Family Focusing

Is there a special child in your life who would appreciate the gifts of resiliency and strong social-emotional skills? 

Or maybe family relationships are vitally important to you and you would like to learn how to improve them?

I offer Family Focusing Activity Sessions in which at least one child and one parent attend together. It could be the whole family attends. Working together, the Focusing skills we learn in our sessions can be practiced and reinforced at home as you are learning together.

“The benefits of Focusing for a child’s development: 
Children have a better sense of who they are and manage to communicate better with other children and adults about their feelings, choices and underlying needs. They are better able to protect themselves against the influences of the outside world and also develop a kind of inner radar for what is right/good/supported or wrong/bad/ for their own development. They are calmer and more able to stay in contact with their boundaries. And they create, new possibilities and choices. They are able to express their feelings, not only in words, but also in many other ways. They can develop greater inner safety and a strengthened identity, giving them a grounded presence in many different situations.” 
From an article: Working with Youth, by Rene Venegelers, a Focusing trainer specializing in children. Click on Rene’s name for a brief video example of his teaching.

 

I am so excited to be offering this! One of my biggest influences in deciding that I wanted to learn to teach Focusing was my experience in parenting my three children. As babies, each one entered the world already responding from a unique perspective that arose from within them. Like, they just pop out already their own little personality, don’t they? Up to a certain point, they were moldable.  Like molding clay, when I was with them, I could help them come away from a particular experience a bit stronger in their own sense of self. Of course, once they started school, there was a lot more than our nuclear family providing the molding. What broke my heart the most, was when they would develop a rigidity. Something they were no longer open to at all. They had decided to be clearly afraid. Sometimes I had a clue as to how this happened and sometimes I was clueless. And I did not have all of the skills to help them unwind what had become all tangled up in fear inside of them.
And now I do have the skills and I can teach them to you! I chose this format of working individually with families or parent-child combos because it is much easier to learn mindfulness, body awareness and Focusing skills in a supportive environment. Parents work with me to provide an environment of curiosity, loving encouragement and consistent repetition that supports neural integration and a sense of forward flow. Old unhelpful individual and family patterns loosen and unwind. New understandings of how to live successfully in this brain and body emerge. Child and parent move toward a more thriving sense of being. Goals will vary with each individual family situation and are chosen by you.  This way I can adapt what we are learning and practicing to what is happening right now in your family, specific to the child and all that they are interacting with.
Potential benefits include being calmer, strong social emotional skills, improved communication skills, self-sufficiency, unlikely to bully others or be bullied, strengthened sense of identity, create new possibilities, better manage their feelings, respond rather than react, understand their mind and body and much more.

 

Session length will vary with your family situation – generally class time will be 60-90 min with adult and child together and can include phone or  email support with the adult to review progress, assign a skill to practice and answer questions. Sessions may include stories, discussion, movement, brain games, Focusing and art activities. There may also be reading assigned outside of class and will always be exercises to practice outside of class. Generally, we’ll meet in person at my home for these sessions. In some cases, we may be able to meet at your home for an additional travel fee. These sessions can be done via videoconference if you have access to a printer to print materials we’ll be using for activities and if you are willing to pre-gather a few common items like keys and art supplies. If you are interested in these videoconference sessions, let’s first chat by phone to make sure this will work well for us all.

Email me HERE to discuss details or find a time that works for you. I currently offer sessions at my home on weekdays either Tuesday or Wednesdays. More options are available for zoom videoconference sessions. I am on EST (Eastern Standard Time zone USA). You can pay for sessions here now via paypal or at the time we meet via check or cash.

Adult/Child/ Family Private Focusing Activity Sessions: $60

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*DISCLAIMER

This site does not provide medical or any other health care or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The site and its services are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment.