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Dads are struggling with fatherhood in ways we don't see as moms, and maybe he doesn't have the words to tell you. As moms, it can be easy to feel like we're carrying the emotional weight of parenting, especially when our kids are struggling. We may have strong ideas about how things should be done, and when our partner approaches parenting differently, it can feel frustrating, confusing, or even like we have to take over. But what if there's more going on underneath the surface? In this conv...

Your child is looking for the easy way out. And maybe you are as well. If you're parenting a teen or young adult after treatment, you may know the feeling. Your child has worked through treatment, but now they're talking about drinking instead of using drugs, experimenting with a different substance, or finding a way to manage their pain without truly addressing what's underneath. You find yourself wondering, Didn't we already go through this? Why can't they see what's happening? In thi...

Your teen is struggling with addiction and you’re terrified that helping them might actually be making things worse. What do you do? In this episode, I’m joined by Thomas Henderson, a former struggling teen who began using substances at just 11 years old and eventually found himself caught in a cycle of addiction, relapse, treatment, and recovery. Today, Thomas works with families and uses his own experience to help parents and kids navigate some of the same challenges he once lived through. ...

You want the best for your teen. You want them to succeed, make good choices, and build a life they can be proud of. But what happens when the expectations you have for your child start to feel like pressure to them? If you’re anything like me, you might be thinking right now, “But I don’t expect my kid to become a doctor!” And neither did I. But parental expectations and pressure can be much more subtle than that. Sometimes they show up in the activities we encourage, the questions we ask.&n...

You’re trying so hard to repair what’s been broken, to rebuild trust, and feel close again with your teen or young adult. So when they pull away, it can feel almost impossible to not try harder. But what if trying harder to reconnect is actually making this very connection harder? In this episode, Seth and I have a very honest conversation about rebuilding connection with your struggling teen or young adult, and how difficult it can be to practice what we teach when the person we love is the ...

🍁 Small GROUP COACHING program starting October 6th & 7th, 2026 🍁 How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults. Sign up or learn more over at www.bethhillmancoaching.com/groups I hope to see you there! What happens when your teen leaves treatment, goes to college, and suddenly has more freedom than they’ve had in years? For Harrison Paletta, the answer wasn’t a straight line, and his story is an important reminder that relapse aft...

🍁 Small GROUP COACHING program starting October 6th & 7th, 2026 🍁 How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults. Sign up or learn more over at www.bethhillmancoaching.com/groups I hope to see you there! What if you could sit down with your struggling teen and hear what was really going on inside their head? In this episode, Harrison Paletta gives us that rare perspective. When Harrison was a struggling teenager, he was using substa...

🍁 Small GROUP COACHING program starting October 6th & 7th, 2026 🍁 How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults. Sign up or learn more over at www.bethhillmancoaching.com/groups I hope to see you there! You see old behaviors showing up again and your first thought is, “Oh no. Are we back here again?”. When you’ve worked so hard to support your struggling teen, a relapse, or even the return of an old pattern, can feel terrifying. Be...

🍁 Small GROUP COACHING program starting October 6th & 7th, 2026 🍁 How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults. Sign up or learn more over at www.bethhillmancoaching.com/groups I hope to see you there! Prevention isn’t going to protect your child from seeing porn. You might think that if you set parental controls, keep devices out of bedrooms, and have the “right” conversations about online safety, you can protect your child from ...

🍁 Small GROUP COACHING program starting October 6th & 7th, 2026 🍁 How to Influence Change: Small-group program for parents of struggling teens & young adults. Sign up or learn more over at www.bethhillmancoaching.com/groups I hope to see you there! Teaching emotional resilience isn't about making your teen's life easier. On the contrary. t's about helping them discover they're capable of handling life's hardest moments. If you're parenting a struggling teen or young adult, tha...

When your family is in crisis, the last thing you want to do is start the orientation process of finding support. You need help - ASAP. So that time when things feel a bit calmer, and your teen seems to be doing okay, might actually be the best time to build the support system they'll need for the road ahead. In this episode, Seth Gottlieb joins me to explore why waiting until your family is in crisis often makes it harder to get the right help in place. We discuss the unique roles of t...

Your teen’s behavior is never just that. They’re not lying because they want to, they’re not missing curfew because they want to annoy you, and they’re not pulling you into power struggles because they enjoy it. There’s always something underneath the behavior, so let’s try to understand. As a parent, it's natural to react to the behavior that's right in front of you. After all, being lied to hurts. Anger feels personal. Deception feels like a betrayal. But when you stay focused on the behavi...

Receiving an ADHD diagnosis for your teen can bring a mix of relief, confusion, and a hundred new questions. What does it actually mean? How does ADHD show up beyond the stereotypes? And perhaps most importantly: how can you best support your teen without unintentionally making things harder? In this episode, I'm joined by ADHD and executive functioning specialists Lisa Miller and Tatiana Guerreiro Ramos to unpack what every parent should know about parenting a teen with ADHD. We explore why ...

When your child is diagnosed with autism, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by questions about their future. Will they be okay? Am I doing enough? What actually helps? The encouraging truth is that it often isn't one big breakthrough that shapes your child's future. It's the small, everyday moments of consistency, belief, acceptance, and connection that leave the biggest impact over time. In this episode, I'm joined by Brady Esham, an autistic entrepreneur, mentor, and neuro-affirming systems arc...

Handing your teen the keys to a car can feel like a huge milestone, for them and for you. It's exciting to watch them gain more independence, but if your teen has struggled in the past, it can also bring up a lot of fear. Can you trust them? Are you giving them too much freedom? What if something goes wrong? The truth is, there isn't one right answer. Every teen is different, every family is different, and every situation deserves its own thoughtful approach. But what if, instead of seeing a ...

Before your teen can tell the truth, they need to feel safe enough to do it. When your child lies, it's easy to feel hurt, betrayed, or even disrespected. But what if their lying isn't about manipulating you at all? What if it's simply their brain's attempt to avoid pain, shame, or consequences? In this episode, Seth and I unpack one of the most frustrating challenges parents face: lying. Drawing from our own experiences as both, believe it or not, former teens, and adults working with strugg...

You probably spend a lot of energy trying to prevent mistakes, avoid conflict, and get parenting “right.” But what if the real goal isn’t perfection at all? In this conversation, therapist and parent coach Emil Harker and I explore why conflict, misunderstandings, and even parenting mistakes are not signs that you’re failing. In fact, they may be some of the most important opportunities you have to strengthen your relationship with your teen. We talk about the pressure parents feel to be perf...

FREE online workshop - June 24 from 5-630MT Respond Like Yoda (When Your Kid Is Acting Like Vader) How to be grounded, avoid power struggles, and respond with clarity instead of reaction Register at https://bethhillmancoaching.com/yoda Bringing your teen home from treatment is something you've likely thought about for months. Maybe even longer. You miss them. You want them home. And yet, if you're honest, you're also terrified. What if they fall back into old patterns? What if treatme...

You want to help your teen be resilient and feel more confident and capable of handling life's challenges. But when they're struggling, whether with mental health, motivation, school, substances, or simply growing up, it's easy to slip into protection mode. You try to shield them from pain, solve their problems, and prevent mistakes before they happen. The problem? Confidence isn't built through protection. It's built through experience. In this conversation, I sit down with clinical ps...

Why is it that the harder you push for change, the more your teen seems to dig in their heels? If you've ever found yourself repeating the same conversations, giving advice that goes nowhere, or feeling exhausted by your teen's resistance, you're not alone. Most parents assume that if their child would just understand the consequences of their choices, they'd make better decisions. But change rarely works that way. In this episode, I sit down with therapist Jarrod Hoffman to explore what moti...

When you grow up inside fear, survival, instability, or emotional chaos, those experiences don’t just disappear when you become an adult. They quietly shape the stories you carry about safety, relationships, success, control, and even what it means to be a “good” parent. And without realizing it, you might begin to pass those same narratives on to your own children. In this deeply personal and thought-provoking conversation, I sit down with Kellyn Smythe to explore how intergenerational narra...

Simple tasks that seem easy to you become overwhelming battles for your teen or young adult with ADHD. One small request turns into a massive blow-up. And when we don’t understand the ADHD brain, it can feel like they’re being disrespectful, lazy or even manipulative. In today’s episode, I’m joined by therapist and ADHD expert Debbie Murad to unpack what’s really happening underneath ADHD and emotional dysregulation in teens and young adults. Debbie explains why so many ADHD behaviors a...

Summer can feel terrifying when you’re parenting a struggling teen or young adult. The routines disappear. Structure falls away. And suddenly you’re left wondering how to support your child without slipping into control, conflict, or constant anxiety. And if your teen is coming home from treatment? The pressure can feel even heavier. Today, I sit down with Hilary Moses to talk about what parents often misunderstand about summer break, especially when supporting a struggling teen during summer...

You bring your child home from treatment and expect things to get better. But instead, everything feels off. They’re overwhelmed. Irritated. Withdrawn. Maybe even struggling more than you expected. You don’t understand. Why is this so hard? Did we do something wrong? This special episode will help you understand something most parents never fully see… until now. Because what your teen experiences coming home from treatment isn’t just a transition. It can feel disorienting, overstimulating, an...

Is your child pushing back, arguing over everything, ignoring rules, or seeming impossible to parent right now? It’s easy to wonder: Is this normal teen behavior… or something more serious like ODD? When conflict becomes the norm at home, many parents start fearing they’re losing their child. You might even feel like you’re failing as a parent. But not all defiance is ODD. Sometimes, what looks like defiance is actually normal development, emotional dysregulation, stress, or a family dynamic ...

When you find out your child is harming themselves, you’re thrown into a world you don’t understand. Fear hits first. Then confusion. Maybe even anger. Is this a cry for help? Is it manipulation? Is my child suicidal? And most of all… what am I supposed to do? If your teen is self-harming, you’re not alone in these questions. And you’re not failing as a parent. In this conversation, I sit down with therapist Courtney Deadman to unpack what teen self-harm actually is, and what it isn’t. Becaus...

Your teen’s behavior might feel confusing, frustrating, or even manipulative… but when you understand the boy brain, it starts to make a lot more sense. In this episode, I sit down with Mark Spalding (LCSW) to unpack what’s really going on beneath behaviors like complaining, blaming, or playing the victim, and why so many parents feel emotionally pulled in when it happens. We start with a situation many parents know all too well: your teen calls home (especially from treatment), and everythin...

You wait all week for that call… and then it comes. But your child sounds miserable. They’re complaining about everything. The food, the people, the program. They tell you it’s not working. That they shouldn’t be there. Maybe they even promise they’ll do better if you just bring them home. And suddenly, you’re right back in it: confused, overwhelmed, and questioning everything. Did I make the wrong decision? Is this actually helping them? Should I be doing something different? In this episode...

You’re lying awake at night, running through every possible scenario. Should I step in? Should I say something? Should I let this go? When your teen is struggling, it can feel nearly impossible to know what’s actually yours to handle and what isn’t. And without clarity, it’s so easy to slip into overthinking, overfunctioning, and trying to control things that were never yours to begin with. In this episode, we’re introducing a simple but powerful framework: the Circles of Control, Influence, ...

Trust is one of the most fundamental parts of every relationship. If you don’t trust your teen, or you notice they don’t trust you, it will be hard to build the kind of parent-child relationship you want to have with your struggling teen or young adult. But sometimes it can feel like an impossible task to ‘just trust’ your teen again, especially if that trust has been broken before. So how does trust actually work and more importantly… how do you begin to rebuild it when it feels broken? In t...

You check their location, just to make sure they’re okay. Then again. And again. And suddenly, your entire nervous system is tied to a blinking dot on a map. In this episode, Seth and I talk about something that so many parents are quietly struggling with right now: the urge to track, monitor, and stay one step ahead of your teen or adolescent… and how it slowly starts to take over. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: It never ends well. And just because we can track our kids, doesn’t mea...

Is your son glued to his screen and telling you, “you just don’t get it”? But as a parent nowadays, you are navigating a world that looks very different from the one you grew up in. Video games double as social spaces. Screens shape friendships and status. And many teen boys are quietly struggling with anxiety, uncertainty about the future, and pressure they don’t always know how to talk about. So how do you stay connected to your son when it feels like you’re speaking completely different la...

You step in because you love your child. You pay for treatment again because you’re scared. You cover the rent because you don’t want them on the street. You call to check in because something feels “off.” You offer solutions because you can’t stand watching them struggle. Of course you do. But here’s the hard question: What if, sometimes, the helping is reinforcing learned helplessness? What if the message, completely unintentionally, becomes: “You can’t handle this without me.” Learned help...

You’ve heard me say it over and over again: You have to let go of what is out of your control. But does that mean you just stop parenting? Are you just supposed to sit back and watch your teen or young adult fail and make mistakes? When you start stepping back from micromanaging, rescuing, and constantly stepping in, it often doesn’t feel like relief. It feels like you’re doing something wrong. You’re not the only one feeling like this. Today’s society reinforces helicopter parenting and lett...

The thought of wilderness therapy for your struggling kid can feel simultaneously hopeful and terrifying. Is it too extreme? Is it necessary? How do you even know? And how do you trust the people who would be caring for your child? In this episode, I sit down with Danny Frazer, one of the founding partners of Open Sky Wilderness Therapy, to talk honestly about what makes wilderness therapy work, and what doesn’t. We explore why Open Sky stood out in the field, what parents should look for in ...

Every day, you’re watching your teen or young adult make choices you wouldn’t make, and feeling the constant pull to intervene. You see the risks. You imagine the consequences. And somewhere along the way, hope for progress turns into pressure for outcomes. Today, Seth and I talk about what happens when parents become attached to how growth is supposed to look: sobriety first, independence next, emotional maturity on a timeline that makes sense to you. And how easily those expectations, even ...

When your teen is engaging in self-destructive behaviors, what you usually see is the tip of the iceberg. You see the cutting, the substance use, the school refusal, the shutdowns or blowups, and it’s scary, confusing, and exhausting. But what’s happening underneath those behaviors is often invisible. Big emotions. Overwhelm. Shame. Anxiety. A nervous system that’s trying to survive. And when all you can see is the behavior, misunderstanding and frustration are almost inevitable. In thi...

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “This has to be rock bottom… surely it can’t get worse than this,”? As painful as that thought is, it can also feel strangely comforting. Because if this is the worst of it… then maybe things will finally start to get better. When your teen or young adult is making painful, risky, or destructive choices, the idea of rock bottom can feel like a lifeline. A way to survive the moment. A way to believe that relief, change, or recovery must be just around the...

You’re doing everything you can, and yet you feel like you’re failing as a parent… Believe me, you’re not alone, and today, I’d even like to offer you a change of perspective: What if you’ve been giving the wrong job description as a parent? You might believe your role is to keep your kids happy, safe, and “on track.” And when it inevitably becomes clear that you don’t have any control over this during the teen years, the shame comes creeping in fast, right? You start questioning every decisi...

Recently, we lost a dear friend to suicide. One of my son’s best friends, who had become a part of our family. This is a tender and deeply personal conversation in which Seth and I talk about the loss of a young man who mattered deeply to our family, and what witnessing his death taught me about struggling teens, their ‘yellow’ or ‘red friends’, pain, and connection. This is not an easy conversation. There are tears. There is grief. And there is also something profoundly important here for pa...

Learning to let go is one of the hardest but most necessary parts of parenting a struggling teen, especially when your child’s behaviors feel frightening, confusing, and completely out of your control. In this episode, I’m joined again by Michelle, a mom who has walked a long, painful, and ultimately transformative path with her daughter, who was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Together, we talk honestly about what it looks like to parent through intense fear, misd...

✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! There’s a kind of grief many parents of struggling teens carry that doesn’t always get named. It’s not just the fear. It’s not just the exhaustion. It’s the quiet heartbreak of realizing that the life you once imagined for your child may never unfold the way you thought it would. In this epi...

✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! When your kid keeps struggling and nothing seems to change, it’s natural to focus all your energy on them. Their choices. Their behavior. Their refusal to do things differently. But have you ever tried looking at your own part? Because even though it might feel unfair, change in families oft...

✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! If you’re parenting a teen with a mental health condition, like borderline personality disorder, you may recognize the constant confusion: Is this normal? Am I helping, or making it worse? Why does nothing seem to work? In this episode, I’m joined by Michelle Park, a mom who courageously sha...

✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! It’s never an easy decision to send your struggling child to treatment, whether it’ll be their first time or their tenth. As a parent, you’re exhausted, scared, unsure what’s actually best, and constantly questioning whether things are really as bad as they feel, or if you’re just out of opt...

What if the behaviors you see in your struggling teen aren’t just “problems,” but signs that the identity they were given no longer fits? What if their resistance, shut-down, or self-destructive choices are really the early stages of something Jake Wood knows all too well: the painful beginning of learning to trust yourself again after trauma, addiction, and conditioning? In today’s conversation, Jake returns to share the part of his story most parents never get to hear from their own child: ...

Before your child has the chance to understand who they truly are, the world is already telling them what they are. Jake Wood knows this firsthand, and his story turns our whole conversation about teen drug addiction upside down. In one of the favorite interviews I’ve ever done, I sit down with transformation guide Jake Wood to explore a perspective on teen drug addiction that most parents never hear: one rooted not in pathology, shame, or “fixing,” but in soul, story, and deep humanity. “Sha...

Does your teen always have one more promise, one more deal, or ‘just this once’ plea? You’re not imagining it. The moment you start negotiating with your teen, you’re pulled into a messy family dynamic that almost never works out the way you hope it will. In this episode, Seth and I talk about why these IOUs, bargains, and “I swear I’ll do it tomorrow” promises fall apart so quickly, and why they often leave you feeling resentful, confused, or taken advantage of. And more importantly, how can...

You want to be honest with your child… but when emotions run high, it can be hard to know where the line is between healthy emotional expression and unintentionally putting a burden on your young child, teen, or young-adult kid. If you’ve ever felt terrified, overwhelmed, or lost in the fear of “what if,” and weren’t sure whether to show your child how scared you really are… If you’ve ever wondered why expressing your emotions towards your child sometimes leads to more distance instead of mor...

So much work happens during treatment, but the real test begins when your child comes home. The patterns that once kept your family stuck can easily reappear unless you intentionally create space for something new. This week, we talk about how to allow a fresh start after treatment and rebuild trust in a way that supports lasting independence and connection. I’m joined again by Colin MacDonald, co-founder of Not Therapy Coaching and a former struggling teen himself. Colin now mentors young pe...