Conditions & Specialties - Parenting / Co-Parenting
Parenting is relentless. Getting support does not mean you are failing. It means you are paying attention.
Parenting involves constant demand, ongoing uncertainty, and the weight of knowing how much your responses matter. Therapy at Ellie Mental Health offers parents — and co-parenting partners — a space to process the emotional demands, build skills, and navigate the challenges that come with raising children.
What this can feel like
Parenting stress rarely announces itself cleanly. It tends to build until it starts spilling into the parts of life you are most trying to protect.
It can feel like:
- Overwhelming anxiety about whether you are doing it right
- Patience that runs out faster than you want it to and guilt about the aftermath
- A parent-child relationship that feels stuck, strained, or hard to reach
- Co-parenting conflict that affects the children you are both trying to protect
- Exhaustion from carrying the emotional and logistical load of parenting with insufficient support
- Feeling like you are repeating patterns from your own upbringing that you swore you would break
- Losing yourself in the role and not knowing how to be a person separate from being a parent
Some of the thoughts that can come with it:
- “I love my kids but I’m not sure I’m getting this right.”
- “My co-parent and I can’t agree on anything and the kids are caught in the middle.”
- “I’m so tired I can’t see straight.”
- “I’m becoming my parents and I don’t want to.”
Why this happens
Parenting brings up everything. Your own attachment history. Your deepest fears. Your most ingrained responses. And it does all of this while sleep-deprived, overscheduled, and often without adequate support.
Parenting challenges may be connected to:
- Your own unresolved childhood experiences being activated by your children’s needs
- Co-parenting conflict that is really about unresolved relationship dynamics
- A child’s behavioral or developmental challenges that require more than instinct
- The emotional load of parenting under stress, mental health strain, or life transition
- Guilt and self-criticism that make it hard to parent from a grounded place
- Major transitions — new baby, divorce, blending families — that disrupt established parenting patterns
How Ellie makes support more accessible
- Individual and co-parenting options: Whether you need support for yourself or to work through co-parenting dynamics with your child’s other parent
- Therapist matching: We connect you with clinicians experienced in parenting, child development, and family systems
- Insurance clarity: We help you understand your coverage before you begin
- Telehealth available: Flexible access when coordinating childcare for in-person sessions is an obstacle
- Fit matters: We help you find a clinician whose approach matches your parenting context and goals
Frequently Asked Questions for Parenting / Co-Parenting
Not sure what to expect? These are the questions people ask us before they get started.
Absolutely not. Seeking support for parenting is a sign of care and self-awareness, not failure. Good parents are the ones paying enough attention to notice when they need help.
Co-parenting therapy helps two people who are no longer in a romantic relationship find functional ways to parent together. It focuses on the children’s needs, reduces conflict that spills onto the kids, and builds communication and decision-making skills for the parenting partnership.
Individual support for co-parenting challenges is still valuable. Understanding your own patterns, managing your responses to conflict, and building strategies for your side of the dynamic can create meaningful change even when the other parent is not participating.
Yes. Parenting patterns are often intergenerational and deeply ingrained. Therapy helps you recognize where those patterns come from, understand their impact, and build different responses — intentionally rather than reactively.
Parenting and co-parenting therapy focuses on the adults in the parenting role. Family therapy typically includes children as participants. Both can be valuable, and your therapist can help you figure out what format fits best.