Name: Overcome Adversity | Cobb Counseling & Therapy
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Parenting Issues Overcoming Adversity — Parenting Issues

Overcome issues you may be facing

I have worked with many parents and guardians to help teach or improve their parenting skills. There are several different styles that are commonly used: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. In some cases, they may be too lenient (permissive). In other cases, they may be overly strict (authoritarian). In many cases, one will be lenient while the other will be strict. As you can imagine this can lead to high levels of conflict within families. It is best when parents are able to work together and meet in the middle at the authoritative style. To get both to a middle ground a lot of work needs to be done in terms of communication, compromise, and building structure. It is also helpful when parents can identify which style they use in order to understand changes they may need to make in their techniques.

Communicate

It is very important for parents to be able to communicate with each other and with their children. Both will find it very beneficial when they are able to work as a united team in the parenting of their children. Also, parents need to be able to effectively communicate rules and expectations to their children. By learning or increasing positive communication techniques and patterns family conflict typically decreases and a family is able to improve their ability to get along better as a unit.

I feel that when parents are able to identify the strengths and weaknesses they have in their parenting techniques they are then able to see where improvements need to be made and work toward changing the methods that are ineffective. Each parent has parenting techniques that work well. When those practices can be identified and each parent can tailor their positive methods into an agreed-upon system, positive things can happen with the children involved.

Behaviors

Once parenting styles have been identified and strengths have been developed into a working system for the family it is important for parents to then let their children know what expectations are and how behaviors will be rewarded or consequences will be given based on behaviors. When a family has a structured system that they are working from, children often respond better because they have an improved understanding of what will and will not be tolerated.

Finding Support

Lastly, when it comes to seeking help with parenting it is important to understand that by seeking help they are not admitting to being “horrible” parents but rather they are seeing that there is a need for improvement and a need for guidance in making positive changes happen for their family. By seeking the help of a therapist, parents have the benefit of hearing a perspective from an outsider. What can be beneficial in these discussions is that parents can see things in new ways that they were not previously considering. This can help initiate the change needed in order for a family to run more smoothly and for members to be able to get along with one another better.

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