Family counseling to address marriage + child's behavior
Our family needs help! We are a married couple of an only child in elementary school. Child does not listen to directions well and is constantly finding trouble at school. Always testing boundaries and causing teachers to call home frustrated. As parents, we have also been struggling at home. Marriage has become more or less "co-parenting" rather than a romantic relationship. I feel as though we are growing apart. I'm not sure if the marriage has taken a toll on our child, or if the stress of parenting has taken a toll on the marriage. In any case, our family feels broken to me, and I feel as though we have a lot to work on. Are there therapists who can address the marital issues with couples counseling and also work with us on our child's behavior? I feel as though we, as parents need to attend alone much of the time, but we'd like to attend as a family every once in a while, and even send our child for 1:1 sessions if that would be of benefit. Does it make sense for us to group our needs under one therapist? Or is is best to work with one for our marriage and one for our child? I welcome any and all referrals. Anthem blue cross would be a huge benefit! Thank you in advance.
Parent Replies
Not family-therapy related but have you considered having your child evaluated for Special Education services? It's possible there is a receptive language or some executive functioning deficits.
When my very young daughter suffered from anxiety her preschool teacher agreed that she could benefit from therapy. Dr. Fortunee Kayra-Stuart works with children and adults and after 18 months my daughter's separation anxiety was resolved. Dr. Stuart saw my child, us as a couple and all of us as a family. So yes it makes sense to group your issues with one therapist as long as you and your husband are in agreement. She's very experienced, extremely knowledgeable, practical, humorous when appropriate and ultimately was positively helpful. She gets it and she's quite hip for her age. I'm unsure if she takes your insurance but she does do the billing. Best wishes for a positive outcome.
Question, have you had your child tested to ensure he/she is not suffering from ADHD? That could be a simple answer to not paying attention. If you have done the testing and all is clear and I would recommend parenting classes so that both of you are on track. As for counseling you could try with Bay Area Clinical Associates in Oakland. They deal with both children and family issues. All marriages go through issues, not one of them is perfect. I have been married for 25 years and together for 27. We had our issues and have worked hard to be together. We are an only child family and when she was younger, we carved out time for us to be with just ourselves. You can work this out. Be kind to one another.
I wish that I had a good recommendation for you. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. I'm feeling like my marriage is over because of how my husband lets my child treat me. I love my husband and don't want to split up but how long do I stay with a man who justifies my child hitting me? It keeps getting worse because there are no consequences because my husband thinks that hitting is acceptable when adequately provoked. I think that there is never justification for hitting, regardless of how provoked the child is and that it's our job to teach our child appropriate ways to handle anger and frustration. To me, people who can justify hitting because they're provoked eventually can justify shooting because they feel disrespected and it's really important to stop this behavior now. This is the issue that is going to cause a divorce as I don't see how I can stay in a situation where I'm treated like this. Sorry this isn't responding to your actual question but I really feel like I could have written your post..