4 Reasons Every Parent Should Consider Therapy

My journey toward motherhood was not a linear road, and in the first few months of my daughter’s life, I was met with a barrage of emotions. I was overjoyed for the opportunity to be a parent, but I often felt bouts of incompetence, worry, and confusion. I oscillated between gratitude, a pang of grief for my old life, and guilt for feeling that grief.

As I was in the haze of life with a newborn, I remember thinking, “This might be a great time to go back to therapy.” As a therapist myself, I could make a million excuses as to why it wasn’t a good time; however, the benefits of therapy for parents are profound.

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Navigating Major Life Changes

Cowan and Cowan (1992) state that “becoming a parent is a major life transition for adults in which former identities such as worker, student, or spouse shift in salience and are modified to make…room for this new commitment in one’s life.” This shift often occurs so quickly that we are left reeling with the impact and transition to our new normal, which may lead to feelings of grief or longing for a past life. Therapy supports parents in processing these shifts and can allow for a safe space to grieve without fear of judgment or shame. Therapy can also embrace the notion that we can feel two contradictory feelings at once, so parents have permission to feel both gratitude and grief simultaneously.

Management of Stress and Anxiety

According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s report in August that stressed the importance of addressing parental mental health, 33 percent of parents reported high levels of stress in the past month (compared to 20 percent of other adults). With a third of parents reporting stress due to financial concerns, isolation, time demands, and loneliness, seeking therapy can be a proactive approach to addressing the emotional toll of parenting amidst these overwhelming challenges. Though it may feel like one more thing on your plate, therapy can be an essential resource for managing emotional well-being and can provide space to address the insurmountable pressures parents face.

I believe that everyone deserves 45 minutes a week to unpack their concerns without judgment. With parents balancing multiple roles, such as caregiver, employee, and spouse, therapy may be the only time each week that they are granted space to look inward without competing priorities.

Unpacking Childhood Experiences That Impact Parenting

A common trope is that “nothing brings up your own stuff quite like having children.” In moments of crisis, we may find ourselves reverting to common discipline practices that were used in our family of origin without evaluating our own experiences with them. Parkinson et al. (2016) discuss how family identity is created by parents who consider their own family of origin experience, evaluate their experiences of being parented, and preserve the traditions they appreciate while replacing those they do not.

This process is often done without our awareness and can bring up many emotions. I commonly ask clients if there is a parenting value they have internalized due to their desire to experience it as a child. For me, I place so much value in allowing my daughter space to fail because I didn’t often feel that I had that option growing up.

Our personal values, beliefs, and goals are deeply ingrained and impact many of our day-to-day decisions as parents. Therapy can allow space to dissect those values and process the experiences we want to recreate with our children and those we want to extinguish. This allows for more intentional decision-making about the family identity that we create in our home.

Developing Confidence in Parenting Decisions

According to a study comparing new parents to individuals with no children, Namoguchi and Milkie (2004) found that parents report lower self-efficacy than their childless counterparts. Parents make so many micro-decisions that feel critical. Decisions such as selecting a school, discipline strategies, or determining whether to take a sick child to the doctor can feel like life or death.

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It is easy to feel anxious that every decision may be detrimental to our children’s lives. By clarifying values and beliefs through therapy, parents develop confidence in their decisions because they are working toward a clear goal. Moreover, meeting with a therapist who has a background in child development can also build confidence in child-rearing decisions.

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Out of every role I have held, being a parent is by far the most challenging and has the highest stakes. Parents today are bombarded with all of the ways they can better support their children, but it is my belief that the best way to support your child is by taking care of yourself first.