Parenting Difficulties

Parenting can be the most rewarding and the most challenging job in the world. We often help parents of children and adolescents find solutions to parenting problems by combining what they know about their children and are already implementing as their parents, with research-based strategies.

Our work with parents frequently incorporates skills aimed at increasing compliance, managing specific challenging behaviours, and improving connection and relationship quality. Some of these strategies involve:

• Appropriate use of rewards and consequences;
• Adjusting which behaviours receive attention, and which ones to withdraw attention from;
• Helping children understand and manage their emotions;
• Managing our own reactions;
• Adjusting parenting strategies for adolescents;
• Increasing understanding of when non-compliance may be due to anxiety or another underlying problem. 

We are also seeing more parents of young adult children who are yet to move out of home, and this work involves managing the relationship adjustment that will be taking place at this time. Often, communication strategies can be very useful in this situation.