AACA provides counseling for parents! We have several clinician’s who see individuals navigating parenting concerns.
Seeking counseling can be especially helpful when learning to more effectively communicate with your child and preventing parent burnout.
Reasons Parents seek Therapy
- Communication. Many parents will attend therapy to learn more effective ways to communicate with their child. If you are having trouble communicating with your teen, check out this book How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk by Adele Faber.
- Psychoeducation. Parents will seek therapy to better understand their child’s mental health diagnosis. It is impossible to be an expert on everything–so it can be helpful to attend therapy to learn how to support your child. National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is a great resource for learning more about various mental health diagnoses.
- Parent Burnout. Most people associate burnout with helping professions but burnout can happen for parents as well . Symptoms of parental burnout include overwhelming exhaustion, disrupted sleep, and irritability. In addition, parents who experience burnout often worry about how they will get everything done and experience a loss of fulfillment in parenting.
- Parenting Skills. Parents will come to therapy to learn ways to effectively respond to their child’s behavior.
- Co-Parenting Concerns.It is amazing when co-parenting is a breeze, but sometimes it is not. Seeking support on how to maneuver through these conflicts can be helpful.
Is the Parenting World biased?
There are a variety of family structures that do not include a married heterosexual couple that is that child’s biological parents. A child can have parents who are their grandparents or their foster parents. The child may have a family structure consisting of same-sex parents or a blended co-parenting dynamic.
Many parents face bias towards their family structure. For example, many school systems still use forms that only request
information for Mother and Father, rather than for all parents regardless of their relation to the child.
Parents may find therapy helpful in navigating bias and microaggressions out in the world.
Resources
How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk
Mental Health Conditions | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Same-sex Parents and Their Children
The impact of parental burnout
