Parent-Adolescent Mediation

What is Parent-Adolescent Mediation?

Mediation is a confidential process to allow parents and adolescents to meet together with a professional mediator to obtain a balanced and specific agreement that the family believes will meet its needs and that family members will be able to adhere to.  Parent-Adolescent mediation is proven very effective process to assist families with constructive resolution of conflicts of everyday living.  Parents and children learn new ways of handling the strong emotions that surface in most family conflicts. 

The mediator’s job is to assist parents and their children in communicating with each other.  Mediation helps parents to learn to hold children accountable for their actions without stress or inappropriate punishment.  The mediator helps parents work together with their children by recognizing issues, exploring options and choices and finding new ways to find agreement.  Mediators help parents and their children discuss school attendance and performance, curfew, social life, friends, chores, privacy and communication.  The mediator may be asked to write up any agreement reached by parents.

Mediation is not an appropriate substitute for counseling and therapy.  The focus of mediation is halting the cycle of conflict