Practice information:

Milo is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who helps individuals, couples, and families understand how emotions can affect behaviour.  Just as the roots of a tree underground affect the fruits visible above, the inner worlds of our heart and mind affect the outer aspects of our lives—this is the core value behind Milo’s work at Tree Roots Counselling.  And over the past twelve years working with families, he consistently hears:

• Child: “My parents don’t know what I’m going through.”
• Parents: “I wish I knew this earlier.” 

His work is to help bridge this divide between parent and child.  When relationships are connected, it promotes the integration of the brain, which is the source of regulation, resilience, and health.

Supporting the child or teen as an individual

When your child is stressed for long periods, minor triggers can send her into fight, flight or freeze, creating an inaccurate stress-response pattern that can either over-mobilize or immobilize your child.  This faulty alarm system can impact social engagement with others.  Such heightened or withdrawn stress-behaviour can be inaccurately interpreted as mis-behaviour.  Parents can:

• react to mis-behaviour as a problem and seek out short-term fixes - or
• respond to stress-behaviour as communication and focus on long-term growth

In a safe way, Milo works with your teen to help figure out ‘what's happening’ by integrating thoughts, emotions, and sensations to behaviour and experiences with others.  Your teen will learn how to identify and manage her triggers through evidence-based self-regulation strategies.  The goal is to restore healthy social engagement patterns with others.

Supporting the parents as a couple

Milo works with single parents or couples to explore, in a safe and non-judgemental way, how their own histories have shaped the exchanges in their marriage and subsequently their co-parenting practices.  From reactivity to receptivity, couples learn how to:

• respond to the emotional needs of each other - and
• attune to the developmental needs of their child or teen

Supporting the family as a system

Both parent and child begin to feel hopeful with practical tools to understand and manage relationships. Meaningful change begins to happen–a real shift in the trajectory of the family’s well-being.  More secure attachment patterns take shape and brains begin to rewire to develop healthier interactions.  The goal is to help couples restore trust and respect with each other, or in cases where there is separation or divorce, parents can learn to respectfully co-parent together to raise resilient and self-regulated children who will thrive. 

Milo lives in Vancouver with his wife and three kids.  Contact him for a free 15 minute consultation, or attend one of his parenting workshops.  Please see details below.