Parent and Child Therapy

I have years of experience helping parents negotiate the challenges of parenting, step-parenting, parenting through divorce, parenting children who have mental health or substance abuse problems, and parenting alone. I have worked with children and their families in my private office, in residential care, partial care, scholastic, and hospital settings.

With children under 14, I generally work directly with the parents. With older children (age 14 and up), I still predominantly work with parents and bring the children into therapy as needed. I am a marriage and family therapist and not a child psychologist. My role is to educate and empower adults to work together and parent effectively rather than to help children with their individual emotional/behavioral issues. If children of any age are having significant mental health/emotional issues that are beyond the scope of effective parenting, I am skilled and happy to provide assessment and referral to the most appropriate child specialist.

I teach parents to have healthy boundaries, understand how to set limits without arguing or power struggles, and to have reasonable expectations given their child’s developmental stage. I teach parents to support one another and to learn from each parenting episode. Additionally, I help parents teach their children self-respect, to be responsible for themselves, and to be socially/emotionally aware and intelligent with others. At every developmental stage, children do best when they are empowered to do as much for themselves as they are capable of, while parents support and guide them in areas that are beyond their current capabilities. I am a strong advocate of home environments that teach children to be responsible and respectful members of the family. The parents’ role is to set a good example of this behavior and to learn how to parent effectively.

Effective parenting is often measured by:

Demonstrating clear and respectful communication
Avoiding arguments and power struggles
Setting clear and realistic expectations
Being consistent when you discover what works
Being flexible when something is not working
Supporting (not undermining) the other parent (if there is a second parent)
A willingness to let children struggle and sometimes fail
Focusing much more on setting a child up to succeed and acknowledging them, than on catching them doing something wrong and punishing them

Therapy Basics

-I like to start and end our sessions on time. It is helpful, but not necessary, to show up a few minutes early.
-1 hour sessions are 50 minutes long, 1.5 hour sessions are 80 minutes long.
-At times I find it necessary to extend a session for a few minutes. Please be patient and understand that I will do my best to make sure you get your full time allotment.
-Individual therapy sessions are usually one hour long – but we can arrange longer if circumstances dictate.
-Couples sessions are usually 1.5 hours long. Longer or shorter sessions can be arranged when appropriate.
-Payment is due at the time of service unless otherwise arranged.

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