Parenting a child who struggles can be so difficult. It’s not your fault. The behaviors you’re managing are real and genuinely difficult. You’ve been doing so much on your own.
Let's take the next step together.
Big behaviors and big emotions are hard on the whole family. If you’re here, you’re already doing something amazing: advocating for your child.
Child therapy
Watching your child struggle is one of the hardest things a parent can go through. Their big behaviors and emotions can be overwhelming and baffling. The strategies you've tried don't seem to change things in a meaningful way. You can’t seem to reach them no matter how hard you try! Parents often feel helpless, heartbroken, and completely worn out.
You love your child fiercely, and it hurts to see them hurting. It’s normal to feel frustrated, scared, and unsure of what to do next. And here’s something I want you to know: reaching out for help is a big deal. Choosing therapy for your child takes courage, honesty, and a whole lot of love. It means you noticed something was wrong, you refused to give up, and you decided your child deserves support. What an incredible act of advocacy! Your child is lucky to have you in their corner.
From here, you don’t have to do this alone. I’ll walk alongside you and your child with patience, understanding, and care, helping your whole family find more calm, connection, and hope.
You're not alone...
Maybe your young child has meltdowns that seem to come out of nowhere and leave everyone drained. Maybe goodbyes have become painful, and your child’s separation anxiety makes school drop-offs, bedtimes, or time apart feel impossible. Maybe getting out the door each morning has turned into a battle because of school refusal, and you’re caught between fear for your child and pressure from everyone else.
For some families, it’s anger outbursts: words or reactions so intense they catch you off guard and leave you walking on eggshells. For others, it’s the opposite. Your child shuts down, goes silent, or seems to have disengaged emotionally, and the closeness you once had feels so out of reach.
As kids grow into their teen years, the struggles can feel even more frightening. You may be facing substance use, risky behavior that keeps you up at night, or signs of low motivation and academic underachievement that leave you worried and tense.
In family therapy, we look beneath the challenging symptoms to understand what your child needs, and we help you become the steady, connected support that makes real healing possible.
What a struggling child can look like...
It can be hard to see in the middle of a meltdown, a slammed door, or a long silence, but a child’s behaviors are rarely just “bad behavior.” More often, they are a cry for help, or the best way your child has found to cope with something painful they don’t yet have words for.
Children and teens don’t always know how to say, “I’m scared,” “I’m overwhelmed” or "I can't meet your expectations." So the feelings comes out in other ways.
When we understand behavior as communication, there is hope for change. Instead of just asking, “How do I make this stop?” we can also ask, “What is my child trying to tell me?” and “What do they need from me right now?” That’s where real change begins. In family therapy, I help you understand what your child’s behavior is saying, and we support you in responding to the pain underneath so your child no longer has to carry it alone.
What your child's behavior is trying to say...
When your child is struggling, of course every part of you wants to help. But when fear and overwhelm take over, even our most loving efforts can backfire. It’s not because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because you care so much, and fear is a powerful force.
Maybe your child melts down, and you feel panic rising, so you push harder to get things under control. Your child escalates, and the moment spirals. Maybe your teen pulls away, and you start asking more questions, checking in more often, or lecturing out of worry. They pull away even further. Maybe you’ve found yourself giving in to avoid another blowup, only to feel like things are getting worse. Or maybe, after so many hard moments, you’ve started to pull back yourself, just to get through the day.
This is what we call a negative cycle. Your child’s distress sparks your fear. Your fear shapes how you respond. And your response, however well meant, can leave your child feeling more alone, more misunderstood, or more overwhelmed. Round and round it goes, until the whole family feels stuck.
Every family gets caught in these patterns sometimes, especially when the stakes feel high. The good news is that cycles can be changed. As the cycle loosens its grip, there’s room for something new: more calm, more connection, and a way forward together.
Getting stuck in a cycle...
When a child is struggling, it’s natural to look for an immediate fix, or the "right strategies" like stricter limits. Anything to make the hard moments stop! But even with the "right strategies", you can't seem to have a conversation with your child that doesn't go sideways. That’s why family therapy can be so powerful: it doesn’t just address the symptoms or "problem behaviors". It strengthens the foundation of your relationship by giving you a whole new way of communicating and connecting.
In individual therapy, a child may spend one hour a week with a therapist. In family therapy, the healing continues at the dinner table, at bedtime, in the car, and in every moment you share. As you work through what’s been blocking you, the changes you make ripple through your whole family. Your child feels more understood. You feel more confident. And the connection between you becomes a steady source of comfort and strength when life gets hard.
This is what makes the change last. It isn’t built on a set of techniques that fade over time, but on a relationship that keeps growing long after therapy ends. You already have the love. We’ll help you unlock its full power.
Why family therapy creates lasting change...
more balanced emotionally
more confident & sure of yourself
understanding what their behavior means
constantly overwhelmed
unsure of yourself as a parent
Worried about your child
To...
Go from
- John Bowlby
"A society that values its children, must cherish their parents."
"allison has always helped me get to the heart of the issue with my daughter."
She's kind and gentle but she also has helped me to work hard to get my daughter and me to a better. She's also showed me how my own past influences the way I parent, and how to be the mom I want to be.
"our sessions helped me to be more in-tune with my sons."
"I feel like I can understand them better, and we don't fight as much now. I can see that their behavior is their way of connecting with me, and now I have better ways of responding to what they actually need. I don't take their behavior as personally now, either."
"She helped our family after a divorce."
I thought that my kids and I would never be able to get on the same page again after I got divorced and remarried. We now enjoy being together and the occasional argument is no longer a catastrophe. I highly recommend her.
"Therapy really helped us, more than i thought it would."
My son and I liked therapy with Allison. She connected easily with both of us. She helped me to see past his bad behaviors and showed me what he really needed. I learned how I could be more supportive to him.
