Fix My Kid

FIX MY KID! ENGAGING AND FOSTERING COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH CHALLENGING PARENTS

One of the most challenging clinical dilemmas we face in our practice settings is the parent or parents who view their kid as the family problem and main cause of stress in their lives, they may be burned out and angry after several unsuccessful past treatment experiences, or exclude themselves as part of the solution construction process and leave it up to the therapist to: “Fix my kid!” Some of these parents may be quite skilled at convincing therapists and other helping professionals to accept this invitation and abdicating their responsibility in the change effort. So, how do we successfully engage these parents? How can they become the agents of change for their kids?

In this “hands-on” practice-oriented workshop, participants will learn the following practical “how-tos”:

  • Effective engagement and retention strategies with reluctant and challenging parents
  • Tailor-fit what we say and do with the unique characteristics of the parent to foster strong therapeutic alliances and cooperative relationships
  • Select and craft powerful questions that elicit the strengths and resources of parents, well-formulated treatment goals, and co-create compelling future realities with parents and their kids
  • Teach parents how to reduce parental stress through the use of mindfulness meditation and related practices
  • Invite parents to play super sleuth detectives for us and carefully observe for clues of what works during the times when their kids don’t require “fixing”
  • Use time-traveling to empower parents to retrieve their past successes with their kids and/or be architects of the future relationships they strongly desire with their kids
  • Guidelines for designing, selecting, and implementing therapeutic experiments and rituals to help strengthen parents’ relationships with their kids
  • Empower parents to serve as advocates for their kids at school and/or in other larger systems their kids are entangled in
  • Conduct one person family therapy with children and adolescents
  • Getting unstuck: Trouble-shooting guidelines for therapeutic breakthroughs
Whats New?

Due to popular worldwide demand for a longer more intensive training experience in our model, our Partners team is now offering a 5-Day and 4-Day Advanced International Certificate Training Program in Collaborative Strengths-Based Brief Family Therapy. In addition to lots of videotape examples of major therapeutic tools and strategies of the Collaborative Strengths-Based Brief Family Therapy approach, there will be both daily live couple and family therapy consultations and skill-building exercises. Finally, we will cover effective strategies for working with some of the toughest clinical dilemmas, such as: long-term self-injurers, suicidal, violent, eating disorder, heavy substance abusing clients, high-conflict couples, families with multiple symptom-bearers, post-divorce conflict families, and more. Click on the LEVEL I and II training descriptions and topics covered below.

Matthew’s book Pathways to Change: Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents, Second Edition was just published in Korean. A copy was presented to me at my workshop in Seoul, which was hosted by the Korean Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association.

Matthew’s new book: Working with High-Risk Adolescents: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Therapy Approach, has been published by Guilford Press, Inc.

To view a downloadable flyer of my book, click here