Family Counseling – When do parents need Family Therapy?
Family Therapy in Western Suburbs
Serving Naperville, Wheaton, Warrenville, Lisle, Downers Grove, Woodridge, Aurora and Plainfield
Is your family fighting? Is there tension in the household? Are your ways of operating each day becoming more and more difficult? Would you like you and your families to love each other again, communicate effectively and be able to move forward with new healthy ways of living life? Then finding family counseling might be a good option for you.
Each family has a unique set of issues, people and ways of living everyday life. Some of those family ways can be problematic or causing the “ripple effect” on other members of the family.
Family therapy or counseling can be a difficult step to take. How do you know when is the right time to call a counselor for family therapy? What do you do in family counseling? If my children are having problems, but it is triggering arguments in my marriage or among the siblings, is that worth calling for counseling?
These might be questions going through your mind. If your marriage or family relationships are struggling in any way, family therapy could be a good solution to help. Having multiple personalities and schedules and opinions can be difficult to manage in a family setting. Fights tend to come up frequently. Or you have a child who is problematic. Or the arguing in your home is creating tension among all the members of your family. Whatever the issues in the family are, we can help solve it.
What is family therapy? Do we ALL have to go? Is it awkward?
Family therapy is getting all the members of the family together to talk about what is going on at home. Yes you ALL have to go! The more members of the family that are there the better. It can be awkward, but it need to get awkward in order to figure out the problem in the family.
Family therapy consists of one therapy sitting down with the family and helping determine the main issues and collectively find solutions among the family members with the guidance of a trained professional.
Families have systems. A way in which they work naturally. The family systems are not always healthy or helpful. Sometimes they can be problematic, but “just the way we are”. That’s OK, until it’s not.
In family therapy, we want to hear from ALL members of the family. It’s important that everyone have a voice and gets a chance to say their piece. Clients find that family sessions can be helpful in addition to individual counseling. There is no instruction manual to help families learn how to better communicate or solve issues. That’s why we can help to find healthy solutions for all types of families and problems. Family counseling is a process, so keep in mind, things will not change overnight. It takes effort on every member of the family to cooperate. If that doesn’t happen, change is still possible with a few members. Systems work like this, if one person changes, even if the other family members don’t change, they still have to respond differently to the changed family member, since they are doing something different. It’s like when a new person enters the family. Everyone has to adjust and adapt. Family therapy is implementing changes and helping guide the family to adjust in a healthy way.
Parenting in a family is hard. Being a child in a family can be difficult. Learning how to raise a family and exist together in harmony should be written in a book somewhere, and I’m sure it is, many times. Letting a family counselor help navigate your family’s unique personalities and issues will be most helpful when stumbling upon family roadblocks. Learning parenting tools from a therapist can help you better navigate your family when problems come up. Learning kid tools from a therapist can also help kids learn to communicate better what they are feeling.
LISTENING – COMMUNICATING – REFLECTING
These are three things essential to family counseling practices. They are not always natural in families and that takes some practice learning how to incorporate these skills in a family setting. That’s what family counseling can help you learn. Many families do not realize how words, actions or lack of actions can have small ripple effects within the family system and each member’s feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Our family therapists use several tools from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Family Systems Theory, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and several other proven therapies to help their families succeed.
Ever remember your parents saying “practice makes perfect”? Yeah, I do too. Although perfection is not a real achievable goal, practicing and improving your family is. Everything you need is already inside of you, and each family member. It’s just about figuring out your family’s unique way and ways to improve YOUR family’s group mental health.