ParentWorks

Parents come to SelfWorks for a variety of reasons. We recognize that parenting is transformational and family life is an evolving set of challenges. We are experienced in working with families from diverse backgrounds: adoptive families, LGBTQ families, special needs families, recently immigrated families.

How can therapy help?

• Provides a space and structure for reflection, understanding, and problem-solving
• Provides information about recent research and clinical wisdom regarding parenting, child development, family life, and the socio-emotional and psychological needs of the individual across the lifespan
• Gives supportive, constructive feedback as you face tough questions and engage in the process of finding workable and realistic solutions

What can I expect?

At SelfWorks, you will be welcome to talk about whatever is on your mind in a nonjudgmental space. Some common goals for therapy include:

Creating a comfortable identity as a parent:

• Understand the way you were parented and how that parenting history affects and shapes you in the present
• Balance various and complex emotional demands: how to nurture each child, how to nurture yourself, how to nurture your intimate relationship, how to juggle your work/friends/extended family
• Evolve into a new and productive understanding of yourself amid the stresses, struggles and triumphs of 21st century parenthood
• The transition from childless adult to parent: friends, sex, money, relationships with grandparents and extended family
• Work/life balance and the unique tasks of parenting in New York City
• How to address conflicts with your partner, whether it is over child care responsibilities, intimacy, work and home life, anxiety or depression, substance use or drinking, or just plain unhappiness
• Supporting kids who suffer from psychiatric, attentional, psychological, learning and/or behavioral challenges
• Everyday parenting stresses from early childhood to the teen years– sleep, eating, screentime, limit-setting, finding the right school, homework, friendships, independence, sexuality, the empty nest
• Raising a LGTBQ, gender non-conforming, or gender-fluid child
• Talking to a child about her birth narrative, with particular sensitivities if a donor or adoption process was used
• Productively intervene to prevent or stop bullying
• Nurturing the family through divorce. How to co-parent with an ex, protecting your own needs while looking out for your child. Dating after divorce and the blended family
• Living and coping with illness in a parent or child
• Grieving and adapting through the death of a parent or a child

Revising and reflecting as your child ages and your own family circumstances change:

• Resolving differences in expectations about child-rearing with your partner, parents or in-laws
• How to deal with family members who are not allied with your ideas of what a happy, healthy family is
• How to work with yours and others’ difficult-to-achieve or unrealistic parenting expectations
• How to identify and prioritize moral, social, religious and ethical values, and share them with your family effectively
• Teaching (and learning from) your kids about social issues, including race, inequality and diversity
• How to grow your social life and social network; how to maintain healthy adult fun as a parent
• How to deal with envy, inequality of resources among and within families, and the “keeping up with the Joneses” factor
• How to keep growing as an individual, while feeling good about yourself, your roles and your larger connection with the community
• Caring for elderly parents and resolving extended family dysfunction