Working With Parents

Parents are essential to the therapeutic process, especially those who are divorced or divorcing. Effective work with the child depends on the availability of parent support and participation in the therapy, wherever possible and appropriate. It is the parents who know their child best and who provide vitally important information about his or her developmental history and present functioning. Because parents are the most significant persons in their children’s lives, we work to strengthen these relationships.

Parents need support and information about how to bring their best selves to the parenting task. In families that are under-going the upheaval of separation, divorce and remarriage, there is much less energy available for “good-enough” parenting. Extra support that is practical and neutral can make a vital difference at such a time. In families where there has been abuse, life-threatening illness or the death of a close member, therapeutic intervention is essential for healing.

In periodic sessions for parents only, issues of communication,expectations, temperament, guidance and discipline are explored so that parents become more consistent and supportive of the child, and feel more comfortable about setting appropriate limits. At times, parents and child are seen together to play and engage in mutual problem-solving, so that there can be more cooperation and enjoyment of one another.

In families where parents are not living together, focusing on the children’s needs is essential to their healing. Wherever possible, parents are seen together unless there are restraining orders.

If a custody evaluation is in process, therapy for the children may be the only neutral environment where they are able to express themselves openly. The therapist then becomes the bridge that connects the needs of the children with the parents’ understanding of those needs, and will, hopefully, result in a more empathic parental attitude and behavior change.

Parent counseling in divorced families may also include

• exploration of developmentally appropriate child-sharing plans that need to change as children grow older;
• how to establish more consistency between the child’s two homes;
• helping the parents to communicate with one another in non-threatening ways.