For Parents

My intention with all of this work is to help you raise teenagers who make healthy choices and who feel secure in their lives. You will learn how to help them be resilient and practice deeper levels of self care and purposefulness. I hope to help you feel proud and grounded as you parent your children through their different stages of development.

These skills provide ways to respond with both flexibility and structure, allowing for some collaborative decision-making in specific circumstances, while upholding your values and the sacred "non-negotiables" about your particular family life.

I provide tools for new insights and strategies for self-care. These are tailored to the unique needs and strengths of you and your children, as they move from the pre-teen years, to adolescence, and then as young adults beyond the college years.

I am delighted to work with any parents, including those whose children have a particular learning profile or diagnosis. I have worked with many young people on the spectrum and all of the tools I’ve described can be applied to most adolescents with equal success. With new awareness you can learn how numerous “diagnoses” can be helpful guides for accessing your child’s strengths.

Learn new ways for you to parent your child
as well as to care for yourself:

Cultivate emotional and social intelligence, one episode at a time.
Develop healthy time management, eating and sleeping patterns.
Build resilience and bask in new ease. Learn from mistakes, bouncing back after defeat or disappointment.
Foster important conversations among family members. Gain clarity and become able to talk about sexual values, partying, cyberspace, and the instant and constant communication of social media.
Observe with compassionate curiosity who your teen is becoming.
Regulate emotions and experience new feelings of wellness.
Disconnect and reconnect with your child. Discover down-time where recreation becomes re-creation.
Teach your children to ask you for help---throughout their lives.

Clarify and set family values, as you create ethical constructs that can be nurtured rather than imposed.
Address the imbalances in their lives: This includes cravings, numbing and soothing behaviors, and addictions: from sugar to tobacco; alcohol and other drugs; to sexual activity and cyberspace.
Celebrate the strengths of those teens who carry the energy of a storm. And equally celebrate the gifts of the introverts or the profoundly sensitive ones.
Identify the opportunities in all of our challenges, embracing our struggles with equanimity.

In my conversations with clients, you achieve insights and solutions organically from a process of deep listening. This is a practice of compassionate curiosity, as you learn to identify more about “what works” for your particular child.

The challenging, questioning, and ever-changing nature of adolescents allows for multi-layered, honest, and soul-searching conversations. When teens and young adults are given the space and safety to think about what it means to live authentically, they move from childhood to adulthood accessing their best selves--even when sometimes their behaviors would lead us to conclude that they’re sabotaging their well-being.

Most of us yearn for fulfillment, and really want to live our days from a place of grounded-ness that allows for expression of our depth and integrity. There are lots of myths in our culture that all teens are just interested in the pursuit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I have seen that even young teens want that sense of purposefulness and a strong ethical system too. Given the guidance and opportunities to connect with those values and parts of themselves, they flourish.

Format

There are 3 ways I provide support to families. With any of the formats, I work in tandem with the parent(s) and student, with the intention that all feel heard, included, respected, and empowered.

I can work alone with only the parent(s) to help you serve as a skilled guide for fostering your child’s well-being. I don’t ever have to meet your child for these services.
I can meet with your teen alone (see the Adolescents page), but with the understanding that I’ll be working to help them put into practice the ideas we explore with you. This would include a separate meeting(s) with the parent(s), after some agreed upon time of getting to know your child.
We can all meet together for all or parts of the work. Any of the formats can be helpful at different times. But all realize the same goals of giving everyone the skills for more satisfaction, calm and clarity.