FOR PARENTS & CAREGIVERS
am i failing them?
If you are asking this question, it usually means you care deeply about your young person.
Parenting a struggling young person can be exhausting. confusing and lonely. You do not have to figure it out alone.
If you're asking this question, it probably means you care deeply and you're trying hard in a situation that feels anything but simple.
Explore our range of services designed to help you move forward
with confidence, wherever you're headed next.
what has you asking that?
These are common thoughts and feelings. You are not alone if they sound familiar
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You may have tried routines, consequences, rewards, reassurance, reducing demands, firmer boundaries and advice from professionals and still find yourself facing the same problems.
When this happens, it is easy to conclude that you are doing something wrong.
Sometimes the problem is not that you have not tried hard enough. It is that we have not yet understood what is making the situation difficult in the first place.
That gives us somewhere different to begin.
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Parenting guilt can turn every difficult moment into evidence that you should have done something differently.
Maybe you were too firm. Too soft. Too frustrated. Too tired. Maybe you missed something.
There will always be things we wish we had handled differently.
The goal is not perfect parenting. It is being able to notice what happened, repair when needed, learn from it and try again.
Making mistakes and repairing them is part of a healthy relationship too.
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Parents often receive completely contradictory advice.
Be firmer. Reduce demands. Set consequences. Give them more control. Stop doing so much for them. Give them more support.
Most advice is based on somebody else’s understanding of the problem.
Before deciding what you should be doing, we need to understand your young person, your family and what is actually happening.
The same strategy will not work for every person or every situation.
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It is incredibly difficult to watch someone you love struggle and feel unable to make it better.
Their distress may look like sadness, anger, withdrawal, anxiety, shutdown, refusal or constant conflict.
Your job is not to make sure they are happy all the time.
It is to help create the conditions where they can feel understood, supported and increasingly able to recognise and communicate what they need.
We can work on understanding what their distress is telling us.
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Sometimes “Am I failing them?” is really another question:
“How much longer can I keep doing this?”
Constant advocacy, appointments, school meetings, conflict, worry and trying to anticipate what might go wrong can gradually use up everything you have.
When you are exhausted, even small problems become harder to manage.
Supporting your young person sometimes means making sure you have enough support and capacity to keep showing up too.
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You do not need to know what the solution is before asking for help.
We can start with what you already know:
What keeps happening?
What have you tried?
What seems to make things better or worse?
What are you most worried about?
From there, we can slow the situation down, understand it more clearly and work out a manageable next step.
You do not need the answer. You need somewhere useful to begin.
Good parents can still feel lost, overwhelmed and unsure.Difficulty is not proof that you have failed.what we can work on together
Understanding what's happening
Look beneath the behaviour, conflict or distress to understand what is making things difficult.
Reducing conflict
Find more useful ways to respond, communicate and reconnect.
Supporting your young person
Build emotional understanding. confidence and self-advocacy.
Supporting you
Make room for your uncertainty, frustration, guilt and exhaustion too.
Working with the wider system
Where useful, include school, supports and advocacy in the picture.
what support can look like
Parent consultation and coaching
Support, guidance and practical strategies for you.
Young person therapy
Space for your young person to feel understood and supported.
Family conversations
Help improve communication and reduce disconnection.
A more manageable next step
Start where you are and work out what may help from here.
you do not have to prove that things are bad enough.
Tell me what has been happening, what you are worried about and what you have already tried. We can make sense of it together and work out a manageable next step.
You are not failing them. You are showing up for them.