Parent-Child
CHILD/TEEN-PARENT RELATIONSHIP THERAPY (CPRT)
During this process, parents are taught to enhance and establish secure attachment, attunement to their children, and respond to their underlying needs.
Parents also learn techniques to effectively limit undesirable behavior while demonstrating empathy and respect. The interventions are learned though direct observations, video recordings, parent consultations.
Skills learned through the therapy sessions:
- Praise vs. Encouragement: The child is encouraged and valued for who he/she is.
- Reflection and Validation: The child’s words, feelings, and experiences are repeated and expanded upon by parents to encourage communication and connection.
- Limit Setting: Parents are taught to show approval and set limits for undesirable behavior, and recommend desirable alternative behaviors.
- Description: Parents describe what the child is doing in order to help their child build vocabulary and show that they are paying attention to the child’s activities.
- Enjoyment: Parents connect to the child, spend valuable time together, and demonstrate enthusiasm for the child’s activities.
PARENT CONSULTATION AND EDUCATION
Most parents discover that parenting is much harder than they expected it to be. Parents struggle every day to be the parent they would like to be. They may feel as though their child/teen’s personalities clash, leaving the parent and child/teen feeling angry, exhausted and helpless.
In parental consultation, parents learn ways to feel more confident, and influential, while nurturing their children’s inherent strengths and developmental needs. This allows both parent and child/teen to experience more connection and strengthen the relationship.
Parental consultation/education will also be embedded in the regular children’s or teen’s session.