Oakland Psychotherapy & Online Counseling
Therapy for parents
Better Parenting Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Supportive psychotherapy for parents
If you find yourself constantly feeling guilty, stretched too thin, and running out of ideas, it may be time to seek therapy to find your equilibrium as a parent.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy can help you find more helpful ways to deal with the stress of taking care of your child while not losing yourself.
To be a good parent you need to be grounded yourself. Sacrifice is necessary at times however many parents find themselves so exhausted and burned out because they’ve prioritized everyone else’s needs but their own.
Psychotherapy provides a safe space for rejuvenation. Learn new tools to cope with the difficulties of raising children.
You love your children more than anything. And at the same time you are a multi-faceted human. You have your own interests. You value your career. You want to be there for your partner. You miss your friends and your freedom. And you are more than just a parent.
Feel more confident in your parenting by learning new ways to deal with stress, burnout, and setting healthy boundaries with your kids and family.
Therapy for New Parents
Becoming a parent is an incredible experience. It’s also completely life-changing. And we all know that change is hard.
Chloe Demisch, LCSW is a licensed therapist providing help with stress or loneliness you may be feeling as a parent.
Some parents may feel a sense of loss for their old lives as part of the adjustment process. It’s possible to celebrate the gift of having a child while also sometimes missing the way things used to be.
Therapy allows you to process all the feelings you have as you welcome a little one into your world.
As a parent of young children myself, I understand first hand how difficult taking care of another human being 24/7 can be. There is a lot of pressure that comes with parenthood.
Expectations from society and from ourselves can be overwhelming. Counseling can help you cope so you can be the parent you want to be.
Reach out to Chloe today to get psychotherapy in Oakland. In-person office sessions in Temescal and virtual video sessions are both available for your convenience.
Counseling for Mom Guilt
Mom guilt is pretty inevitable if you’re a parent in today’s society. You want to spend as much time as you can with your child. But you know you also need to take care of yourself. And it’s possible you have a partner, or other children, who also want your attention. Throw a career on top of that and, it can be too much to handle!
It’s impossible to find “the perfect balance” of being a mom.
Ideally all the things we want and need to do could be perfectly proportioned into equal time each day. There’s a misconception that “balance” is something you will somehow finally achieve as a mom and have it stay that way forever. But we all know that is not how life works!
Thinking about your life broken up into smaller chunks of time, like a few days or a week at a time, can help you sort your priorities for specific periods or seasons of life.
There may be one week where you have to focus on your kids, and another week it’s important to prioritize self-care. Perhaps you invest in a hobby and that means a little less time for exercise sometimes. If we visualize obligations and interests as a constantly fluctuating balance of give and take, it allows us to feel more free to pursue certain things while others take a backseat. Nothing needs to be the exact same level of priority forever, nor do you need to give up on something you need or want forever; it is all shifting in waves temporarily.
By being flexible you allow your priorities to constantly shift as needed. Here’s a visual example of how you might balance 1 week:
Sometimes you sacrifice certain things to make room for other things. But remembering that it won’t be like that forever is crucial. For example, maybe part of the week your priorities are work and exercise, midweek it’s a hobby and friends, and the weekend is all about your partner and kids. And then understanding that all these proportions will constantly need to shift and change depending on the season and what’s going on in your life.
If you zoom out on your life in the span of a few days or weeks, you can see how to create a better balance as a mom over the long-run.
Comparisons, judgments & how to use Defusion with them
Comparing ourselves to other parents is impossible not to do. Sometimes it can be helpful if we can grow and learn from it. But most of the time, comparisons create unrealistic expectations and make us feel worse about ourselves. And this can lead to depression and burnout if left untreated. I will teach you how to accept what is out of your control as a parent, while energizing your power towards things you can do.
10 steps towards Defusion
Defusion is a tool that Acceptance & Commitment Therapy teaches to help us have some distance from our difficult thoughts so we don’t automatically believe and act on them.
Below is an example of how I might help you deal with comparing yourself as a parent in a therapy session using Defusion.
Step 1: What are some things you judge yourself negatively for as a parent?
”I’m not a good enough mom”
Step 2: Say that judgment out loud.
Step 3: Now put this phrase in front of the judgment.
“I am having the thought that…”
Step 4: Now try this phrase in front of the judgment.
“I notice I’m having the thought that…”
Step 5: Say the initial judgment and then say it with the last phrase in front of it.
”I’m not a good enough mom”
vs.
“I notice I’m having the thought tha I’m not a good enough mom"
Step 6: What did you notice about your initial judgment vs. the one with the phrases added in front?
Did you feel some distance? Or maybe some separation? That’s good because now you’re in a better mindset to evaluate…
Step 7: What is not helpful about this initial judgment?
It’s keeping you stuck.
You’re beating yourself up about it without a plan to fix it.
It doesn’t motivate you to get better.
It makes you feel worse and then your confidence as a mom suffers.
You are not present in the moment with your kids because you are ruminating on it.
Step 8: What is helpful about this initial judgment?
It can be good to look at areas where we can improve our parenting so we can grow.
It’s helpful to challenge ourselves so we can strive to always be getting better.
We can more clearly identify our problems and come up with a plan to work on them.
Now we have some goals to work towards to be our best selves as moms.
Step 9: If the judgment is primarily not helpful, it’s time to refocus on the current moment, focus on what is important or valuable to you, and allow the thought to continue to chitter chatter in the background without letting it hold too much weight.
Some common examples of what this thought might feel like when you’ve defused from it:
an annoying gnat buzzing about
a quiet radio announcer in the background
the ticker on the bottom of a sports or news channel on TV
traffic noise in the distance
the ocean or the sky constantly changing
Step 10: If the judgment has some usefulness, do what you can with it to improve yourself or the situation. However once you have a plan, it’s time to let that judgment fade into the background so you can be present with your children and family, which likely is a more effective use of your time.
Dealing with the constant transitions of parenting
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy teaches us how to build flexibility and resilience through each stage of our child’s development. This way we can adapt more readily to each inevitable change.
Becoming more adaptable makes us stronger parents.
We know that nothing ever stays the same when it comes to kids and babies. As soon as we settle into one routine, something else happens to mix it all up again. If we fight these changes, it only makes them more difficult.
As a parent we are constantly in stages of transition. There’s always something new or different to work through. Learn how to do it better with counseling.
Get support with Chloe Demisch, LCSW on how to deal with things that are outside of your control as a parent.
As our children grow, the difficulties we face with them keep changing. One minute you think you’ve got it all figured out and then BOOM! something else changes. This kind of rollercoaster can make us feel emotionally drained and incompetent.
Build emotional flexibility using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy with Chloe Demisch, LCSW so you are ready for the nonstop ups and downs that come with being a parent.
Code-switching & role adjustments
Another area that has likely changed for you post-pandemic is needing to be able to rapidly switch between the different roles you have in life.
One moment you are dealing with a tantrum, the next you’re running a remote board meeting.
You just got off the phone with your boss and then your partner comes into the dining room. Finishing up a day full of Zoom calls bleeds right into making dinner.
Wearing many hats throughout the day, in different locations, with different people, is a skill we start to learn as a new parent.
It can make us reflect on our identities and personalities and sometimes may make us feel confused or like something is missing.
Code-switching is when we change our tone, appearance, language, or activities based on our audience.
And it can be exhausting.
It’s tough because we wish we could be everything for everyone all at once.
But we know this is impossible.
Constantly code-switching is exhausting and can make us lose focus and doubt ourselves.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy helps solidify our values and what’s most important to us. It reminds us of who we truly are and strengthens our identities so we don’t get lost even when life is in chaos. Chloe Demisch, LCSW will teach you skills to gain resiliency, security, and confidence in whatever role you find yourself in. Strengthening your ability to be flexible and mindful will help you when code-switching is required.
Therapy can make sense of the new roles you take on as a parent.
Perhaps you became a full-time caregiver. Got a promotion. Or chose to take on childcare with the kids at home. Or graduated from high school or college into a world that was shut-down. Moving in with parents or a partner during the pandemic made sense at the time, but maybe it doesn’t now and you’re struggling to know what to do next.
Get the support you need as you integrate into life with a new child. Regain your sense of self. Find direction and clarity. Build your new chapter in therapy today!
Book today and receive a free 10-minute consultation
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