How Do We Help You
Parent Guidance
The Family in Crisis
When a gifted child, adolescent or young adult develops a psychological crisis, the entire family unit may also go into crisis.
How do we manage this?
The Elements of Parent Guidance
Education
Explaining the differences between normal and gifted development.
Using the formulation to differentiate circumstantial conflicts from developmental conflicts.
Using the psychodynamic parts of the formulation to distinguish between conscious and unconscious conflicts.
Exploring conflicts about the “inner experience” of giftedness.
Information about these issues can be reassuring to parents as they begin to understand different aspects of their child’s problems.
This knowledge provides a foundation for a parenting approach that goes beyond simple behavior management.
Improving Communication
Establishing ground rules for respectful communication and interaction between both parents as well as between parents and child.
All opinions and feelings – negative and positive – are legitimized.
Discussions about difficult topics are limited until trust is restored.
Developing a Plan for Encouraging and Supporting Gifted Development and Limiting Destructive Regressions.
We help parents become familiar with each of their reactions to their child’s giftedness.
Individual sessions help each parent learn more about their own values, strengths, weaknesses and unresolved conflicts about their own family of origin.
In individual sessions, each parent discusses their view of their marriage. Confidentiality promotes a discussion of more sensitive issues.
We learn whether or not each parent is gifted, how they feel about it and what they have or have not done with it.
Discussion about Differences
We encourage an open and honest discussion about differences parents have with each other.
How and in what way do each of them feel about supporting gifted development?
How much do they feel gifted development should be limited? How much sacrifice should be made as well as other possible differences unique to their situation?
Becoming a Team
The process of parent guidance then becomes a combination of education, support, exploration as well as coaching and advising. Invariably, parents discover they cannot completely resolve their differences yet have to become a team in order to successfully help their child.
Choosing an assessment process can be confusing.
We can help you decide what kind of assessment you need.