Parenting Skills Training in Portland, Oregon

• We are expert family-, child-, and adolescent psychologists who help parents develop positive parenting skills and establish home environments to support children and teens.
• Positive parenting is the process that helps nurture the child and adolescent to grow and mature in an atmosphere of love, understanding, and support.
• Positive Parenting is based on acceptance and effective discipline when discipline is defined as “teaching” by practical guidance, structure, and consistency.
• It takes time and effort to be a positive parent, and positive parenting is a process that evolves along with the self-development of the adult.
• Parenting skills training is challenging but ultimately rewarding.
• A positive parent is willing to learn and to teach in ways that respect the child and teenager by believing the youth can learn and grow and make good decisions with the inherent capability of becoming independent, resilient, and influential adults.
• Positive parenting skills help parents acquire positive parenting by promoting understanding of child, adolescent, and young adult psychological development.
• We teach positive parenting skills such as: understanding the purpose and goals of problematic behaviors; learning the differences between punishment and discipline; emotional coaching skills; collaborative problem-solving skills; practical limit-setting skills; and core behavioral modification principles such as positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction, and the principle of immediacy.
• We emphasize how best to: use empathetic listening skills; communication skills; model appropriate behaviors; encourage; show approval; communicate love; be consistent; and resolve conflicts calmly and peacefully.
• Positive parenting aims to stimulate self-reliance and decision-making and foster favorable family time and close parent-child and parent-adolescent bonds to help a child and teenager develop healthy self-esteem and a positive identity.