Mary Nord Cook – Out of Control Teens: A Skills-Based Approach That Breaks Through Family Dysfunction to Create Lasting Change

Course Description

Out of Control Teens: A Skills-Based Approach That Breaks Through Family Dysfunction to Create Lasting Change – Mary Nord Cook

-She’s out of control!
-I don’t know what’s wrong with him!
-She won’t talk to me.

By the time they reach your office, parents of troubled teens are desperate for help. After months of engulfment in a vortex of conflict, disrespect and defiance, these parents are pleading with you to -fix my kid.

You’ve tried individual therapy with the teen, even making a little progress along the way. But week after week they return to a dysfunctional family dynamic, making it nearly impossible to create lasting change! You need a new approach – one that will drill down to the root of problem rather than treating surface level symptoms.

Dr. Nord Cook’s innovative, comprehensive program will transform the way you work with teens and families. Backed by solid research, this approach breaks the cycle of conflict and maladaptive behavior. You will feel armed to EMPOWER your clients and families to make positive changes that endure!

Loaded with experiential teaching methods, this evidence-based program contains practical, powerful strategies that bolster interpersonal skills within families and target a myriad of problems families face, from covert conflict to full-blown, explosive hostility.

1. Articulate the developmental factors in adolescents that may serve as a barrier for achieving successful treatment outcomes.
2. Apply family-centered approaches for fostering empathic connections and building trust among clients and their families.
3. Implement clinical strategies for effectively engaging parents in the treatment process.
4. Utilize treatment techniques for promoting emotion regulation and communication skills in clients and their families.
5. Employ interventions that enhance conflict resolution skills and reinforce compliant behavior in adolescents.
6. Execute specific strategies that increase assertive communication by adolescent clients and their families.

Teens Know Everything! (And Other Challenges to Effective Treatment)

• Brains under construction: Developmental mismatches
• Do’s and Don’ts: Principles of parenting teens
• Transforming teen behavior requires transforming parent behavior
• Empirical evidence: Research, limitations and risks

Family Skill Building Essentials: 6 Treatment Components That Set the Stage for Therapeutic Success  

Emotion Regulation: Cultivate Feelings Awareness Among Teens and Families

• Body scanning
• Feelings identification
• Healthy expression and management of emotions

Empathy Building: Improve Parent-Teen Trust and Understanding

• Empathy redefined
• 15 -Empathy Busters to avoid
• Strategies that promote validation
  • Empathy Formulas
  • Mirroring Stems

Conflict Resolution: Guide Families with Win-Win Ways that Work

• Problem-solving together
• The -5 D’s of conflict resolution
• Everybody Wins solutions

Behavior Contracts: Hook Teens into Compliance

• Steps to foster teen -buy in
• Ways to track and reinforce positive behavior
• Facilitate collaborative negotiation

Communication: Promote Healthy Parent-Teen Conversations

• 4 Types of communication
• What to avoid: 7 -Cooperation Busters
• Assertiveness Formula
• 9 -Cooperation Builders

Cognitive Restructuring: Change Unhelpful Thinking Patterns

• Cognitive-Behavioral Triad
• Help teens and families avoid common -Thinking Traps
• Critical thinking exercises to correct thinking errors