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
209. Talking to Your Kids About Porn: Prevention Isn’t Enough With Jarrod Hoffman
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How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults.
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I hope to see you there!
Prevention isn’t going to protect your child from seeing porn. You might think that if you set parental controls, keep devices out of bedrooms, and have the “right” conversations about online safety, you can protect your child from porn, but prevention simply isn’t enough.
The reality is that porn can find our kids long before we expect them to encounter it. (Jarrod even shares that the average age of the first encounter is 6!!) Sometimes it comes through a friend. Sometimes an algorithm puts it in front of them. And sometimes, they stumble across it without looking for it at all.
That can be a scary thought as a parent. You may worry about what your child is seeing, whether they're becoming exposed too young, or whether bringing up the subject will somehow introduce an idea they haven't encountered yet. You might also feel unsure about what to say, or even embarrassed to start the conversation.
In this episode, I’m joined by licensed professional counselor Jarrod Hoffman, who brings both professional experience and his own deeply personal experience with unwanted sexual behavior to this conversation. We talk openly about why shame can make it so difficult for kids to tell their parents what’s going on, and why our relationship with our kids can be one of the most important forms of protection we have.
We also talk about why blocking access and setting technology boundaries still matter, but they can't be the whole strategy. If exposure is inevitable, our goal has to be bigger than simply keeping the water out of the boat. We need to make sure our kids know that when something uncomfortable, confusing, or shame-filled happens, they can turn toward us rather than hide from us.
And that means talking to your kids about porn, not just once, but regularly, calmly, and in a way that leaves the door open for them to come back to you.
In this episode on talking to your kids about porn, we discuss:
- Why porn can find kids even when they're not actively looking for it
- How young kids can be exposed to porn and other sexualized content
- Why prevention and technology boundaries are helpful, but aren't enough
- The role of shame in keeping kids from talking to their parents
- Why connection is such an important part of protecting your child
- How to start talking to your kids about porn in a developmentally appropriate way
- Why these conversations need to happen repeatedly rather than just once
- How to create an ongoing invitation for your child to come to you if they need help
- What parents can learn from kids about the pull and power of sexual content
- How unwanted sexual behavior can be connected to deeper experiences of shame, pain, or disconnection
- Resources that can help you continue the conversation
More about Jarrod Hoffman
Jarrod is a licensed professional counselor.
He believes that teens are resilient and that parents are valuable.
He was a teenage boy himself from 2004-2011.
He loves reading books and is still on the fence about Messi or Renaldo.
He's experienced many life-changes like his parents divorce when he was 10 and his dad's death when he was 28.
He strives to help others find healing from wounds and triumph through suffering.
You can contact Jarrod at jarrod@jarrodhoffman.com
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.
