Parenting can be deeply meaningful, rewarding, exhausting, and emotionally overwhelming, particularly when a child is struggling with attentional challenges, emotional regulation difficulties, anxiety, behavioral conflict, trauma, social stress, or developmental differences that leave families feeling stuck in cycles of frustration, misunderstanding, or escalating conflict.

Many of the parents I work with are thoughtful, highly engaged caregivers who are trying hard to support their children while also managing the realities of work, family life, stress, and their own emotional responses.
 

My approach to parent support is collaborative, practical, relational, and grounded in the understanding that children’s behavior can be best understood as communication.  I believe children do well when they can, and that behavioral challenges are usually the product of the child not understanding how to meet an expectation (see bullet point on CPS, below).

Parent work often focuses not simply on behavior management, but on improving communication, strengthening connection, reducing shame and blame within the family system, and helping both parents and children develop greater emotional flexibility and regulation over time.
 

My work with parents may include:
 

• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)-informed strategies to strengthen connection, improve communication, reinforce positive behaviors, and reduce patterns of conflict and escalation.
   

• Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approaches informed by the work of Dr. Ross Greene, emphasizing the belief that children do well when they can and that challenging behaviors often reflect lagging skills rather than a lack of motivation or character.
   

• General parenting guidance and support around emotional regulation, communication, school-related stress, family conflict, developmental transitions, and creating more sustainable family dynamics.
   

• Nervous system psychoeducation to help parents better understand stress responses, dysregulation, emotional overwhelm, sensory sensitivities, and the ways nervous system activation can affect behavior, attention, conflict, and connection within families.
   

• ADHD-specific family dynamics and support, including understanding executive functioning challenges, reducing cycles of criticism and shame, navigating school systems, supporting emotional regulation, and developing realistic and sustainable expectations for both children and caregivers.
   

I believe effective parent support should leave caregivers feeling better informed, less isolated, more emotionally grounded, and more connected to their children, not simply equipped with a list of behavioral techniques to implement at home.  I also believe kids learn best when they're engaged and I incorporate a great deal of play and ideas for play into my parental interventions.