Do you have moments of feeling incompetent as a parent?

Do you find yourself reverting back to your own parents’ parenting practices, those exact same ones you have vowed never to do yourself?

Are you embarrassed by how you really feel about your child/ren and about parenting them?

Parenting presents such an overwhelming and unpredictable set of psychological challenges, that many have called it “the most difficult job in the world.” Many parents I have worked with feel incredible shame around their difficulties, believing that their experiences are abnormal, even unnatural.

However, clinical research and experience shows that in the common, typical course of parenting, most parents will find themselves at times feeling extremely difficult and conflicted feelings about their children and about parenting. These feelings tend to go unspoken. Parents are often afraid that if they speak of these feelings, they will end up acting on them, and somehow harm their children. It has been my experience, time and time again, that the best way to not act on such feelings is to talk and think about them together.

Thinking things through together also creates an opportunity for what most parents want; unlearning some of your own parents’ mistakes, and creating a new way of parenting, more congruent with your own wishes, values and ideals.

Some of the difficult feelings and experiences parents tend to need help with include:

-Shame around your child’s personality, looks or behaviors.

-Doubts about your parenting ability.

-Feeling incompetent, or defeated, around your parenting.

-Strong feelings of anger, disappointment and frustration with your child.

-Stirring of your own unresolved childhood traumas.

I also have worked with parents who have had difficult, ongoing power struggles with their children, or who faced difficult decisions due to their child’s special medical, educational, psychological or developmental needs. I have worked with couples and single parents, foster parents, adoptive parents and biological parents in both heterosexual and LGBT families.

My clinical work with parents and families began during my clinical training year with the UCSF Infant-Parent Program, where I worked with parents who were struggling to connect with their young children. Later, I worked for several years at the TALK Line Family Support Center, where I assisted hundreds of parents with difficult, unusual, or everyday parenting stressors. I also have specialized training working with young children who have suffered significant losses, such as death in the family, immigration, separation or divorce.

I am Israeli-American and my services are available in English and in Hebrew.