Books
By Krissy Pozatek, MSW
The Parallel Process
“Growing alongside your adolescent
or young adult child in treatment.”
For many parents of troubled teenagers, a therapeutic program that takes the child from the home for a period of time offers some respite from the daily tumult of acting out, lies, and tension that has left the family under siege. However, just as the teenager is embarking on a journey of self-discovery, skill-development, and emotional maturation, so parents too need to use this time to recognize that their own patterns may have contributed to their family’s downward spiral. This is The Parallel Process.
Using case studies garnered from her many years as an adolescent and family therapist, Krissy Pozatek shows parents of pre-teens, adolescents, and young adults how they can help their children by attuning to emotions, setting limits, not rushing to their rescue, and allowing them to take responsibility for their actions, while recognizing their own patterns of emotional withdrawal, workaholism, and of surrendering their lives and personalities to parenting.
The Parallel Process is an essential primer for all parents, whether of troubled teens or not, who are seeking to help the family stay and grow together as they negotiate the potentially difficult teenage years.
Brave Parenting
“A Buddhist-inspired guide to raising resilient children.”
How do we build resilient children who can handle life's challenges?
As parents today, we often feel that our role is to protect our children from the world: to cushion them when they fall, to lift them over obstacles, and to remove sharp rocks from their path. But controlling a child’s entire environment and keeping all pain at bay isn’t feasible—we can’t prepare the world for our children, so instead we should focus on preparing our children for the world. “The solution is not removing impediments from our children’s lives,” writes Krissy Pozatek, “it is compassionately encouraging them to be brave.” We need to show our kids how to navigate their own terrain.
If our kids face small hurdles, small pains, at a young age and learn to overcome these obstacles, they will be much better equipped to face larger trouble later in life. Early lessons in problem solving teach self-confidence and self-reliance—and show us that our kids are tougher than we think. Krissy draws her lessons from her experience guiding children in wilderness therapy and from her Buddhist practice—showing us that all life is as unpredictable as mountain weather, that impermanence is the only constant, and that the most loving act a parent can do is fearlessly ready their child to face the wilderness.
For parents of children of all ages.
Brave Teaching
“Bringing emotional-resiliency skills from the wilderness to the classroom.”
In this companion volume to Brave Parenting, Krissy Pozatek, author of e Parallel Process, employs the skills she learned in wilderness therapy to show how teachers can build emotional resilience and regulation and mindfulness in their students, as well as nurture their ability to problem-solve and develop life-skills.
With examples drawn from the practical experiences of Sarah Love, a fourth-grade teacher, Krissy demonstrates how educators can create a dynamic and engaged student body, communicate effectively, and manage emotions and expectations in contemporary classrooms, schools, and in parent–teacher relationships.