Family Therapy & Child Counseling Services
Very often I hear from parents of teenagers and young adults. They are worried that their daughter or son is using drugs, failing in school, lacking motivation or interest, having anger issues and seem sad and distant.
As parents, we all want the best for our children, and there is not many things more painful than to see your child suffering and feel you cannot help them. These parents often state they feel responsible, guilty and yet powerless to do anything to change the situation. No matter how many times they try to reach out to their child, they feel ignored or rejected. There is no progress being made and no solutions are found. This feeling of discouragement and frustration affects the whole family system, distancing parent from child and creating pain, suffering and a serious fracture in the family system.
It is for this reason that I think Family Therapy is so important. The family is a unit whether functional or toxic and it is affected by each individual, their moods and their emotions. Each individual strongly influences the coping mechanism and harmony or disharmony within this family unit.
The Benefits of Family Therapy
By entering family therapy, we learn to understand what family dynamics are taking place. We look at the communication issues, power struggles, reasons behind anger and resentments and the reason for the tension within the family. Every individual has a voice and it needs to be heard, understood and validated. The relationship between the parents have a tremendous influence on the rest of the family.
While many parents want to believe that their children are not aware of the tensions and disagreements between them, in my experience, the children always know. They may not know the particulars of the problem, but they can feel the tension and resentment in the home. Most children remain silent but confused, feeling insecure and anxious, but not knowing or afraid to approach their parents.
I have meant to write you for some time. I want to thank you again for helping me last spring. You really showed me how to control my anger at home with my kids and to look at life differently.
- R.B.Problems that parents were unaware of often come out in family counseling and can best be solved through therapy:
- Children being bullied at school
- Physical fights between siblings
- Adolescents failing school
- Girls cutting themselves when feeling stressed
- Adolescents and young adults using drugs, stealing, skipping school
- Reasons behind children lying to parents
- Adolescents having sexual relationships
- Adolescent and young adults depressed and having suicidal thoughts
Family therapy can help get your family back on track and restore harmony to a troubled home. It can deepen your sense of empathy, understanding, and compassion. It builds better communication and conflict resolution skills with your family and brings everyone closer together, rebuilding trust and restoring peace.
The benefits of family counseling:
- Coping tools to manage stress
- Improve communication
- Resolve conflicts
- Eliminating power struggles
- Finding tools to deal with difficult and challenging children and adolescents
- Setting limits
- Dealing with a family member’s addictions
- Re-establish trust
The benefit of family therapy is that I, as the therapist, can observe how each of the members of the family interacts, behaves and deals with real life issues. By seeing this, I can more easily identify the problems and misunderstandings, and then point out tips and directions that will help improve the relationships. Also, as the Family Therapist, I focus more on solving problems then delving into past childhood issues, unless it is very relevant. We try to look for solutions and focus on resolving issues and teaching communication and stress management tools that will continue to maintain harmony in the home.