Family Therapy & Parent Coaching NYC

How effective are your parenting skills?

Research shows that an “authoritative” parenting style has the most positive impact on childhood development. Children who receive consistent discipline and supervision show greater resilience and academic performance.

Unfortunately, many parents have difficulty setting consistent and appropriate limits with their children. Some parents are overly lax and feel “bad” when they say “no” to their child’s wants, while others can be punitive and overly harsh when their child misbehaves. Conflicting parenting styles can also cause problems for children by sending confusing messages about “good” versus “bad” behavior. Finally, some parents simply don’t know how to use rewards and consequences effectively.

As child and adolescent psychologists, we empower adults with the knowledge and skills they need to be more effective parents. This includes helping parents to better understand their child’s behavior, explore the impact of their own childhood and relationship experiences, build assertiveness and distress tolerance, learn behavior management techniques, and strengthen the “parental team.”

Happy Couple, Happy Kids

Parental discord is a major stressor for children and can easily precipitate negative behaviors. Children are surprisingly attuned to their parent’s level of emotional distress; when parents fight, the children feel it. When children are inappropriately privy to the marital problems, they are likely to blame themselves for their parent’s unhappiness and compensate in a number of ways, such as becoming the “good child” or by acting out to distract the parents from their own problems. While verbal arguing between partners to resolve disputes is a normal part of marriage, the way parents “fight” can be detrimental to the children.

We help couples to resolve relationship discord and teaches parents how, when, and where to “fight” to minimize the children’s level of distress. He helps couples navigate divorce, separation, and relationship recovery. We also work with families to foster positive communication patterns, rebuild alliances and boundaries, and promote family cohesion.
 

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