Ilianna Luna
Marriage and Family Therapist
Family Therapy / Counseling
Are you experiencing conflict with your children, parents, or siblings?
Families experience emotional pain and conflict for many different reasons. They try their best to work out their problems and redefine family boundaries to meet the changing needs of family members.
Families get stuck when they are unable to gain understanding, compromise on the issue, and make the necessary changes.
That's where I help.
Common issues I help families with:
Frequent Arguing and Fighting
Arguing and fighting among siblings, sometimes called "sibling rivalry," happens for several reasons, including when children compete for their parents' attention or when they are learning important social skills, like sharing, empathy, and resolving conflict. Parent-child conflict often arises when children express their need for more independence from their parents. Children test their limits, which can create frustration and conflict in the family. They want to go off on their own to explore and also feel secure knowing that their parents will be there for them when they return. Because they are still learning how to be emotionally intelligent, they may not express their needs in recognizable ways, in which case it's important to first decode what it is they are trying to express. It's important to note that during certain developmental times, kids go through varying degrees of mood swings and this is a normal part of child development. This requires that parents have patience and be ready to redirect their kid's behavior. I help parents work on learning how to manage their own stress in order to parent more effectively. I also help children learn healthier ways of expressing their emotions. It is a process that requires repetition and patience.
Blended Family Conflict
"Blended family" is the term used to describe when a couple has a child or children and one of the parents is not the biological parent of one or more of the children. It can create unique problems when there are no clear boundaries and expectations between the nonbiological parent and child. The child's age can influence how he or she will respond to the blended family situation. I help blended families learn how to communicate and manage the stressors that come from complicated situations, many times addressing the families unmet emotional needs.
Co-Parenting
"Co-parenting" is the term used when two parents are no longer a couple and are parenting their child or children. This creates a complicated situation when the parents have strong negative feelings toward each other, but must communicate for their child's sake. I help parents to focus on the top priority, the child's well-being, by improving communication and guiding the parents.