PARENT CONSULTATION
For parents doing the daily work of raising an adolescent girl.
Everyone is focused on how she's doing. Someone should be thinking about how you're doing it.
You're the one who has to decide whether to push or back off. Whether this is worth a conversation or worth letting go. Whether the thing she said at dinner was a bid for connection or a bid to be left alone, and you have about four seconds to read it correctly.
You do this dozens of times a week, mostly alone, mostly without feedback, and often at the end of a day when you have very little left.
The advice available to you is not short. Friends have opinions. Your mother has opinions. There are books, and podcasts, and an entire internet of confident strangers. What's missing is someone who knows adolescent development, knows your particular daughter and your particular family, and can help you think through the actual situation in front of you rather than the general case.
That's what this is.
You’re tired of:
Replaying conversations afterward and knowing you handled it wrong
Disagreeing with your co-parent about what she needs and getting nowhere
Reading her mood all day and never being sure you've read it right
How I can help
Parent consultation gives you a place to think clearly about hard parenting decisions before you have to make them.
Who This Is For
Parents whose daughter is in therapy and who want their own space alongside it. Parents whose daughter refuses therapy and who need somewhere to start. Parents facing a challenging situation, such as a friendship that's gone wrong, a change in eating habits, a phone conversation they've been avoiding, or a disclosure they weren't prepared for. And parents who aren't sure anything is wrong at all and want an informed read on whether what they're seeing is developmentally normal or means for concern.
You don't need a crisis to ask for help in being the best parent you can be. Some of the most useful work happens well before one.
What the Sessions Are Actually Like
Fifty minutes, and unlike therapy, not necessarily weekly. Some parents come for four sessions around a particular situation and stop. Some check in monthly across a school year. Some come weekly for a stretch when things are hard, then taper.
We work on what's actually happening: a conversation you need to have and can't figure out how to open, a limit you've set and can't hold, a pattern between the two of you that keeps repeating. I'll offer what I know about adolescent development and what tends to work, and we'll adapt it to your daughter.
What You Get That Advice Doesn’t Give You
Continuity. Someone who remembers what happened in September when you're describing what happened in January, and can see the shape of it. Most parenting input arrives as one-off answers to isolated questions. This is a relationship with someone tracking the whole arc of your family’s story.
Whether You Become A Client
Yes. In parent consultation, you are the client, not your daughter. That means our sessions are confidential to you and your record is yours, with the standard legal exceptions around safety and mandated reporting that apply to all of my work.
It also means this is not therapy for you. If what surfaces is primarily about your own history, depression, anxiety, or relationship, that deserves its own treatment, and I'll help you find the right person. The focus here stays on your daughter and your role with her.
what becomes possible…
Sharing the worry instead of carrying it alone.
Worrying about your daughter without anyone really seeing what you're seeing can be exhausting. Consultation gives you a licensed therapist thinking alongside you, supporting your innate knowledge as a parent, while bringing clinical training to what you've been holding by yourself.
Responding instead of reacting.
Most of the moments that matter with an adolescent are fast and unplanned. The work here is less about scripts and more about understanding what's underneath her behavior, so that in the four seconds you have, you're working from something other than instinct and fear.
A different kind of conversation between you and her.
When you have more language for what's happening developmentally, your conversations change. Fewer of them end with a slammed door, allowing for a deeper connection between parent and child.
I want you to know:
Needing help with this is not evidence you’re a bad
parent.
The parents who reach out to me are, almost without exception, those trying hard. Adolescence is genuinely difficult to parent well, and it is not designed to give you feedback while you're in it.
What is the difference between teen therapy and parent consultation?
THERAPY IS FOR HER.
Your daughter is the client. The work is hers, exploring what she's carrying, how she talks to herself, and what she wants to be different. You're involved through periodic check-ins and as a partner in her care, but the hour is hers.
PARENT CONSULTATION IS FOR YOU.
You're the client. The work is about your role, the conversations you're not sure how to have, the decisions you're making in four seconds, what's developmentally normal and what isn't. Your daughter doesn't need to be in therapy for this to be useful.
Some families do both. Some start with one and add the other later. If you're not sure which fits, that's what the consultation is for.
faqs
Common questions about parent consultation
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No. Plenty of parents work with me while their daughter sees no one. This is often the right starting point when she's refusing therapy, as you can do meaningful work on your own, and she can decide later whether she wants her own.
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Sometimes, and it depends on the situation. It works well in some families and creates real complications in others, particularly around her trust that I'm hers. We'll talk it through in the consultation and decide together. If it isn't a good fit, I'll help you find a therapist for her.
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Sometimes, when there's a clear answer, and you want one. More often, we'll think through a situation together because you know your daughter and I know adolescence, and the useful answer usually lies somewhere in between.
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There's no set number. Some parents get what they need in three or four. Others find it valuable ongoing. We'll check in about it rather than letting it drift.
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$365 per 50-minute session, the same as therapy.
Unlike therapy, consultation often isn't weekly and often isn't long-term. Many parents come for a handful of sessions around a specific situation, or check in monthly across a school year. We'll talk about what pace makes sense rather than defaulting to a standing weekly appointment.
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Usually not, and I'd rather be direct about that than let you find out later.
Insurance reimburses mental health treatment for an identified patient with a diagnosis. In parent consultation, you're the client, and the work is about your role and your daughter's development, not about treating a condition, so there's typically no diagnosis to attach to a claim, and no superbill I can generate.
Ready to get started?