Do You Worry That Your Family Would Fall Apart if You Took a Day Off?

• Does it feel like nobody is listening?

• Has parenting turned out not to be what you expected?

• Are you exhausted from juggling everyone’s emotions and needs?

• Have you found yourself yearning for just one peaceful evening without conflict?

It can feel overwhelming and stressful when your family is out of sync.  Our transition into parenthood often starts with a fantasy about what it will be like to be a parent.  These fantasies become our idealized expectation.  

The distance between fantasy and reality can be a stark contrast, one that can throw you off balance.  Perhaps you feel baffled by your child’s behavior, which results in you feeling disconnected from their needs.  Maybe your family has experienced a crisis, and you feel out of your depth with how to support them.  As children grow, families face new challenges with each developmental stage. These shifts can lead to a constant feeling of being unsettled.  Add in the pressures of work, school, and extra circular activities, and it is no wonder that everyone is feeling the pressure.  

When the pressure builds the behavior starts: checking out on social media, watching more TV that you would like, children whining about meals or seemingly unprovoked emotional outburst.  Parent and child alike start to feel raw and start pinching, poking, and pushing each other’s buttons as a way to try to relieve the pressures that have built.  Over time it may feel like you are destined to be exhausted forever and that you may never get a break.

The Strongest Families Can Become Immobilized by Stress

Did you know that 39% of parents with children under the age of 6 reported feeling tired all or most of the time?  Thirteen percent of parents reported feeling stressed most of the time, and 31% say that they always feel rushed (APA.org). Modern families are under a lot of stress. It is hard for you to be your best self and parent with all that stress and pressure. 

Each family experiences stress in their own way.  Maybe you have a child who just last week was eager to go to school but now cries every morning.  Or maybe your family was doing well until the birth of a new baby. You might not be able to change the pressures.   But by exploring each individual’s response to the stress and the relationships in the family in therapy, you can better understand the reasons for the behaviors and shift your family dynamics with the result of more calm and peaceful household with less conflict in the family system.  You can learn to thrive! 

Family Therapy Can Help Build Strong Relationships

All families go through stressful and challenging periods, but I have helped numerous families find their best rhythm and most profound connection. When you participate in family counseling here, you are getting someone knowledgeable about family systems therapy with extensive experience in early childhood development and mental health.  Whether your problems are focused on general family stress or recovery from a crisis, family therapy can help everyone learn to change, grow, and heal within the family system.

Family treatment is an effective way of understanding healthy boundaries, family patterns, and dynamics while improving communication and prompt empathy.  It can enhance problem-solving skills with results in a greater ability to take action in stressful moments.  Family counseling is also a great way to bring your family together after a crisis.

You can expect that our first session or two will be adults only.  During these appointments, dive deep and explore the problem, choose one or two target areas to focus and decided who should participate in sessions. In our first session together as a family unit, we will complete a family play assessment to better understand of the roles each member in the family has adopted.  Sessions will focus on building a deeper understanding of the challenges and individual relationships.   Additionally, I will provide appropriate take-home messages tailored to each family, including practical tips and strategies for managing conflict, improving communication, and building deeper connections for the family can use at home in-between sessions.  

I take a dynamic approach to therapy that can be a bit untraditional. I believe that people, especially children, learn best when engaged in multi-sensory activities that are fun! As such, you should come to a session prepared to play and maybe even get a little dirty. Family systems therapy and play therapy are the primary theories used to inform our work.  Sometimes that might include having the family work together to build a something or we might assign kiddo to direct a movie where you are the actor! I will also bring in intervention to our session incorporate elements of horticultural therapy, nature therapy, and animal assisted therapy.  We might go outside to connect with nature as a way to practice mindfulness, or you might be tasked to teach one of the therapy animals a new trick!  Each of these activities are carefully chosen with your family’s interest and goals in mind. 

As a Registered Play Therapist with 15+ years of experience and a mother myself, I am passionate about the impact of this work.  Focusing on your family’s connection is a great way to build your families resiliency to stress and trauma. 

But Maybe You Still Have Concerns about Family Therapy…. 

Family Treatment Sounds Expensive

Family therapy is an investment, and it can feel scary to make that kind of commitment. However, when you make the most out of an investment, it gives back to you in ways that real value to your life.  By decreasing the amount and level of stress and conflict felt within a family system, you gain more physical and emotional energy.  It opens up new possibilities for you and your family.  You will spend less time managing and more time thriving.  Investing in your relationship with your young child has a significant return on investment in the later stages of development.  

Family Therapy Takes a Long Time. We Don’t Have Time for That Kind of Commitment. 

You don’t have to commit to being in therapy for years to get the benefit.  That is one of the reasons that we spend so much time upfront determining one or two areas to focus areas.  As with anything, you get out of it what you put into therapy.  Clients who focus on and work toward their goals in-between sessions experience relief and learn to use those skills in other areas of their life.  Once you are satisfied with your results, you can choose to end therapy or work toward another goal.  It is common for my clients to take therapy vacations and return when a need arises.  You should expect our first experience with therapy to take a little longer because we have a lot of learning to do! But often follow up ‘tune-ups’ can be done in just a few sessions.  

I Can Play with My Kid at Home.  Why Should I Pay You to do It?

“Play is the highest form of research.” -Albert Einstein. Play is the perfect medium for learning and exploring the world for children.  Learning through play increases the chances of the information being integrated.  Additionally, kids don’t have the same grasp of language or may have some initial fear about communicating.  Play is the first proficient language, and when you tune into the play, they can tell you a lot about how they are feeling and experiencing their world.  Finally, having a trained professional observe how your family plays together shares a wealth of information about how things function in the larger picture of your family.  It provides numerous opportunities for practicing skills.

Will The Therapist Blame Me for The Problems I Have with My Children? 

If your family is struggling, you likely feel disheartened already. Many factors go into a parent-child relationship, including experience and temperament.  This is not anyone’s fault.  How those things fit together- or goodness of fit- makes a difference.  Some parent-child relationship are a natural, easy fit which makes thriving together simple.  Other times the fit isn’t as natural, and it can feel forced and difficult.  The worst is when you have a natural fit with one child and are challenged by another.  My job is to help find the strengths in a relationship and build on them.  

You Can Have Peace in Your Home

I am here to help. We can play together to build deep and meaningful connections that will last a lifetime.  When you are ready to change the way your family thrives, contact me to schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

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