Parenting Support

It can be difficult to be a parent, especially when it comes to facing contentious issues such as homework, screen time, food choices, and bedtime. And when your child’s behavior or emotional reactions seem particularly intense, parents can feel at a total loss.

At the Center for Connection, we understand and are here to help. Our therapists seek to deeply understand what challenges you’re facing and identify relational supports individualized to you and your family that help you navigate the parenting journey with more confidence, connection and success. We will listen and explore strategies based on the latest research on parenting and the brain, which can help you not only survive difficult moments with your kids, but actually use those very moments to help you and your child thrive.

Types of Parenting Support

At the Center for Connection, we offer three types of parenting support (with virtual options for those based outside of California):

Parent Coaching

With a primary focus on developing your toolbox of parenting strategies, we can help you navigate challenging behaviors and moments of dysregulation with your child while developing your strengths as a parent. Parent coaching often encompasses the following:

Steps for identifying your own discipline philosophy; and mastering the best methods to effectively discipline and communicate the lessons you want to impart.
Strategies to calmly connect and communicate love for your child, no matter how extreme the behavior, while still setting clear and consistent limits.
Tips for guiding or partnering with your child through emotional storms.
Facts about child brain development and what kind of discipline or expectations are most appropriate and constructive at all ages and stages.
Techniques and strategies to help strengthen your child’s communication, play, executive functioning development, and regulation with family members and friends.
Keys to understanding what’s typical for your child’s age and stage, to better determine together whether your child might need some additional support.

We’ll work to help you peacefully resolve conflicts, inspire happiness, understand your child’s growing brain and developing mind, and strengthen resilience for everyone in the family. It can be tremendously valuable to sit with an expert and ask your questions, learn more effective strategies, and figure out how to be more intentional about building your relationship with your child.

Note: Parent coaching sessions can be offered nationwide (in-person or virtually in California and virtually in other states) and can be short-term or ongoing depending on the specific needs of you and your family.

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Reflective Parenting Support

Reflective parenting is a specialized practice that invites parents to reflect on the underlying meaning of their child’s behavior and consider whether that behavior is expressing an attachment need, sensory processing need, emotional escalation, or underlying gap between the situational demands and the child’s current capacities. We will help you become a compassionate detective to attune to your child and co-regulate with them to help them feel heard, understood and connected. Reflective parenting support is most often provided to parents of children birth through five years old.

In reflective parenting sessions we’ll use the foundations of child development and neurobiological perspectives to explore your child's unique constellation of strengths, challenges and vulnerabilities together, and we’ll collaborate to uncover new ways of thinking about and solving the challenges you face. Reflective parenting sessions are also a supportive space for parents to be heard and validated in their own feelings about the challenges of parenting.

Reflective parenting support often lasts between 4-8 weeks, and you'll have the opportunity to build a trusting professional relationship with a provider who may be available to your family for future consults as your child's development unfolds. While sessions will be tailored to address your goals, one overarching objective is that parents leave feeling increased confidence, competence, and connectedness. This modality is not meant to address every concern, but instead is meant to give parents a solid foundation from which they can launch their next steps in parenting. Educational resources (books, handouts, podcasts) will be offered, and additional referrals to more specialized services (child therapy, individual adult therapy, couples therapy, group support) are sometimes recommended.

NOTE: Reflective parenting support is available in-person and virtually to California state residents only.

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Individual Therapy for Parents

Individual psychotherapy for parents is specialized to help you develop individualized tools and resources to remain regulated during difficult moments in parenting and beyond. We help you identify, process and manage your past and present experiences that may be impacting how you engage with and relate to your child. In some cases, psychotherapy for parents can help you and your partner determine similarities and differences in your parenting styles, improve your communication, and maintain a more cohesive, collaborative, consistent parenting approach. In addition to challenges related to parenting, your therapist will support you in exploring and more successfully coping with other concerns you may be facing, including anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and other stressful life events.

NOTE: individual therapy is available in-person and virtually to California state residents only.

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Other Resources for Parents

Neurodiversity Resources for Parents & Professionals

We know that it can be overwhelming to sift through all of the resources available to you across multiple platforms. To help, we have compiled a short list of resources that can provide you additional support and information. Click here to learn more.