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LESLIE: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this line of work?

HEATHER: Well that is quite a story. I actually practiced architecture before I did any of this and it was my children that led me into this work. I adopted 2 children a little bit late in life. One was 2-1/2 years old and my daughter was almost 4 years old and they have been through a very difficult situation. My daughter especially had been through very severe neglect before she came to me and being a young mother I just thought you could place a child into your home and you would just pick up and start a family. Well to my surprise, that was not the case. Everything that I tried as a parent continued to make things worse.

This led me into developing my work and going back to school and doing research and knowing that there had to be a way! It was such a challenge in my own life. Actually, it was a very very dark place of not knowing how to make my family better, how to make it work... My work now is helping families know that they don't have to live in the chaos. There really is a way to turn your life around for yourself and for your kids and find a peace and ultimately really enjoy being with your kids which I do now. My kids are teenagers, and I absolutely love teenagers.

LESLIE: What, do you feel, makes your work with families unique? So that is my goal too; is for parents to enjoy parenting their teens.

HEATHER: Many of the parenting books in the market today focus solely on how to change your child's behaviors. I believe the major difference in my model is that I work to get parents stopping first to look at themselves as parents. Once I do this I attempt to get them to understand that the mask of control does not come through authority. It does not come through controlling actions. They actually have the ability to have more influence and power through relationship with their children rather than through attempting to externally control them.

When parents get to a place where they are responding to their child rather than reacting, they have the ability to change every single interaction that they have. It may not always have the exact outcome they want but when they stay focused on the process, in the long run, I have seen that they have amazing results with themselves and their children and this is where the joy comes from.

LESLIE: What advice would you give a parent who has a child transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood and turning 18?

HEATHER: I am so glad you asked that question because I don't know where the 18 came from! What we have to recognize is that now with brain science there is so much more neurological information so we have to stop the traditional viewpoint and say; what do we really know? What are the facts here? What we know is that the brain does not fully develop until you are 25 years old and so we are stil dealing with children who are not fuly physiologically developed. Yet we are often sending them out on their own during this developmental stage.

For a child that has had basic needs met and had a pretty good childhood, at 18 even they are pretty taxed going out into the world. When we are now talking about children and young adults at 17 or 18 who have had a disrupted life and behavorial and emotional issues, then they are even less ready for this difficult transition. Emotionally, they might be 12, 15 or even 8 years old so we have to start also meeting our children at their emotional age not just their chronological age.

I tell parents to communicate to their children they're allowed to live in the home, but that does not mean they are going to free load off of their parents for their whole life. What I need parents to do is to communicate to their children that they always have a safe place. The irony is that they're going to be more ready to leave when they are 18, 19, or 20 because the child is no longer living in a fearful state.

LESLIE: How does a parent begin to focus on building a healthy relationship with their child when their child's physical safety is in jeopardy? Many parents are afraid for their child's life and are more worried about keeping them physically safe then connecting emotionally.

HEATHER: We always want to look at safety first but I also want parents to look at creating a new understanding of their relationship with their child. When they are doing the same thing over and over and just putting out fires, either literally, emotionally or behaviorally, they stay focused on survival and never change the relationship pattern.

With help they must create a new perspective and a new understanding. They must begin seeing their children through a different lens. Children are doing what they're doing for a very logical reason. For us as adults it does not make sense but when parents can start recognizing what their children are doing then they can begin to understand what to do, they can know how to connect; they can know how to help shift their children to making better choices and developing a better sense of judgement. Until parents make this shift, they will continue looping around on what I call the negative neurological feedback loop. They will continue the negativity over and over again always expecting a different outcome and getting nothing but chaos and absolute frustration.

LESLIE: Could you explain how you work with parents to help set limits and boundaries with their children?

HEATHER: Absolutely. There is sometimes a misinterpretation that the love based approaches are just about letting children be free. This is not the case. It is about allowing children to have emotional freedom, allowing them to have emotional space, to have a voice. Teenagers especially need a voice. It does not mean we need to agree with them. It does not mean that we need to convince them otherwise. It just means that we need to allow them to be heard. Limits and boundaries need to be set because that is what makes life predictable. That is what makes life a little bit safer. Limits and boundaries help children know the difference between right and wrong. We have to define that.

What often happens is when children step outside of these boundaries then parennts start reacting, start telling their children what to do and start controlling them. Especailly with teenagers, when parents start doing that their teenagers take off even further away from the boundary. What I want parents to understand is that when their child is outside that boundary that they know they are outside. They know right from wrong so lecturing them at that point is only going to drive a wedge between the parent and child.

At that point what I want parents to start recognizing is first their own reaction. Then the next step is to go to their child and talk to them. I know that does not sound very powerful but for teenagers, especially who want to have independence, yet still desperately want connection with their parents, they have an opporunity to have their voice heard. It can just be a conversation. Ask them what's going on. Ask them to help you understand. You would be surprised how many kids are really dealing with a huge level of stress that even you and I, as adults, would have difficulty handling. I believe that if parents are able to connect relationally in these moments, they can help their children make the shift to doing what they know is right and living within the boudnaries that the parents have set for them.

LESLIE: Often the child is seen as "the problem", yet in your paradigm it seems that this is not necessarily the case. Can you talk more about how you help parents locate their own "stressors" and even help their child locate their "stressors" without enabling them?

HEATHER: If we work from a framework that says "I am enabling my child," then it is going to feel that way. We need to have a new understanding of this. I want parents to start looking at these moments as opportunities to join their children and to develop relationships. Parents often think, oh, our relationship is okay so let's go to Disney Land. They miss some of the most precious moments in their house; which can be making a bed together, goofing off together. Parents don't need to be so strict and feel that they have to only be the enforcer of rules all the time. What if, from time to time, parents just stop and say, "You know what, we are all going to do this together and make this a fun time." Parents can start developing moments in the daily routine that can be opportunites for connection.

Parents have to trust that their children can do this. They really can. They just need some help breaking their lives down into manageable pieces. If parents teach them how to do that, they are helping them develop better coping skills, not enabling them.

LESLIE: Thank you for your time. Any last thoughts or comments?

HEATHER: I want every parent to know that it can get better. It always can get better because we are designed to be in relationship. We are designed to be in balance and so we will always find that. It just takes new understanding and it takes a lot of courage on our part to start doing things differently. I want parents to know that they have everything within them, all the answers are within them, and their kids, and when they can open up to that, then they will find healing.

For more information on Vive!, visit their website at www.vivenow.com

Additionally, if you would like to listen to a recent radio interview with Heather T. Forbes,
click here to listen in with Pat O'Brien (one of our BCI Certifed Instructors).

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