Parenting Therapy in Miami, FL

Parenting therapy, or parent counseling, is definitely a thing! It can offer you unbiased guidance, improve your parenting skills, and provide tools and emotional support.

Issues commonly addressed in parenting therapy include parenting life skills such as positive discipline and effective communication; setting age appropriate expectations; strengthening the parent child attachment bond; managing tantrums or defiance; exploring parenting styles; and managing problems, arguments, and stress.

These issues can be the focus when you begin parent counseling. Parents will also be made aware of their triggers, which will allow learning how to more effectively manage your personal issues.

Importantly, parent counseling removes doubt and uncertainty for parents about the best way to tackle personal issues and handle certain situations. Despite their best intentions, parents don’t always know how to address personal issues or handle difficult situations involving their children. There is more capacity to make behavioral changes when guided by someone who has the experience and knowledge to help in this area.

You may be thinking, how can therapy for parents benefit my family? Or could it help? And why would someone begin parent counseling when they could read parenting books instead?

With parenting therapy the whole family unit truly benefits. Parent counseling focuses on providing parents with emotional support from a trained professional whose goal is to provide unbiased guidance and support, and learn about the family dynamic so that they can best develop a plan for growing or restoring harmony.

There are a number of parenting books that can also be very helpful for parents to learn more about parenting best practices. But a licensed professional who specializes in working with parents can help parents apply what they learn from books to their specific issues and situations, and answer any questions that come up for parents.

When a parenting therapist understands the family dynamics, parent counseling can truly benefit the entire household and provide well being for all family members.

The Necessity of Child Psychologists

According to the CDC: “The mental health of children is connected to their parents’ mental health. 1 in 14 children has a caregiver with poor mental health.” As a result, in conjunction with parenting therapy, child counseling is sometimes also recommended to ensure that all family members have a space to express and explore their thoughts and feelings with a licensed professional and ensure child health.

Therapeutic Approaches

Parent counseling provides different therapies or modalities. Modalities that help parents in therapy sessions include Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, which promotes changing negative thought patterns and behaviors to address issues and handle conflict. Mindfulness-Based Therapy is another technique that reduces stress and enhances emotional regulation. There is also Attachment-Based Therapy, which focuses on strengthening the parent-child bond. These are examples of types of therapies that can be used in parent therapy sessions.

Teaching them Life Skills

Parent counseling teaches parents how to respond to certain behaviors based on their children’s development and best practices. The aim of parent counseling is to enhance the parent child attachment bond, help the parent child relationship, reduce parent child conflict, help families live a more fulfilling life, and help parents feel supported from the proper guidance of a licensed professional. This support can be helpful for all kinds of parents, from parents who live together, divorced parents, to a single parent newly separated who can benefit from the additional support.

In parent counseling, parents can learn to set realistic parental expectations and learn about their parenting style.

Parenting Style

Parenting therapists can help parents understand their inherent parenting styles. Styles include authoritarian parents, authoritative parenting, and permissive parents. These parenting styles determine how rigid with rules a parent is with their child, from authoritarian being very rigid, to permissive being not rigid at all. It is important to remember that one’s parenting style is not set in stone. A parent can affect and potentially change that style with insight and the help of a parenting therapist.

To find parenting therapy near you, you can visit therapist directories and type in your zipcode, as well as the specialty you’re searching for, which in this case would of course be parenting therapy.

Also, I provide virtual therapy in Florida, New York, and Connecticut. Going to my scheduling link for a free 15-minute phone consultation is an easy way to get started with parenting therapy near you.