What should parents do when their good intentions and best strategies for parenting are not working well? If you are struggling in parenting your son, we can work together to find more effective ways to communicate and collaborate. We can also work together on setting agreements and boundaries, and then holding accountability, so that a different result can arise. My focus in this work is to clearly understand the goals desired outcomes of both the parents and their son, to clearly identify where things are working and where they are not working, and to support the family system to find new ways to work more effectively together. All of this is done with the intention of your son being able to navigate life on his own terms, and function more autonomously and independently.
I often will work both with the young man as well as the parents, and in these situations, my focus is on aligning the efforts of the parents with the goals of their son. The intention is always to get everyone “pulling” together and in the same direction.
Areas that parent coaching will emphasize:
- Communication Strategies – gain a fuller understanding of your son and be able to share your perspectives, thoughts and feelings in a way that he can hear.
- Identifying and Focusing on Strengths – helping you to more clearly understand where your son is strong and capable.
- Clarifying and communicating boundaries, setting clear expectations/agreements, holding accountability and consequences, and offering positive recognition.
- Creating space for your son to be able to stand on his own two feet, to try things, and to make mistakes in the process of learning and growing.
- Understanding the difference between helpful support, and unhelpful enabling behavior.
- Helping parents to more effectively work with their own fears and uncertainties that naturally arise when parenting teens and young adults.