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
182. Letting Go of Expectations for Your Teen (and Trusting Their Process)
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Every day, you’re watching your teen or young adult make choices you wouldn’t make, and feeling the constant pull to intervene. You see the risks. You imagine the consequences. And somewhere along the way, hope for progress turns into pressure for outcomes.
Today, Seth and I talk about what happens when parents become attached to how growth is supposed to look: sobriety first, independence next, emotional maturity on a timeline that makes sense to you. And how easily those expectations, even when they come from love, can turn into frustration, judgment, or disconnection.
This conversation invites you into a different role: one where your job isn’t to manage your teen or young adult’s path, but to stay present while they walk it. We explore why letting go of expectations for your teen doesn’t mean approving of everything they do. There are ways to trust their process and actually protect the relationship long enough for real change to take root.
If you’re exhausted from waiting for things to “click,” confused about what progress even looks like anymore, or afraid that stepping back means failing as a parent, let us offer you a reframe.
In this episode on letting go of expectations for your teen or young adult, we discuss:
- The difference between supporting your teen and managing their life;
- Why parents often mistake outcomes for growth;
- How expectations can quietly turn into pressure, judgment, or enmeshment;
- What it means to witness your teen’s discovery process without trying to fix it;
- The difference between providing opportunity and controlling direction;
- How curiosity builds safety where judgment shuts communication down;
- Why connection matters more than getting the “right” result;
- And 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.
