Counseling for Parenting Young Children
The transition to parenthood may be smooth, or it may be challenging. But one thing is certain – it is a huge rite of passage.
If you have a newborn, you may be feeling sleep-deprived, vulnerable, emotional, or overwhelmed. There can be a very steep learning curve with your first child, and lots of conflicting advice and information out there to digest. How do you find your way through these early times in a way that feels right for you?
You may have a young child who felt easy until 3 or 6 or 9 months of age, when everything shifted. As children reach new milestones, our relationship as parents with them will also change. It may be that as your child reaches new milestones, you are having mixed feelings, instead of pure excitement. Sometimes our own early life experiences, memories, and wounds can surface unexpectedly.
Are there behaviors your young child is displaying that are upsetting to you, or that you seem to unable to navigate well? Would you like to feel more ease at these times?
Counseling for parenting young children can help.
If you have a partner, how has your relationship been? Are you feeling like it’s hard to connect, or hard to find energy for your partner? Are the waters a little choppier to navigate than they were when it was just the two of you?
Perhaps you are transitioning from one child to two children. Do you have concerns about the behaviors your first child is displaying, or worry about your first child’s feelings? Are you grieving the loss of that special relationship with your first child? Are you feeling overwhelmed with a lack of time to spend with each child, or with your partner, or just by yourself so that you can recharge? Or is your experience with your second child proving to be more challenging than that with your first child? Counseling for parenting young children is a positive place to begin making changes.
Sometimes, the perspectives of friends and extended family can be helpful. Other times, you may find that they offer advice that just doesn’t work for you. It can be easy to feel unsupported or even judged by others when we are feeling vulnerable around something that is so important to us, like parenting. Sometimes, it can be helpful to have an outside perspective on what is happening. In these cases, counseling for parenting young children may be beneficial for your family.