Parenting Therapy and Counseling in Bergen County, NJ

Parenting therapy is talk therapy that helps you understand your child’s behavior and respond to it in ways that work. A parenting therapist looks at what is happening at home, what your child needs at their age, and what gets in the way when you are tired, stressed or caught in the same argument again.

It is different from therapy that is mainly about your own mental health, although the two often overlap. If your main concern is exhaustion, low mood or feeling depleted, reading about the signs of parental burnout can help you decide where to start. Parenting therapy is also different from family therapy, where the whole family meets together to work on how everyone relates. Many families use both.

Therapy for parents covers a wide range of worries. The ones parents bring to parenting counseling most often are:

• Tantrums, defiance and arguments that have become part of the daily routine. When defiance is persistent and intense, it can be a sign of oppositional defiant disorder, and treatment for your child can run alongside your sessions.
• A child who worries a lot, avoids school or melts down before new situations, and you are not sure how much to push or reassure.
• School struggles, homework battles and calls from teachers.
• Constant conflict between siblings.
• Parents who disagree about rules, screens or discipline. If the disagreement is part of wider tension between you, couples therapy can address that side.
• The adjustment to a new baby, including mood changes after birth that may point to postpartum depression.
• Wanting to parent differently from the way you were raised.

Parenting a child with ADHD often means repeating the same instructions, chasing missed homework and calming meltdowns over transitions. For young children, the CDC describes parent training in behavior management as the recommended first choice in ADHD treatment for children under 6 years of age, and notes that parents typically attend 8 to 16 sessions with a therapist. Structured parent training programs of this kind exist, and if one would fit your family better, your clinician can talk it through with you. In parenting therapy at Mental Care Plus, sessions focus on routines, clear expectations and consistent follow-through, alongside your child’s own ADHD treatment and evaluation when it is needed.

With teenagers, the questions change: how much freedom to give, how to rebuild trust after a broken rule, and how to talk about screens, grades or substance use without the conversation ending in a slammed door. Parenting therapy helps you set limits a teen can respect while keeping the relationship open. If your teen also needs support of their own, child and adolescent therapy at Mental Care Plus can work alongside your sessions.

Blended family counseling helps when roles are unclear, children feel caught between households or a step parent is unsure how much authority to take. Sessions focus on shared expectations, consistent rules across homes and patience with a process that takes time. A new family structure is a big change for the adults too, and life transitions therapy can support you through it. Parents working out how to raise children across two homes after a separation can also start here.

Your first appointment is a conversation about what is happening at home, what you have already tried and what you would like to change. From there, your clinician suggests a format, and the format can change as things improve. If questions come up about your own mood, attention or stress, a mental health assessment can look at them directly.

Parenting therapy is offered by licensed clinicians (LCSW, LPC and LSW) in English, Spanish and Russian, and you can meet our clinicians before you book.

Many sessions include only you. Your child does not need to attend, or even to be in therapy, for parenting therapy to help. This is often the simplest place to start, and it gives you room to talk openly.

Some sessions include your child, so you can practice new responses together with your clinician’s feedback and then use them at home.

When two adults are raising a child, it helps to agree on the basics. Joint sessions give both parents, or co-parents in separate homes, a structured place to work out rules, routines and how to respond when a child tests them. Either parent can also attend alone.

Many parents notice themselves repeating something from their own childhood, or working hard to do the opposite. Exploring those patterns is part of parenting therapy. Our Clinical Director, Emory Salley, LCSW, LCADC, ACS, holds a Bowen Family Systems Theory Certificate from Rutgers University. When this work needs more room, individual therapy gives you a space of your own.

Parenting therapy is practical, and sessions build skills you can use the same day. In its fact sheet on parenting programs, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies lists characteristics shared by most structured parenting programs: setting realistic, age-appropriate expectations, praising positive behaviors you want to encourage, giving positive attention such as one-on-one play time, ignoring minor misbehaviors, using time-out from attention for negative behaviors and consulting with school personnel. The fact sheet notes that these programs have been evaluated in hundreds of studies, with children from infancy through adolescence, as a treatment for decreasing behavior problems, and that studies have also found improvements in parenting stress. Sessions at Mental Care Plus draw on many of the same everyday skills.

Parenting skills counseling also includes psychoeducation, meaning clear information about child development and behavior, so you know what is typical at your child’s age. You might work on:

• Limits and consequences you can follow through on
• Communication that keeps your child talking to you
• Morning, homework and bedtime routines
• Staying calm when your child is not
• Understanding what your child needs at their age
• Working with your child’s school

Parent coaching and parenting therapy can look similar from the outside, because both focus on goals and practical strategies. The difference is who provides the help and what they can do with what they find.

• Coaching is not a licensed clinical service.
• Parenting therapy at Mental Care Plus is provided by licensed clinicians who can recognize and treat what may sit underneath a parenting struggle, such as anxiety or depression in a parent, and who can coordinate care when a child needs treatment of their own.
• Because parenting therapy is clinical care, it can be billed to insurance when it addresses a clinical need. Coverage depends on your plan.

Many of our sessions are skills-focused and goal-oriented, which is the part people often call coaching, but they are delivered as therapy, with an assessment and a plan behind them.

Parenting is harder when you are running on empty. If stress has turned into exhaustion, irritability or a sense of dread, therapy focused on recovering from burnout can help you get your footing back. Individual sessions can also address depression or your own anxiety directly. When medication may help with your own symptoms, medication management is available at Mental Care Plus and is coordinated with your therapy.

If you or your child is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, call 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. A list of emergency mental health resources is also available.

Our office is at 560 Sylvan Avenue, Suite 2115, in Englewood Cliffs. If you are looking for parenting counseling near you, you can meet with us in person Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM, with Saturday sessions by appointment only.

If getting to the office is hard, online therapy in New Jersey lets you meet with a New Jersey licensed clinician over secure, HIPAA-compliant video from anywhere in the state. It suits busy schedules and families who live in two households, and you can keep working with the same clinician.

Parents come to our Englewood Cliffs office from towns across Bergen County, including: