Parent Consultations

There is no child I work with when I do not need to do at least some parent consultation. However, there are parents that I have consulted with without ever seeing their children.

Consultations can serve several functions. Parents can tell me that which children cannot about themselves. I can offer observations, interpretations, and interventions that can only happen with the parents’ cooperation. We can observe the results together, as partners, and adapt to the inevitable complications.

Lastly, parents have a natural need to know about their children’s therapy. Yet, for children to own the therapy, feel safe, use it, and be authentic and honest, confidentiality, even from their parents, is essential. There is a way for children to be when they are outside of their parent’s view that I must access. My task in such consultations is to balance these two needs.

Intertwined with working with children, is working with their parents. While a therapist offers a trained outsider’s perspective, parents know their kids; they see children being themselves day in and day out.

Working together, we serve them best.

Areas of Expertise:

•  Reality check: What is happening with my child?
• Assessment: An expert’s perspective
• Generating options
• Translating kid to English: Telling you what they cannot
• Designing intervention strategies for parents to take home
• Concrete support to implement successful interventions