2019 Parenting Class Registration is now closed. 2020 Class Begins in January

Fill out the form below if you would like to know about future classes

Learning that your child is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) or struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA) can be frightening and confusing for parents and families.

How did this happen? It is my fault?

Can I change my child? Should I try?

Has God cursed our family? Why me? Why us? Why my child?

Is there anything I can do to help my child?

What did our family do to deserve this?

What he born this way? How can I accept her if she wants to be with a woman?

These are all questions that parents struggle with, and there are no easy answers. But there is hope, and there are solutions! There are specific ways to help your loved ones heal, fulfill their potential, and restore your family!

Join Christopher Doyle, MA, LPC, LCPC, husband and father of five, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Healthy Families as he guides parents in a yearlong class of learning, growing, processing, and healing together.

This yearlong course offers practical advice on how to increase love and understanding between you and your child, and what you can do to help yourself, marriage, children, and family grow. By following and implementing the strategies offered in this course, families have been healed and relationships restored.

Here is what our class will work on:

Each month, we will discuss one redemptive principle for family healing. Parents will be given homework and concrete action steps to work on for family healing each month.

Topics of each class include:

• How to love and respond to LGBT/SSA children and loved ones.
• Causes of same-sex attraction and gender identity confusion.
• Processing of healing family relationships and developing a step-by-step action plan for family growth.
• Guidance for fathers and mothers on effective parenting skills.
• Understanding your child's love language.
• Reconciling family relationships and conflict resolution.
• Understanding different parenting styles.
• Overcoming anxiety and depression.
• Fostering healthy family dynamics through advanced communication skills.

Additionally...

• Parents will be provided individual coaching and guidance on how to journey with their child and work towards family healing.
• Parents will be provided with feedback on how they can work on their marriage and individual/couple's problems to become better equipped as a parent/coach.
• Parents will be invited to join a safe, online community with each other to process family problems and support each other's journeys on a daily basis.
• Parents will hear from other families that have successfully navigated family healing, and will provide them with valuable advice and wisdom from their journey.

Time: Third Monday of each month, 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM EST

Dates: 12 classes, starting in January 28, 200, then on the third Monday of each month

Cost: $649 per couple/family (includes 12 sessions)

How: Online video/web conferencing or telephone conference call

This course is limited to twelve families, and will close after the first month's class, so register today to secure your place in this very special yearlong course on parenting and family healing! To register, e-mail: ihfinfo@instituteforhealthyfamilies.org or call (703) 367-0894

All participants are required to sign a code of conduct upon registration that they are attending the class as a participant for educational, therapeutic, and/or healing purposes.
 

Teleconferencing Class Stories

I want to thank you for all the help you've given me up to this point. I can see my relationship with my daughter moving in a very positive direction, and a change in her; her anger is gone. It was also very nice to hear the other parent’s situations, a lot of the information was helpful for my situation. ~JM

Thank you very much for your wonderful coaching! We cannot wait for the classes to resume. The positive impact of the class on our family and our son is huge. We know where we are going, what the problem is and we have gained strength from every class. For the last two months the relationship between me and my son has improved 200%. Every week I see something new and promising in his self-perception. I thank God we found IHF. Intuitively I knew there must be a way to help our son and there is! ~ JZ

My husband and I took the teleconferencing classes for parents. When our son told us that he “was attracted to boys and not girls,” we felt many different emotions, and the dominant feeling was one of helplessness. Through the teleconferencing classes we learned how we could help our son. The most significant learning we gained was the understanding that SSA is not about one person. It’s about the family system and a whole constellation of factors that contribute to its development. We began to see that our familial patterns were not as healthy as we thought they were or could be and we learned, step by step, how to pursue healing in our family. This affected a tremendous change in our son. Today we are well on our way of healing, thanks to IHF. ~ WF

Distance and Online Coaching

Just because you live outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area doesn’t mean you can’t receive help from the Institute for Healthy Families. Our professional counselors use a secure, online video conferencing system to facilitate distance and online coaching for our clients all over the world. Contact our office for more details on how you can schedule a distance or online coaching session with one of our professional counselors.