How Can Parent Counseling Help My Family?

Parenting brings a lot of joy into your life, but let’s face it — it can also be super challenging and sometimes kind of scary.

It’s a cliche, but there is no handbook for how to be a parent. It’s also a good idea to keep in mind that everyone’s intervention in terms of parenting will be different.

And this is where therapy or counseling for parents becomes so vital.

Not to mention, as a parent, it is your job to not just take care of their day to day, but to raise a human being with all of the necessary life skills, growth, support, guidance, love, and discipline they need, and much more. And all of this must be balanced against your own needs and juggled with your own life challenges.

No wonder most parents feel overwhelmed at some point, and especially so if other difficult situations are playing out in the family system. And this is where parent counseling can make a real difference.

At Healthy Families of Albuquerque, we provide parent counseling. Call us to work through some of the ways therapy can be helpful for you and your family, or read on to find out how therapy can support you in your parenting.

Understanding Counseling for Parents

If you are neither in or open to therapy as a parent, it can help address and manage a number of issues that might present themselves within a family.

There are so many types of therapy that you can benefit from as a parent; it doesn’t have to be “counseling (or therapy) for parents.” Whether that means you could benefit from one-on-one counseling, couples therapy, or a family therapy approach to helping parents, how you decide to navigate these struggles can reflect what's right for you.

Parental counselling is basically when you go for professional advice and support to help you deal with situations or issues you are having with your child or within the family.

Its a no-judgment zone that allows you to share your parenting problems and concerns while receiving knowledge, tools, guidance and support. Your therapist can help you learn more about yourself and your child and work on strategies to tackle some challenges, improve communication and ultimately put you in the best position to build a happy and healthy family life.

Common challenges in parenting

Parenting presents a lot of tough things that can take a toll on your own mental health and the health of your and your family’s dynamic.

Parents tend to prioritize their children’s needs and overlook their own. But it is just as important to remain aware of and take care of your own mental health as a parent; your own emotions and behavior will impact your family’s well-being in a very direct way.

Recognizing what you are up against and that you are far from alone, and help is available, is one of the best things you can do for your family.

Some of the most popular issues that parents must contend with are:

·         Behavior: Disciplining a tantrum, defiance or other behavioral issues among children.

·         Communication problems: Difficulty communicating with your children or partner.

·         Stress in life: Coping with or overcoming stress and anxiety from life events like work, money issues, child care, marital trouble, lack of sleep, and many more.

·         Discipline: What are some good, effective discipline measures for your children?

·         Emotional challenges: Dealing with your emotions, finding balance between your family’s needs and your own, and nurturing adult relationships and personal time.

·         Physical and/or mental health issues: Coping with your child’s, your partner’s or your own mental or physical health issues.

Who is parent counselling for?

And here is the reality: It’s never a bad time for a parent to seek out parental therapy or counseling. You don’t need to experience a particular trial.

But therapy for parents can also be especially helpful for any parent or parents who:

·         Their child’s special issues

·         Having problems in the marriage or a relationship

·         Preparing for, experiencing or recovering from divorce and separation.

·         Having their own health issues, mental or physical

·         Coping with loss/grief

·         Struggling with addiction to drugs and/or alcohol

·         History of abuse or violence

·         A person who has survived past abuse or trauma.

Put simply, it fixes particular behavior problems from your child, difficulties communicating or issues of some other type within your family, and more!

How does therapy help with parenting?

In therapy, you have the benefit of a supportive, non-judgemental environment to explore your issues, gain understanding, and work towards building strategies to improve things.

Sadly, parents tend to think if you are seeking parental therapy, you are failing in some way but in fact, the opposite is true.

Therapy and mental support are needs that must be fulfilled. It provides an objective (expert and knowledgeable) outsider’s point of view, teaches you valuable strategies, allows you to recalibrate your beliefs and expectations, and takes the pressure off “perfect parenting.”

Here are some issues therapy can help with as a parent:

1.      Know your parenting style: Gain longitudinal insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your natural method of parenting and how it impacts your relationship with your child, and pick up tips for optimizing strength and limiting weakness.

2.      Examine your family of origin dynamics: Generally, examine how your specific family of origin (eg single parent; reconstituted families etc.) is affecting your present day position as a parent.

3.      Resolve outstanding issues: You may have unresolved issues from past experiences that are influencing your approach to parenting, and therapy can help you recognize and resolve them.

4.      Get to know your child better: Therapists offer analysis to help identify issues a child can’t yet express or grasp, and can provide important information on where your child is developmentally and how that might relate to distressing behavior or other conflicts, can make you more attuned to your child’s needs, and can teach you techniques to support them.

5.      Enhancing communication: A therapist can work with you to learn how to enhance your communication, express your feelings and thoughts more effectively and clearly, address conflict and have helpful and supportive discussions, etc., all of which can result in stronger relationships with your kids and spouse.

6.      Embrace stress: Therapy can also teach you how to embrace stress and anxiety and develop coping strategies so you can maintain calm even in the most difficult of circumstances.

7.      Unlearn poor discipline methods: Some parents were not themselves disciplined effectively or are not aware of effective ways to discipline children in ways that do not make children to feel shamed thereby, people to justify their failure of children’s discipline achieving that in the society we live today what we have learned is what we are going to use when we become parents.

8.      Improve parenting as a team: By attending therapy, you’ll be able to work through conflicts as a couple, improving the alignment of your parenting decisions.

Techniques and types of counseling for parents

Finally, as already stated, parent therapy or counseling can take multiple forms, which all belong to the broad categories of psychotherapy and counseling that exist.

If you’re a parent, your parenting journey will, of course, be intrinsically included in all therapy modes you ever engage with. But if you are specifically looking for parent therapy, it’s likely the focus will just be more on you as a parent:

Individual therapy: Discuss your own ideas, history, thoughts and actions as they pertain to your parenting and your family.

Couples counseling: Work together on parent beliefs, actions and interactions to generate a healthy co-parenting style/techniques, and increase your family harmony.

Family therapy: Involve the whole family to recognize, address and influence challenges and patterns of interaction and to develop stronger relationships.

The precise tactics the therapist uses will depend on your particular situation, but they often involve cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), talk therapy, role-play, and communication exercises that tackle the particular parenting hurdles you’re facing.

Therapy for children and teenagers

For your child or teenager, a quite separate kind of therapy can be similarly helpful — or sometimes required.

Children and adolescents can benefit from therapy because it provides them with a safe, supportive and consistent place where they can work with a caring adult who is skilled in child/teen appropriate therapy techniques for emotional processing, learning about behaviours, and cultivating tools and coping strategies to address the wide breadth of personal challenges and emotions they are managing.

It can also be very helpful to investigate other forms of education to find your child the right fit if your child’s behavioral issues stem from a mental disorder, learning problem, etc. Our sister company, Education Alternatives (EA Schools) located in Ohio has programs to serve children and adolescents who are struggling to succeed in traditional school due to a variety of behavioral, attention, and emotional challenges (including those with autism).

It is important that you, as a parent, also be involved in your child’s therapy and having therapy of your own in conjunction with your child’s treatment can become a great advantage for your family.

Where to start with parent counseling

As a parent, getting the help of a therapist or counselor can be life-altering for both you and the rest of your family.

If you live in Albuquerque or anywhere in New Mexico and you are looking to start parent counseling, get in touch with us here at Healthy Families of Albuquerque to book a free initial session and let us tell you more about how we can assist.

We’re committed to supporting parents and families with our wide range of therapeutic services, provided in-person and, when you choose, at the comfort of your home with teletherapy.

You are actively working on creating a positive, joyful family environment by looking for help. Let us guide you along the way.