DBT Skills Group for Parents

Mondays, 7:00-8:00PM, In-Person or Online

Open enrollment - join any time!

For parents of children (any age) with who struggle with emotion regulation, Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm Behaviors, Eating Disorders, school anxiety or performance concerns, and family or peer relationship issues.

Participants learn concrete strategies to identify, understand and manage their reactions as well as their child’s emotional ups and downs. Parents learn skills to help regulate their own emotions when managing their child in distress. Parents also learn tools to understand what their child is asking for with their behavior and learn to validate their child in every situation so their child can feel heard and understood.

The focus of this group is concrete skill building to help families manage and improve their lives.  

This group will help you say goodbye to this:

This group offers parents of children ages 5 and up a selection of very usable coping and parent management strategies.  Open to one or both parents.  Your child does not have to be in therapy in order to attend.  

The group offers strategies and skills in the following areas:

Mindfulness - "focused awareness in the present moment, on purpose and non-judgmentally."  Often it is our lack of attention to what we are thinking or feeling in a given moment that leads to over-reaction, under-reaction or avoiding the problem altogether (the classic fight, flight or freeze response).  Parenting is a difficult job in and of itself and so lack of mindfulness can lead to exacerbation or prolonging of issues.  Many people tend to shy away from taking on issues because of their beliefs about them - "it will be too hard for me to deal with" or "I don't have time to take that on" or "my spouse won't back me up anyway so I might as well ignore it too."  Understanding your beliefs about your parenting expectations and norms will help increase your mindfulness.  Skills will be taught and practiced in the room and at home.

Distress Tolerance - Crisis Survival Skills.  This module offers concrete strategies in order to manage tense or difficult situations.  Skills such as how to how to "IMPROVE a moment" and how to effectively distract yourself when very hot emotionally will be taught.  Each parent will learn how to prepare a Distress Tolerance Card in order to increase ready access to positive skills for use in a difficult moment.

Interpersonal Effectiveness - how to effectively Ask for What You Want, Say No, Keep Your Relationships while also getting what you want, and Keeping your Self-Respect will be taught and practiced.  Particular attention will be paid to effectiveness in communication - between parents and between parent and child.  This skill will be practiced within the group and at home.

Emotion Regulation - how to understand and manage your emotions.  This section will teach the Model of Emotions - the way in which emotions effect and are affected by our other mental processes and by the people around you.  Particular attention will be paid to keeping your emotional temperature within the "cool" range so that you can parent effectively.  Concrete strategies in order to do so will be taught and practiced.

Please call or email for information about this group and to see if it would be a good fit for you.

APPLY FOR A SPACE IN GROUP

Frequently Asked Questions

Each session includes teaching a different DBT skill, examples of application, and opportunities to practice using the skills in everyday situations. Groups are highly structured and do not require participants to share personal stories unless they choose to. The focus is on learning, practicing, and strengthening DBT skills, not on group processing or discussing past experiences.

Our DBT Skills Groups are offered for middle schoolers, high schoolers, young adults, and parents who want to build stronger emotional regulation, communication, and coping tools. Each group is tailored to the developmental level of the participants while maintaining the same core DBT curriculum. Groups are supportive, structured, and focused on building real-life skills that can be used immediately.

Group cycles typically run for about twenty weeks. We encourage you to repeat the group cycle at least two times to help deepen and apply their skill mastery. We require weekly attendance so participants can build skills consistently and predictably. Skills build on each other, and regular participation helps you gain confidence using them outside of the group.

Absolutely. The combination of individual and group therapy provides optimal results. With permission, our DBT group leaders coordinate care with individual therapists to ensure the DBT skills you learn in group are being practiced, personalized, and integrated into your weekly therapy work.