, or less patient in your relationship. During these developmental transitions, changes in your child’s role or your role in the family may also shift, creating tension, discomfort, and making communication more challenging.
In addition to normal growth, change, and development, the demands of everyday life in New York City (work, relationships, multiple caregivers), may make it challenging to focus on improving your relationship with your child. As you experience difficult events in your life or if your child is struggling in theirs, it may be more difficult to communicate effectively or to tolerate the inevitable distress that is a necessary part of parenting a child. Young children are especially vulnerable to challenges in the parenting relationship and their behaviors are heavily influenced by those of the people around them. It is important to receive support and to utilize effective parenting strategies to help your child learn to be as effective as possible during these formative years.
Luckily, if you find yourself feeling stressed or burnt out in your relationship with your child, it is possible to learn new skills and techniques to manage and change their behavior and to improve the relationship. There are many useful tools available that you can learn and practice within the supportive environment of parent counseling therapy.
Parent counseling allows you to learn strategies that you can use to address your child’s unique challenges and still maintain a positive relationship with them.
With years of parenting therapy education and experience, MindWell NYC provides you with a supportive and nonjudgmental space to discuss your concerns and to identify new ways of relating with your child. Our parent counseling team is well-versed in working with challenges of parents whose children live in New York City. We provide parenting therapy solutions based on many years of research and proven effectiveness. We will work to understand the unique challenges you face regarding your child and will also work with you to identify and implement strategies and solutions to make the changes that are possible. In addition, we will help you learn to tolerate distress when there are challenges or problems that may not be able to be changed in the moment.
In your parent counseling work at MindWell NYC, your therapist will help you to identify particular challenges you or your child are experiencing in your relationship. These challenges may include problematic behaviors that you would like to help your child change such as academic issues, problems with friends, difficulties in communicating respectfully at home, or arguing. As you begin to learn and implement new skills, your relationship with your child will become more positive and less focused on criticism. Our therapy services also include couples counseling for parents so you can learn how to improve communication and navigate different parenting styles.
Using techniques from parent management training, behavioral principles, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), our parent counseling team will help you to improve your relationship with your child, increase the frequency of behaviors you want to see in your child or in the relationship, and decrease other behaviors that may be problematic. You may notice that you have more effective conversations or communication with your child. For example, they may be willing to share more about their life with you. Throughout the process of participating in parent counseling therapy, you may find that you and your partner are more frequently on the same page than you have been in the past. You may develop an improved ability to tolerate the typical distress that comes with being a parent and learn to accept difficult situations that you may not have control over.
In parent counseling sessions, you and your therapist will focus on the relationship you want to have with your child. During parent counseling work and with the help of your MindWell NYC therapist, you will learn and try new strategies and review how implementation is going at home. You will also discuss how to practice the new techniques and strategies that you’ve learned regularly at home and troubleshoot problems that may make practicing challenging.
Many people have questions about parent counseling.
–The problem is my child, not me. Why should I get support? This is a common question that parents often ask themselves when they are considering seeking additional support. As you know, relationships are complicated and involve more than one person. If your goal is to have a more positive relationship with your child, it is important for both you and your child to learn new strategies to engage more effectively in the relationship. For parents of younger children, your role is even more significant in potentially changing your child’s behavior and you have large influence on your relationship with them. Being a parent is very difficult even in the best situations. At MindWell NYC, we believe that parents can use additional support throughout various stages of development for their child.
–I’ve already tried a lot of strategies that you are probably going to tell me to use and nothing has worked in the past. MindWell NYC offers evidence-based parenting treatments that have been found to be effective. Implementing behavior plans that you have learned in different ways (books, parenting lectures, etc.) can be challenging. Although you may be using the strategies you learned, these tools may not be implemented in the way that they were designed to be used. For example, time out as a strategy is commonly used incorrectly and therefore, most parents don’t believe it works. In reality, if time out is used in the way it was intended, it can be very effective. Your MindWell NYC therapist can help you to troubleshoot any challenges that are getting in the way of successful implementation of techniques. You will also most likely learn some new strategies and skills you have not tried yet that can be implemented at home
