You are a parent and your family is incredibly important to you. You want to have meaningful relationships with your children. You’ve provided for them as best as you can, and now you feel confused by the tension or distance that exists between you and your child. Whether your child is a teenager, young adult, or grown adult, you hoped for more connection at this stage.
You yearn to have better communication with your child.
Or you are an adult, struggling with hurt regarding your relationship with a parent(s). Maybe you experienced adverse childhood events such as divorce, emotional neglect, or other transitions that created pain and difficulty. Maybe they were never talked about and resolved, or maybe something in adulthood has you revisiting these childhood events.
Maybe you can’t remember the last conversation you had that didn’t have conflict. You have no idea how it got this way and it certainly wasn’t how you thought your relationship with your child (or parent) would be. Sometimes you feel like you’re walking on eggshells, uncertain what you can say without triggering an outburst.
I welcome parents and children to participate cooperatively in counseling together to understand each other’s hopes for the relationship, find any common goals, and work towards those. Or, even one person can participate in counseling and create meaningful change in communicating and relating, that can begin to transform your experience of that relationship or heal past wounds.