15. Effective Parenting, Part II
As a therapist, I am deeply invested in helping to bring conscious and responsible people into our world. I am also extremely passionate about providing parents with the skills and tools necessary to give their children the guidance required to succeed.
Kids are open and receptive to learning. It is important that we pay attention to what we are teaching them.
I want to share with you my 40+ years of experience in helping people resolve their problems and move forward in positive ways. Over the years, I studied everything I could find from professionals about effective parenting, participating in hundreds of hours of trainings and workshops, earning many certifications along the way. (Please see my articles: Development of My Professional Philosophy, Part I, Part II, and Part III.)
I have worked in psychotherapy with literally thousands of children and adolescents with severe diagnoses, and often many were taking medications. I have been able to help many of them and their families. It was my deep desire to give these troubled children a chance to have a happy and successful life.
When a child was referred for therapy, I shared with the parents that children are often stigmatized when they see a counselor. It is so difficult for children who get labelled at an early age. They grow up with the belief that there is something “wrong” with them. I found it much better to work with the parents so they could provide daily experiences for their child to learn and develop. This offered the best possibility for success. Whenever I can find a way to resolve problems (especially regarding children) without medications, I so prefer it. I have seen deep and lasting positive results happen by changing a child’s environment and how they are able to relate to it.
I am trained in the Interactional View, based on the work of Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, and the Mental Research Institute, which suggests that none of us operates in a vacuum - emphasizing the connection in the relationships within a family. Consequently, when I received a referral of a “problem child,” it was important for me to assess what was going on in their interactions with significant others, most often, parents. I looked at the dynamics in the child’s current and past relationships. I did not see the child as the problem. They simply had dysfunctional patterns in their interactions with others. That is primarily where I intervened in therapy.
Through all my years working with children and adolescents, I realized a basic and profound truth:
Children will push and test until they find the boundaries. Once they do, they can spend their time and focus on learning to live to their fullest potential within these boundaries.
If limits are not communicated clearly and congruently, with words matching actions, children will continue to push and test until they find the boundaries.