Parents

You are trying to help your child deal with a difficult situation in school, with friends, or in the family. You may be having difficulties parenting your child as he develops through different stages. You don’t feel that you can communicate with him or that he is communicating with you. You are frustrated and often upset. You try to control things you can’t control. You want to be able to improve your parenting skills and find some peace with your children.

I have been counseling parents and helping them improve their parenting skills for over 17 years. Children need consistency and predictability. I can help you assess what responses are appropriate to meet your child's (of any age) behavior and how to be consistent in your responses. This is a most loving process as it results in your child seeing you as predictable and consistent in your parenting rather than different day to day, depending on other stressors you manage. For example: Do you offer different consequences either in severity, duration, or type, depending on what ever else might be happening at that moment or that day? It is almost natural to react to things with greater or lesser patience depending on the circumstances of the moment. If we think about it though, we can understand how much better it is to deliver appropriate responses to children. It leaves the parents calmer, and the children comforted when they know what's coming and what they can expect to result from their behavior.

Good parenting skills encompass more than how to offer consquences, it is also about learning how to praise. You would be surprised at how many minutes parents are willing to criticize undesireable behaviors and how few they devote to praise of appropriate behaviors. Please see my "Tips for Parents" to further expand this topic.

I teach parents how to relate to their children in ways that are consistent with raising confident, competant, self-assured young adults.

If you feel that you would benefit from talking to me about improving your parenting skills, please Contact Me by phone or email.