Turning Winds Innovative Approach to Family Healing
At Turning Winds, we understand life’s challenges can be overwhelming for both the child and the parent. That is why we developed a unique program that empowers self-reliance and resilience in the kids in our care. Today, we will discuss how we help teens overcome obstacles and rebuild their connection with their parents and the important role parents play in healing and restoring family dynamics.
Guiding Families Through Crisis: Restoring Family Connections
Family connection is one of the 12 character virtues taught at Turning Winds: students develop a greater appreciation for the strengths and resources they can draw upon within their own family. And families learn how best to provide those strengths and resources.
The Turning Winds team helps students and parents understand that they are part of a system, and in order for that system to operate successfully after treatment, the system needs to be adjusted. Families that change the most about their system tend to have better long-term outcomes.
How Turning Winds Strengthens Family Dynamics
Parents often struggle between wanting to fix their child’s problems and over-involvement in the wrong areas:
- Some parents want the treatment provider to “fix the kid” for them.
- Other parents want to do too much of possibly the wrong thing.
“You have a tendency to rescue your child,” says chief operations officer Carl Baisden. “When your child is uncomfortable, you’re really uncomfortable.” Any discomfort of the child is really hard for parents to handle.
“As they’re playing the role of support and loving their kid, we’re trying to educate them on what that needs to look like,” explains Baisden. It shouldn’t be:
- “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. Have you talked to Carl yet?”
- “I need you to talk to Carl after this phone call.”
Those statements are parents actively intervening, trying to solve their child’s problem,” Baisden says. Instead, what we’d love to hear from parents—and this is the stuff that we teach them—is:
- “Hey, that sounds really hard. What are you planning to do about it?”
- “Hey, I can see that’s challenging for you, “what’s your plan of approach?”
Rebuilding Parent-Teen Relationships
The Turning Winds team teaches clients and their caregivers how to interact with one another in order to tackle problems appropriately. “We’re trying to teach our parents. I’ve got two teenagers myself, and we train each other how to interact with one another.
Parents often say, ‘Every time I talk to my kid, it feels like I’m walking on eggshells when I’m around them.’”
It’s important to acknowledge that things went sideways for families and that things are just not working out, says Baisden. “I love that the parents get the opportunity early on to get some tools and they get to start practicing right away on phone calls and therapy every week. And they’re game, they show up, and they do it. And so we give them a lot of that on the front end, just from a supporting standpoint.”
Educational Approach of Turning Winds
The Turning Winds program can be visualized in three stages.
- Educational Stage: Developing self-understanding and knowledge of themselves, their struggles, and what they need.
- Tools and Skills Stage: Provide them with direct tools and skills to start making plans and creating systems to manage some of the difficulties that they have.
- Consistency and Habit Development Stage: When the kids are in the education stage, the parents are in the education stage, and we’re trying to educate the parents on what their child is going to need. And on some level, that’s what they’re going to need to be healthy, autonomous, functioning, happy humans.”
From Struggle to Strength: Turning Winds’ Journey with Parents and Teens
Families are also invited to attend the Turning Winds parent workshop, which is an incredible educational experience with Dr. Foster Cline, the founder of the Love & Logic Institute.
“This guy with 40 years of experience as a board-certified adolescent psychiatrist has developed one of the coolest programs ever for kids. And so we get to offer resources like Dr. Cline, who is also the co-author of Parenting with Love and Logic.
He is a renowned child and adult psychologist who specializes in working with parents and children. He is a well-respected consultant and expert in child development who has worked with hospitals and schools around the world.
It is our privilege to offer our families the opportunity to learn new skills and work with this fantastic, world-renowned expert.” says Baisden.
Healing and Rebuilding Family Connections: Workshop
The parent’s workshop focuses on both the individual child and the family as a whole. The workshop breaks down to:
- Part 1: all about the kid, understanding their unique needs and thinking
- Part 2: All about family dynamics and understanding how to work together best.
It’s a new way of thinking for both the parent and the child. They begin to grasp new concepts and consider new factors that affect the dynamics.
“It’s the kids involved in that, is the family’s involved in that. They’re both proceeding, trying to assess the family, set goals for the family often for the first time, and begin to grasp what systems need to be in place,” says Baisden.
The team at Turning Winds appreciates that parenting is hard. We want to help you understand your teenager so you can improve your relationship with them. Our mission is to rescue teens from crisis situations, renew their belief in their own potential, reunite them with their families, and put them on a sustainable path to success.
Ready to Transform Your Family’s Journey? Discover the path to a stronger, healthier family dynamic with Turning Winds. Our unique program offers tailored support for both you and your teen, guiding you through the challenges and into a brighter future together. Don’t let another day pass in uncertainty.
Connect with us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380. If your call isn’t answered personally, one of us will get back to you as soon as possible. Your family’s transformation begins today!
