Parent
Consultation and Support
Brooklyn-based therapy practice helping adults to grow and heal across the lifespan
Specializing in treating anxiety, depression and trauma
Serving adult survivors of childhood trauma struggling with lifelong patterns in relationships.
Supporting families in the community for over 15 years
In 2024 the US Surgeon General issued a health public health advisory regarding the growing trend of burnout experienced by parents who are learning to parent differently in response to rapidly changing social, economic and technology demands, with far less support than prior generations of caregivers.
So many parents today make a commitment to parenting their child in a much more active way than has been experienced by parents of previous generations.
This is, without a doubt, to the benefit of children today and means that children have more resources accessible to them.
Parents today are curious about their child’s development, and have a great commitment to not only their child’s physical well being, but to their mental and emotional wellbeing, and are motivated to learn about child development and psychology to best support their children.
This is, without a doubt, to the benefit of children today and means that children have more resources accessible to them. Parents are curious about their child’s development, and have a great dedication to not only their child’s physical well being, but to their mental and emotional wellbeing as well. They are motivated to learn more about child development and psychology to best support their children.
I offer a complimentary 20 minute consultation call ahead of scheduling an intake session with a potential patient.
Get Started
This call is an opportunity to discuss if my style and practice are a good fit for you to address your specific concerns, challenges, and history. Therapy is not simply a service to be delivered by a professional, but instead, a dynamic relationship within which changes happens.
I work closely with families, as an additional member of your child’s “team” to support healthy growth and development. I begin each child intake with an individual parent consultation, and then an in person family intake session as a first meeting of this team.
From the first session with parents and children together, I discuss each individual’s personal concerns are for their child, themselves and their family. In allowing each member of the family to contribute their perspective, it helps them build understanding and compassion for each other’s unique experiences both as members of one family, but also as individual with overlapping, and sometimes, competing needs. It also allows us to reconcile what we are expecting from therapy with a sense of what everyone’s role will be in therapy, and in planning appropriate goals for treatment. What is your goal for yourself, your family, and your child in therapy? What is your child’s goals for themselves, and the family? Once all the members of the team agree on the most important goals to set at the start of treatment, we can really begin the work in therapy.
After that first session, I continue to check in regularly with parents, and schedule family sessions, as needed, to help support children and parents in communicating effectively, as well as in learning how to implement strategies from session, at home. It is important to keep the lines of communication between myself and caregivers flowing so that I can be as effective as possible in session with their children. I use text communication with parents to facilitate that partnership, as needed, in between sessions, and schedule phone calls or parent sessions when more time is necessary.
While there is no shortage of sources of this education in today’s information age,
parents are juggling a multitude of full time economic, financial, familial and social demands, in addition to being able to navigate the world of “parent education” in addition to being meaningful present for more hours than ever before.
This is why parent support is such a critical piece of child and adolescent treatment.
At times, parents reach out with concerns that either their child is resistant to agreeing to starting therapy, or they are concerned about navigating that conversation.
In all of my parent intake consultations, we discuss your child’s readiness for therapy, how to handle that conversation, and in some cases, even if a child isn’t ready to engage in treatment themselves, we discuss if it would be beneficial to do parent consultation sessions, even without the child, to help support the parent in managing issues more effectively.
Additionally, there are times where a parent’s own lived experience, relationships, and perhaps even trauma, play such a significant role in the family’s concerns, that you may benefit from additional, individual, parent support sessions for me to better understand your history and its role in the parent-child dynamic, and for us to work together, without your child, as necessary, to empower you with more effective tools to care for both yourself, and your child, more effectively.
Finally, children spend the majority of their day in the school environment with a number of other important adults and children. For many children, there are concerns about their ability to effectively learn, or manage their behavior and emotions at school. When appropriate, I support families through initiating the psychoeducational evaluation process and advocating for their child’s needs at school. When beneficial, I collaborate with parents and teachers or school administrators, through classroom observations, communication with school staff, and participating in planning meetings to help support children in school.