At the Integrative Therapy Institute we provide individual therapy for children and individual therapy for adolescents. In addition to this, we also provide parent counseling, which may be provided to the parents alone, to parents and children together, or on an alternating basis.
Some of the issues that we frequently help parents with include:
Parent counseling, whether on-site or via a teletherapy, is most often needed in the areas of discipline and communication. When adults become parents, they quickly realize that their children don’t always do what they want, and they often respond by reacting emotionally or by channeling the approach modeled to them by their own parents. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
When it doesn’t work, we teach you what does. We teach parents to set clear limits with clear consequences that are not overly severe. We also teach parents not to get upset when doing this because discipline is a normal part of being a parent. In general, we recommend establishing a family structure that is neither adult-centered nor child-centered, but is, instead, fairness-centered. We find that this approach prevents both feelings of alienation and feelings of entitlement from developing in children, while also fostering the spirit and the skills of cooperation.
With communication, we teach parents how to listen actively and to ask questions in a manner that fosters open lines of communication. We also teach parents to avoid shaming and excessive judgment, but also to render judgment in ethical areas when needed.
We also offer counseling to parents in specific areas such as
With adolescents, we also offer parent counseling on
