Counseling for Parents
Please Note: Due to the current situation with COVID-19, I am offering Telehealth video therapy sessions via a HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing service. If interested, please let me know or click here for more information.
Where Can Parents Turn For Guidance and Support?
It’s a simple fact that family life today is much more complicated than it was just 25 years ago. Today’s parents face a more difficult task raising their children than their own parents faced.
To make matters worse, there are conflicting voices that all claim to be the “authority” when it comes to parenting matters. Often even “conventional” wisdom ends up being confusing, misleading, and over time can even be harmful.
Having been a parent of both a daughter and a son for more than 30 years, I am passionate about helping parents with what I believe to be the most difficult, yet the most rewarding, job on the planet.
Almost every trade and profession has developed standards and required study and licensing, yet one profession remains untutored and untrained… the bearing and rearing of our children.
While I don’t believe anyone is better qualified – or ever could be better qualified – than you to raise your children, many parents struggle with the daily challenges of raising adolescents and teens.
Peer pressure, homework, the stress of school and many other every-day occurrences can be difficult enough, not to mention the changing dyanmics between parents and teens that often cause previously harmonious relationships to falter.
Parents of teenagers may feel particularly isolated, preferring to keep to themselves the details of the humiliating, ineffective, or depressing struggles they experience with their children. Parents can be overcome with a feeling of powerlessness, convinced of their inability to make any positive changes in their interactions with their teens.
However, I believe you can improve your relationship with your adolescent children, and many of my clients have done just that. You can learn to foster a climate of increased respect, tolerance, and understanding between family members. My work with families has taught me that teens will respond when their parents endeavor to understand their wants and needs and work with them to make positive changes. And with this, parent counseling can help a great deal!
Learning to be a Successful Parent – Individual and Group Counseling for Parents
A strong relationship with parents is a key factor in children’s success in life – including their ability to thrive academically and socially. Healthy parent/teen relationships also help teens avoid risky behavior – including alcohol and other drug use and early sexual activity.
The goal of the parent counseling services I provide is to help you engage in conscious parenting, which means, in part, having a plan, being present for your children, and making sure that you don’t forget your own needs. It means examining your assumptions and acknowledging that your past experiences can impact your ability to parent effectively.
As well as helping individual parents and couples become successful parents, I’ve developed a curriculum for teaching positive discipline techniques to parents of teenagers, which I’ve used to facilitate groups for parents of teenagers and for parents of school-age children since 1999.
Like the parent counseling services I provide, the curriculum of these groups is based on the tenets of positive discipline, and the groups are supportive, educational, and highly interactive.
My sessions with individual families and larger groups of parents address and help parents:
- Establish limits the whole family can live with;
- Improve communication;
- Heal fractured relationships;
- Deal with alcohol, drugs, sex, and other topics that “scare” parents;
- Acknowledge the effects of loss and trauma on the family;
- Solve problems creatively;
- Teach life skills and impart values; and
- Learn to let go so your teens can launch successfully into adulthood.
I also provide presentations to parents at local middle and high schools, and have provided presentations to Hillsdale High School, Crystal Springs Uplands School, and Notre Dame Elementary School, among others.
Whether You’re a Single Parent or a Couple Struggling Together to Raise Your Son or Daughter, There’s No Need to Suffer or Go Through It Alone
If you’re worried about your child’s academic performance, or believe behavior problems – such as a lack of respect or taking responsibility – are beyond your control, there are communication skills and other techniques that can help everyone involved to feel supported, appreciated, and loved.
My practice focuses on the value of long-term parenting. We need to ask ourselves “What do I want my relationship with my son or daughter to look like 10 years from now?” That future will likely be a brighter one if you’re willing to learn more about conscious parenting.
If you’re interested in finding out how parent counseling can help you and your relationship with your child, I encourage you to contact me with your questions or to schedule a free consultation. I may be reached by phone at 650-634-9821, or by e-mail at pam@pamelalevymft.com.
Additional Online Parenting Resources
- Empowering Parents – An Ezine About Child Behavior and Parenting
- Parenting Teens – Troubled Teen Help Information
- Parent-Teen.com – An online magazine for parents of teens and preteens
- Cheryl Dellasega – Helping Women Turn Conflict into Connection
I provide my services to the highest ethical standards and my relationships with my clients are strictly confidential. As such, I must inform you that the information provided in this website is offered for informational purposes only; it is not offered as and does not constitute professional advice. Replies to e-mail messages will be general in nature and will not form a therapist-client relationship. Be aware that the confidentiality of information sent over the Internet, including e-mail, may not be legally or otherwise protected or secure.