Kristen T. Adams (She/her/hers)

Are you co-parenting with someone you're no longer romantically involved with? Have you noticed yourself struggling physically, emotionally, or spiritually due to the stresses co-parenting? Learn how to adapt and change through each new season of co-parenting.

Are you a stepparent who supports a co-parenting partner? Have you noticed yourself struggling physically, emotionally, or mentally due to the stresses of stepparenting? Each new season of a child's life also brings challenges in blended family and co-parenting situations. Therapy can help you learn how to adapt and change through each new season and find balance in an often turbulent situation.

Teens are facing more adversity and stress now than ever before. With this next generation of digital natives, teens are frequently disconnected from their bodies and struggle to respond effectively to big emotions. Through therapy, teens going through big life changes like injuries, transitioning to high school, or changes at home develop acceptance for what’s going on around and within them, so they can feel confident about their ability to navigate hard things.

You used to be the person your teen came to with all the highs and lows of the day, and now you just feel left out. Last night you thought you heard them crying in their room and tonight they wouldn’t come out for dinner. You don't know how to help, and it's so hard. If you're looking for ways to respond more effectively to your teens big emotions and stay connected through the teen years, therapy could help.

Change is hard! Often it can take awhile before a human decides they're ready to change. Motivational interviewing helps develop discrepancies between where you are now (current behavior) and where you want to be (goals). It is a gentle form of questioning, which helps you learn to be curious about your experience and find your own reasons for changing, which ultimately leads to more successful, long-term outcomes.

Using the tools of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, stepparents will learn to be present in the moment. Rather than being stuck in the past, as in depression, or worried about the future, as in anxiety, they will learn to be here now. These simple exercises will be learned and practiced in session, so they can be taken out of session to help in responding to big emotions and hard things, which can be an experience of blended family life.

Underneath every behavior is a need. In order to understand the need, CBT helps one look to the feelings underlying a behavior, and the thoughts underlying the feelings. When those are understood, we are able to start to reframe unhelpful thoughts, practice new thoughts, and change our feelings and behaviors, so we can live more calm and balanced lives.

As a stepparent, your life feels like chaos. Schedules change without warning. Any routine you put in place to make your life a better place gets washed away in the flood of other peoples’ decisions. Lately you’ve taken to going off to cry or scream by yourself…in the bathroom, your closet, or your car. It seems like the only place you can get some peace and have space for what’s going on with you. You’re sick of the stress, the sleepless nights, and feeling so damn exhausted every day.

You had this idea of what life would be like after you got married. You knew it wouldn't be perfect becoming a blended family, but you didn't know it would be this demanding. It feels like every move you make is the wrong one. You do what you think is right and someone gets upset...your spouse, their ex, or the kids. No one wrote a manual on how to be a stepparent, and you could really use someone to talk to about what it's like for you.