Parenting Counselling in Ontario

Parenting can be one of life’s most challenging experiences, but with proper guidance, it can also be one of the most rewarding experiences.
Parents play a critical role in shaping their children’s lives and their future.

All parents can benefit from learning about child development and discussing tips and strategies with a child therapist, especially if they are navigating a difficult situation. Toronto Family Therapy in Ontario offers counselling and therapy to parents in need of help through advice and guidance when dealing with emotional, developmental and behavioural problems that may arise in children.

Parenting counselling can help parents improve their relationship with their child, gain effective parenting skills, address any parenting stress, gain a better understanding of their child’s needs at each developmental stage and learn how to support and comfort their child.

Parenting can be a wonderful journey filled with challenges, growth, love, joy and memories. How parents guide and connect with their children creates the foundation for a healthy and secure attachment. Parenting counselling can help individuals explore their own childhood and relationship experiences and identify any underlying issues that may impact their own parenting.

We provide Parenting Counselling for various stages of a child’s development:

Prenatal Counselling
Becoming a New Parent (0-18 months)
Raising Toddlers (18-36 months)

Raising Preschoolers (ages 3-6)
Raising School Age Children (ages 6-12)
Raising Teenagers / Adolescents (ages 13-18)

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Parenting Therapy and Child Development

Parenting Counselling can be valuable at various stages of a child’s development.

Prenatal counselling

Pregnancy and childbirth is a significant event. Prenatal counselling can help both expecting mothers and fathers. Many parents struggle with mixed emotions about bringing a child into the world. Parents often feel worried or anxious about their ability to care for a new baby and how their lives will change. Seeking counselling support at this time can help expecting parents successfully cope with any emotions they are feeling and become physically and emotionally prepared for their baby to arrive. During pregnancy and after having a baby, some parents are at higher risk for experiencing anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns. Counselling during pregnancy can prevent mental health concerns and promote positive outcomes in child development.

Becoming a New Parent (0-18months)

Being a new parent is not always easy. This is the stage of development when parents are forming everlasting bonds and attachment to their baby. New Parent Counselling can help parents become more aware of what to expect and adjust easier to the transitions. There is so much to learn about babies. New Parent Therapy can help parents learn how to play with their baby, recognize their baby’s cue (when they are hungry, tired, stressed or need a diaper change), soothe and comfort their baby, monitor the developmental milestones of their baby and have discussions regarding health and safety. In addition, counselling can help parents develop routines around eating, sleeping and playing. There is so much to anticipate during this time and getting some counselling helps equip parents with skills and knowledge.

Raising Toddlers (18-36 months)

Toddlers are often testing the limits during this phase of parenting. They can be fun, adorable, frustrating and challenging. Parenting counselling sessions can help with setting limits and being sensitive and responsive to their needs. Toddlers thrive from developing independence and exploring their world. Learning about your child’s development at this stage can be key to becoming a confident parent.

Parenting therapy during this stage can help raise your toddler into helpful, kind and smart children.

Raising Preschoolers (ages 3-6)

This is when childhood begins. This is a time when children transform from babies into little kids. Having support in the early years as new parents will help reduce stress while raising children.

Raising School Age Children (ages 6-12)

School age children have more expectations put on them. They are growing emotionally and intellectually. They are mastering important skills like reading, writing, arithmetic, physical activities and different sports. It is important for parents to learn how to stay connected to their children, learn family routines and rituals, teach them healthy habits and problem solving skills.

Parenting Therapy during this stage can help parents stay involved in their children’s lives as they grow and change, address school related issues and provide effective disciplining in a loving and supportive way.

Raising Teenagers/Adolescents (ages 13-18)

Adolescence is a challenging time for many children and can be overwhelming to parents. Parents need to learn the importance of guiding their children, instead of managing them.

Parenting styles need to change during this phase. Parents need to stay connected to their teenage children and try their best to ensure that their relationships stay solid and secure. Parents often need therapy to help raise their thriving teens into healthy and balanced young adults.

Important topics often discussed are how much freedom do you give your child as they go through adolescence, how do you communicate with your teen and setting clear rules and expectations and resolving parent-child conflicts.

Working collaboratively with a trained therapist at all different stages of children’s development can provide caregivers with skills to establish a trusting relationship with their children. Maintaining healthy communication in the family will also shape how the children grow socially, developmentally, and emotionally. Children take cues from their parents’ behaviour to learn how to act in the world, so being positive role models can be a powerful outcome in a child’s life.

“Parenting Counselling offers parents advice and guidance when dealing with emotional, developmental and behavioural problems that may arise in children.”

Joanna Seidel, RSW, MSW, Acc.FMClinical Director & Founder

Common Challenges Addressed in Parenting Counselling

Professional parenting counselling can address a wide range of issues or challenges. These may range from how to better communicate with your child to addressing the behavioural or emotional challenges which your child faces.

Children deal with their own stresses, and effective parent counselling gives fathers and mothers the tools needed to navigate these issues with their children in a positive and healthy way. Topics that are covered in Parenting Sessions may include;

Children’s relationships with their peers
Children’s mental health concerns, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, ADHD, school-related anxiety and stress
Age appropriate play
How to connect with your child and spend quality time
Being a good role model
Setting routines and structure
Appropriate discipline and parenting functioning
Helping your child develop self-confidence and self-regulation skills
Excessive screen time or social media use challenges
Dealing with their emotions during major life transitions like changes in social circles or dealing with family issues like separation or divorce.

While parents seek this type of counselling to better help their children, the parents themselves will also learn to maintain their mental health as well. They may learn better ways to manage work and family life, reduce their stress and anxiety, or adjust to life transitions alongside their child.

We provide the necessary support to help you enhance your parenthood journey.

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Q&A with Joanna Seidel, MSW, Acc.FM.

How to Strengthen Your Relationship While Raising Kids

How to Handle A Power Struggle with Your Child

How to Handle Sibling Conflict

How to Introduce a New Partner to Your Kids

How to Handle Kids’ Reactions After Separation & Divorce

How to Teach Children to Express Their Emotions

How to Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem

How to Use Positive Reinforcement with Your Kids

How to Help Your Children Handle Disappointment

The Benefits of Parenting Counselling & Coaching

As a parent undergoing counselling or coaching, you are sure to see one or all of these major benefits in your relationship with your child:

Better communication between you and your child (or children)
Enhanced parenting skills in your toolbox for whenever you need
An increased emotional resilience in the most stressful situations
Raising happy, healthy and confident children
Help to feel more capable and better manage the behaviours of your children, creating a more enjoyable and healthy environment
Guidance to create consistent routines and structure that everyone respects and follows
Instilling good values in your children, like responsibility, trust, empathy and respect
Learning how to prioritize the safety of your children

As you continue to grow as a parent throughout the counselling process, there will be noticeable changes in day-to-day life with your children and other family members.

The tools gained from professional parent coaching in Toronto, Ontario can help you and your children create a stable, supportive, and harmonious family environment. These tools will make it easier to build trusting relationships with your children, so conflicts are more easily and productively resolved.

Parent counselling also encourages positive behaviours by helping caregivers deal with behavioural difficulties in a constructive, consistent, and decisive manner, and by helping them to plan ahead of the issues.

But most importantly, with its non-judgmental nature, parent counselling teaches you how to take care of your health and well-being as a parent to ensure success during every stage of your child’s growth.

Approaches and Techniques in Parenting Therapy

Different situations will call for different parenting techniques and strategies. At Toronto Family Therapy, our registered psychotherapists utilize a variety of therapeutic strategies to help parents communicate, cope, or manage a diverse range of situations to help promote a healthy family environment.

There are tools which can be applied to common parenting scenarios like setting boundaries or encouraging positive behaviour. In addition to these general approaches to positive parenting, there are therapeutic methods that also aim to foster a healthy family environment and a strong parent-child relationship. These may include techniques like role-playing, mindfulness exercises, or techniques for helping the parent deal with their own stress, anxiety or depression.

What to Expect in Parenting Counselling Sessions

Parents often seek out counselling with a goal in mind. If you are a parent and are not sure what that goal should be, there are professional support like social workers, or psychotherapists, who can assist in creating these plans. Oftentimes, parents seek out common goals in these sessions. These include better family communication, better understanding of a child’s behaviours, or reducing family conflict.

Once goals are identified, families and parents can begin to develop a personalized plan. These plans and goals are then reached through different therapeutic techniques.

Parent Coaching for Skill Development

Parenting counselling helps parents guide their children to achieve various life skills through effective coaching. By engaging in this form of counselling, parents can impart valuable skills to their children, such as communication, discipline, and emotional regulation. This positive, healthy, and effective guidance can assist children in several key areas:

Routine building and management
Relationship management
Social skills
Responsibility and work ethic
Problem solving skills
Dealing with emotions like anxiety, depression, grief and trauma

Effective parent counselling offers support to parents to not only guide their children but also coach them in important parts of life.

hands holding paper family

Support for Special Parenting Situations

The reasons for reaching out to us at Toronto Family Therapy are varied and different for each family. There are many specialized situations as well which may call for special support for parents or step-parents. Our professional therapists are here to help parents navigate a diverse range of parenting obstacles and challenges such as parenting a child with behavioural or mental health issues, navigating separation and divorce, blending families, or parenting after a traumatic experience.

Any one of these situations will create a major transitional time for the parent and/or the child, and parent counselling gives caregivers the tools needed to navigate that transition, and the emotions involved.

Choosing the Right Therapist

In any case, effective therapy and counselling will come down to choosing the right therapist for you and your children’s mental health and developmental needs. When choosing a counsellor, be sure to go over their qualifications, education, experience, or their therapeutic style and how it aligns with your family’s needs. Most of this information will be available online or through social media.

But beyond education and experience, be mindful of the professional’s expertise with different age groups, unique situations, or specific parenting challenges.

Toronto Family Therapy employs a diverse team of professionals with a wide range of experience across parenting counselling. Our team is here for you as a parent and will help you come up with personalized parenting goals to create a healthier family environment at home.

Parenting Counselling in Toronto

As a parent, it is empowering to have the necessary tools and skills to give your children a happy and supportive home environment. Parent coaching sessions not only give you the skills, but the confidence to use them. Our goal at Toronto Family Therapy is to enhance your parenthood journey with evidence-based techniques in a non-judgmental setting so you can help your kids with their lives and emotional well-being. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with parenting issues, contact Toronto Family Therapy to talk to our parenting experts to begin your journey to a healthier and more positive family life.

Joanna Seidel (MSW, ACC.Fm), the founder of Toronto Family Therapy, has particular expertise in the area of parenting counselling.

She has worked extensively in her practice with families and children, helping them dealing with emotional, developmental and behavioural problems that may arise in children with the right advice and guidance.