Parenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment
Your guide to parenting a struggling teen or young-adult, whether they’re home, transitioning home, or presently in treatment.
Parents, say goodbye to exhausting confusion, overwhelm, panic and the unhelpful patterns that keep you and your family stuck. Learn how to develop healthy responses and set healthy boundaries with your teen instead of acting out of fear and anxiety.
Experience the relationship-changing power of focusing on your own behavior instead of futile attempts to control your teen.
Your guides to Parenting Post-wilderness are Beth Hillman, a life coach for parents of struggling teens and mom to a post-wilderness teen, and part-time co-host Seth Gottlieb, a wilderness therapy guide turned teen and young-adult recovery coach. Their unique combination of experience and training yields candid conversations chock full of practical, actionable tips and tools to smooth the challenges both parents and teens experience surrounding treatment.
Every week, you can expect conversations around:
- Parenting a struggling teen or young-adult;
- Setting healthy boundaries with your teen;
- Treatment options for your struggling teen or young adult;
- Bringing your kid home from treatment;
- Parenting skills to support your struggling child;
- Teen substance abuse, drug addiction, gaming addiction, suicidal ideation, or other teen mental health concerns;
- How to end power struggles and instead foster healthy communication with your teen or young-adult;
- And much more.
Listen in to discover how parents like you have learned to influence equanimity in the home and rebuild connections with the teens they love.
Connect with Beth on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or find more information about working with Beth at www.bethhillmancoaching.com.
Parenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment
198. Helping Teens Change Behavior: What Motivational Interviewing Can Teach Parents with Jarrod Hoffman
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Why is it that the harder you push for change, the more your teen seems to dig in their heels?
If you've ever found yourself repeating the same conversations, giving advice that goes nowhere, or feeling exhausted by your teen's resistance, you're not alone. Most parents assume that if their child would just understand the consequences of their choices, they'd make better decisions. But change rarely works that way.
In this episode, I sit down with therapist Jarrod Hoffman to explore what motivational interviewing can teach parents about helping teens change behavior. We unpack why lectures, advice, and persuasion often backfire, and why empathy, curiosity, and connection are far more powerful tools for creating lasting change.
Jarrod introduces the stages of change framework and explains how understanding where your teen is in the change process can completely transform the way you communicate with them. Instead of trying to force change before they're ready, you'll learn how to meet them where they are and create the kind of conversations that actually help them move forward.
Most importantly, we discuss why your relationship with your teen cannot be based on whether they change, and why investing in connection may be the most effective way to support growth over the long term.
In this episode on helping teens change behavior, we discuss:
- Why parents often become counterproductive when trying to help their teen change
- The stages of change and how to recognize where your teen is in the process
- What pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance look like in real life
- Why advice, lectures, and persuasion often create more resistance
- How motivational interviewing can help parents support change more effectively
- The difference between self-serving questions and curiosity-driven conversations
- Why empathy is often more powerful than information
- Practical phrases parents can use to create connection instead of defensiveness
- How to reduce power struggles and improve healthy communication with your teen
Looking for support?
🗺️Need help setting healthy boundaries with your teen AND following through? My free guide will help you do so by creating your own Parent Home Plan!
🧘Learn how to respond in hard moments, without losing your cool, the relationship, or yourself, inside my 6-week Boundaries Masterclass.
🤍Influence lasting change in yourself and your struggling teen with my private coaching or parent group program specifically created for parents of struggling teens.
Have a question or need support? You can email me at beth@bethhillmancoaching.com
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And remember parents, the change begins with us.
FREE online workshop - June 24 from 5-630MT
Respond Like Yoda (When Your Kid Is Acting Like Vader)
How to be grounded, avoid power struggles, and respond with clarity instead of reaction
Register at https://bethhillmancoaching.com/yoda
