This week, Matt and fellow Tribeca Therapy therapist Heather Mayone Kiely visited Portfolio School, a local independent K-5 school in Tribeca, to give a talk on when parents aren’t on the same page about parenting. Meeting with a group of parents for an informal discussion, Matt and Heather spoke about the challenges related to parenting when disagreements occur among parents.

While Matt, Heather and Tribeca Therapy as a whole work with adults and couples, their appreciation of the importance of this issue derives mainly from their work with kids and families. When kids are in therapy at Tribeca Therapy, their parents are also in therapy and while that can take many forms, including family therapy, parents in therapy, or kids primarily in therapy, it’s essential that working with parents is also central, given how critical they are to their kid’s development.

Speaking to parents at Portfolio School, Matt and Heather shared how kids can feel insecure when parents aren’t in agreement, and that kids need to see parents as being on it and confident. During the discussion, parents were able to voice their concerns on issues that can prevent them from being on the same page, including cultural differences, having very little space to talk about these issues and the challenge of one parent, who works a lot or travels frequently, stepping in and out of the functions of the family. Both Heather and Matt offered the parents the value of radical curiosity. Being deeply curious about not only a partner’s position on a given issue, but also about his or her values that underlie it, why it’s important and what the history of a given issue is, can create empathy and allow a hardened stance to soften.