Family Counselling / Parenting Counselling
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Family / Parenting Councelling
Parenting is one of the most toughest responsibility that needs utmost care and understanding. The most hardest part about parent counselling is it requires you as a parent to realise the depth of the situation.Children get the understanding of the world right from childhood by seeing how the family dynamics and parental relationship plays a huge role .
Family problems can be manifested to the children resulting in having challenges, frustration , unresolved conflicts, painful interactions among family members which could lead to buried resentment , unhealthy communication, suppression of feelings to feelings of guilt, arguments and can also lead to anger which we didn’t realise existed.
In a dysfunctional family , the most common criteria to handle a problem is sweeping under the rug,which is extremely unhealthy for the relationship, you cannot ignore the problem but you have the ability to fix it with proper communication and setting of the boundaries.
Having unhealthy marital relationship where there is conflicts, blaming, labelling the other partner, having unhealthy arguments could be traumatising to the child and often lead to child having a low self esteem.
Children subconsciously tend to grasp what they have been seeing in their closed family environment. If the child had been having an Authoritative parenting where the parents have been controlling, the child tends to show poor social skills and often have inbuilt anger because of the controlling behaviour. Seeing an abusive parent relationship can make the child either loud and obnoxious or aloof and withdrawn.
 Some of the parenting mistakes that affect the child’s mental health are ( Source: Indian Express Article)
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Having unrealistic expectations from the child By this Expecting every child to behave in a linear Manner without making mistakes makes the child feel pressurised to a greater extent.
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Ignorance of the Child’s feelings Often as parents we tend to believe that we shouldn’t let our child cry which leads to us controlling their feelings and constantly telling them to not to be scarred or having the stigma of ‘ Strong boys don’t cry’. In a long run due to this behaviour the child can second judge their own emotions and it becomes difficult for them to open up their suppressed emotions.
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Being a ‘Tiger’ parent By this the parents tend to be pushier and focus on honing the child’s academic performance . Setting high expectations from the child tend to lead them to major Anxiety. From therapy , we tend to psychoeducate the Parents that academic performance isn’t the only criteria to focus on for the child.
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Over praising the Child Giving the kids the pat on their back is extremely Important and if not the child tends to feel not validated and have a lower self esteem but as the proverb goes by - Too much of something is not good , likewise over praising the child makes it difficult for the child to accept failures and tend to feel defeated when they not win or achieve something they aim for
How would therapy help in parenting/ family counselling?
- Through therapy , our counsellor would help you in understanding how the dynamics work as well as psychoeducate the parents about how their behaviours can affect the children.
- often times in family counselling the presenting problem could be child’s misbehaviour but this could be stemming from the family conflicts and dynamics that the child has been witnessing, our therapist would help in identifying, analysing and help in resolving the problem.
- The initial few sessions of family therapy could lead to gathering family history and venting due to extreme suppression.
- Parents often times notice the misbehaviour of their children but fail to notice the underlying cause of their misbehaviour.
- For Instance: One of the most essential reason for a child to misbehave or be stubborn is when the child feels Controlled and powerless as the decisions are taken by parents as to what and when they would eat, sleep , study or even play. As the child is not given Choices whether he wants to study now or later can play a huge role and make them feel happy for being able to make their own decision.
- With counselling, the therapist would help in identifying the cause of the misbehaving child with the psychoanalytic theory of Alfred Adler and it’s 4 mistaken goals of Misbehaviour.
