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
161. Surviving Teen Addiction: One Family’s Path Through Wilderness and Recovery With Dawn McCord
When your teen is caught in the cycle of substance abuse, it can feel like you’re living in a nightmare you can’t wake up from. You find yourself wondering: Is this just normal teenage behavior? Or is something much bigger going on? I remember asking myself those same questions when my own son was struggling.
That’s why this conversation with Dawn McCord resonated so deeply for me. Dawn is a fellow mom who’s walked the exhausting, heartbreaking path of teen addiction. Her son Carson went from experimenting with marijuana, to overdosing on opioids, and eventually finding healing and recovery through wilderness therapy.
Dawn and I talk about what it’s really like to live through this as a parent, the endless cycle of treatment programs, the fear of overdoses, the strain it can put on your marriage, and the impossible-feeling boundaries you sometimes have to hold. What I love most is that Dawn’s story doesn’t end in despair. Today, Carson is sober, thriving, and building a meaningful life in recovery.
Currently, Dawn, along with her film partners, is producing a film called “Forest for the Trees: The Truth about Wilderness Therapy” which is an in-depth documentary that shares the stories of families who have been positively and negatively impacted by the often-misunderstood industry. The team is in the process of procuring funding so they can start filming late fall 2025-early 2026. Please follow along at www.wildernessdocumentary.com
In this episode on surviving teen addiction, you’ll hear:
- How to know if your teen’s behavior is “normal” experimentation or signs of substance abuse;
- Why the rehab cycle can feel so endless and how to keep going without losing hope;
- The boundaries Dawn had to hold with her son, even when it broke her heart;
- How wilderness therapy became a turning point for their family;
- What it looks like to survive this season as a parent, and even find healing along the way;
- And much more.
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!
🤍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.
