This workshop will provide the basics for employing acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in your work with parents of anxious children and teens.

We will look at the benefits of teaching parents important aspects of early child development as they relate to psychological inflexibility and subsequent anxious behavior. Case presentation will demonstrate techniques for helping parents identify unhelpful behavior patterns or “dances” between themselves and their child or adolescent.

We will discuss and demonstrate engaging the parents as “co-clinicians” or “assistant coaches”, giving them strategies for turning challenging situations into teaching and skill building opportunities in the important contexts of home and community.

We will describe a three-step ACT-based model that can help parents get unstuck from their habitual and ineffective parent-child dances.

We will describe the benefits of helping parents mindfully notice their own thoughts, emotions, and tendencies that arise in challenging situations and to then utilize strategies for increasing their own psychological flexibility and effectiveness as parents (parent as “co-client”).

Who is this workshop for?

Teachers, counsellors, therapists, social workers, psychologists

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn the benefits of, and techniques for, teaching parents important aspects of child development as they relate to psychological inflexibility and subsequent anxious behavior patterns.
• Participants will learn strategies for engaging parents in ACT-oriented assessment and case conceptualization.
• Participants will learn to utilize strategies for engaging parents as Co-Clinicians: helping parents teach and encourage the child or adolescent’s use of the six core ACT processes in the contexts of home and community.
• Participants will learn to respectfully engage parents as Co-Clients; helping parents use the six core ACT processes to increase their own psychological flexibility and parenting effectiveness in challenging situations.