Parenting When Your Child Is Struggling: Parents as Partners

In This Episode:All parents experience conflict and stress in their relationship, along with the love and support. But when your child has special needs or is struggling with some significant aspect of development, conflict and stress sometimes outweigh the positives in the parent relationship. What are common kinds of conflict in those situations? How does each parent’s personal upbringing enter into the conflicts? And what steps can parents take to work through those difficulties in order to keep their relationship strong and become the stable source of love, support and calmness their child needs? Vanessa Slivken, licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) and Executive Director of programs at St. David’s Center for Child & Family Development (Minnetonka Site), brings twenty years of experience to this helpful and encouraging discussion with Marti & Erin. This is the first of a 3-part series brought to you by St. David’s Center for Child & Family Development, a longtime supporting partner of Mom Enough®. HOW DO YOU PARTNER AS PARENTS? In what ways do you and your child’s other parent respond differently to the developmental challenges your child faces? To what extent do those differences create stress, and how do you try to work through that together? What strengths in your relationship — or in you as individuals — help you both “be the calm in the storm” when your child is overwhelmed with big emotions? And who else in your family or social network supports you in this journey?