Individualized Systematic Parenting Courses



 


With my Individualized Parent Competence Training Sessions I offer individual sets of parents or just one parent (not groups of parents) the opportunity to learn about the particular “developmental psychology” and “behavior modification” principles and theoretical concepts that guide my therapeutic work with their child.  


Essential ingredients of any successful child and adolescent psychotherapeutic process is – at minimum – an optimistic and constructive attitude of both parents towards the therapeutic process and – optimally – a close cooperation between at least one parent and the therapist.  My experience is that the more “informed” parents are about behavior modification principles and the developmental psychology concepts that form the framework of the therapeutic process, the more effective they can be – not only as my most valued collaborators during their child’s therapy, but also in the many other aspects of their daily parenting experiences that go far beyond this time-limited cooperation with me. 


Amongst other things, authoritative and informed parents know how to ensure that the behavior and emotional regulation skills that their child learns in therapy, is carried over and generalized into the everyday family, school and social life of their child.  They also feel confident and knowledgeable about how to help their child continue to stabilize and further develop these skills in such a way that the child will find is easy to master future developmental tasks in a self-motivated and self- responsible way.  They also know that competent children need competent parents.  And children need parents who are good role models with regard to problem solving, self-motivation and self-responsibility when trying to master their own developmental tasks.  Acquiring effective parenting skills is a developmental task that adults need to master in their early and middle adult years.  


In individualized and personalized parent competence training sessions, some of the topics that will be focused on are relevant theories of “life span development” and the corresponding “developmental tasks” that need to be mastered at each stage of development throughout life and how “risk” factors may negatively effect a child’s development – but how “protective” factors can counterbalance such negative effects.  The extent and the limitations of a parent’s influence on the quality and typical characteristics of their child’s developing personality is a very important topic.  On a more practical line, behavior modification and regulation strategies in the context of bringing up children will be addressed.  Consequent, “kind” but effective reward and punishment strategies, and information and practice about how to give effective instructions to children, the importance of setting up clearly formulated but reasonable family rules and the importance of teaching children to comply with parental (and teacher) instructions and rules are all issues that will be addressed. 

 

Parents who are interested in taking advantage of this service are welcome to contact me by telephone.