Why is it hard to find a good "parenting" counselor?

Well, for one thing it is hard to find one who has walked the mile in your shoes.

83%-to-88% of social workers are women and counseling demands a Master's degree.

Psychology is similar with about 70% of counselors being women.

20% of women with college degrees have no children at all. That is down from 30% twenty years ago. Most women with advanced degrees delay child bearing until their mid-thirties if they have any children at all.

Median wages for a social worker are about $42k per year or roughly $21/hour. It is pretty tough paying back that $75,000 student loan at that rate.

Leftist ideology and parenting

Leftists promote Rousseau's concept of the noble savage. They contend that humans, children in particular, are inherently wise and kind and generous and rational and will always prefer broccoli to Snickers bars.

That means that if a child is disturbing the harmony of the family it is because the parents screwed up the child by reliance on traditional, western parenting models.

The way to straighten out the situation is for the parents to demonstrate LOVE the child by GIVING them everything the child desires. Having regained the child's trust, the child will reflect that love back to the parents. What is baffling is that this sometimes works...just like some people win at Power-ball big drawing. In a universe of near infinite the unlikely becomes inevitable...for a few lucky ones.

One of the reasons that social workers in foster care have such a high burnout rate is due to the cognitive dissonance that first hand exposure to REAL children causes. REAL children lie, steal, are mean, act on sexual urges, victimize other children, start fires inside houses, engage in wanton destruction and many kids in foster care have their survival skills honed to give a hungry leopard a run for the money.

It would be interesting to see what the rate of childlessness, normalized for education level, is for social workers and psychologists. At first blush one might expect it to be higher than the norm due to selection for "nurturing" individuals. But one might expect it to be lower due to exposure to the little blighters.

By the time social workers and psychologists actually have children, say when they are 37, they either left the profession for a lucrative, lower stress career at Walmart or moved into management. Since nearly all of the funding for counseling originates from the government and insurance companies there is no shortage of administrative overhead that must be tended to.

Bleak?
Yes, bleak but not hopeless.

There are some good counselors out there but you may have to "fire" a few of them as you sort through your needs.

As a parent who has had a bumpy ride, I will vouch for DBT. DBT is a skills based approach. Repetitions equals increased skill equals comfort equals that plate floating to the top of the stack. DBT might not be the best tool for every situation but it worked for the rocks we stubbed our toes on.

Another thing that I found helpful was the movement in livestock (like cattle) that emphasizes stress-free handling. Temple Grandin pretty much created this movement.

Search "animal flight zones stress free handling". Most people with no experience moving animals will park in the blind spot. The animal then turns to see the potential threat rather than going in the direction the driver desires. It is not intuitive to somebody used to driving a vehicle.

Ms Grandin is autistic and she was born with the gift of "sensing" how a herd animal react location and proximity of potential predators. It reminded me that different people respond to different cues. A cue that is completely opaque to you...like how you smell or the radio station...can set off your child or calm him down. And you have no fricking clue.

You need to study your kid just like they studied you.