Dr. Leigh Weisz is the Founder of Coping Partners, a mental health clinic. As a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice, she was on staff and affiliated with The Family Institute at Northwestern University for several years. She has experience working with children, adolescents, families, and individual adults in areas such as child and adolescent family therapy, grief and loss, and relationship issues.
Dr. Weisz earned her graduate degree in clinical psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology with a speciality in children and families. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish from the University of Michigan, having graduated with honors. Dr. Weisz has practiced in community mental health, hospitals, and outpatient family medicine practice settings.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Dr. Leigh Weisz talks about her background and motivations
- The challenges of parenting in today’s society
- What are the traits of independent and healthy adults?
- The importance of allowing children to solve problems independently
- Parenting strategies to help middle schoolers build emotional resilience
- How parents can gradually give children more independence and confidence
- Tips to foster resilience in teenagers
- Why you should allow your child to sit with discomfort and boredom
In this episode…
Parenting in today’s environment comes with unique challenges, particularly when fostering independence and self-confidence in teens. Are you finding the right balance between guiding your child and giving them the freedom to grow?
According to Dr. Leigh Weisz, a licensed clinical psychologist with extensive experience in child and adolescent psychology, the solution is to let teens face and learn from life’s challenges. Dr. Weisz emphasizes the importance of allowing teens to develop resilience and problem-solving skills by experiencing discomfort and boredom — without being rescued by their parents at every turn. She advises against overprotective behaviors, suggesting instead that parents gradually loosen their grip to enable their teens to build confidence and independence.
In this episode of The Coping Podcast, Dr. Leigh Weisz is interviewed by Leslie Randolph of Confidence Coaching For Girls about effective strategies for raising confident and independent adults. They discuss the pitfalls of helicopter parenting, the importance of allowing teens to experience boredom and discomfort, and practical tips for parents to foster resilience and self-reliance in their children.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Dr. Leigh Weisz on LinkedIn
- Coping Partners
- The Coping Podcast
- Leslie Randolph on LinkedIn
- Leslie Randolph’s email address: lesliethelifecoach@gmail.com
- The Coach Chronicles
- The Coach Chronicles: Facebook | Instagram
- Confidence Coaching For Girls
- Why Didn’t They Tell Us? podcast
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners.
Coping Partners is a mental health practice dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems and much more in the Chicago suburbs.
Our practitioners are devoted to building on our clients’ strengths and bolstering weaknesses.
To gain insight and tools for getting unstuck check out our website at CopingPartners.com, email us at support@copingpartners.com.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:01
Welcome to The Coping Podcast where we share strategies for coping with the stressors of life, especially the difficulties of parenting. And here is your host, Dr. Leigh Weisz.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 0:15
This is Dr. Leigh Weisz, I am the host of The Coping Podcast, where I feature top experts on topics like raising healthy children, parenting, and so much more. This episode is a little bit different. This is actually me being featured on another podcast. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners. Coping Partners is a mental health practice in the Chicago suburbs dedicated to helping children, adolescents and adults. We help manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship issues, and much more. Check out more episodes of our podcast and our website at copingpartners.com. And you can contact us with any questions you have. Just a quick disclaimer, the information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a client therapist relationship. The information provided is not a replacement for being assessed and evaluated by a licensed professional and is not intended to replace mental health or medical advice.
Leslie Randolph 1:27
Hey there, I’m your host, Leslie Randolph. I’m a self confidence coach for teenage girls, and the self confidence coach you wish you had as a teen. Honestly, I’m the self confidence coach I wish I had as a teen, because I know I could have saved myself and my mother, a whole lot of heartache. If I’d only known then what I know now. I hope to save you some of that suffering by sharing the lessons I learned late in life right here on why didn’t they tell us? Welcome to the show. Hey, happy people. Welcome back to Why Didn’t They Tell Us? Always awesome to be back in a room with you and to share lessons I learned late in life and to share the wealth of knowledge and wisdom from other industry leaders who do similar or complementary work to confidence coaching. Today’s guest is one of them. And I’m so excited to have her here. But before I get into my intro, I wanted to share the inspiration for the conversation. After coaching humans, ages 11 to 75, I had an epiphany. It seemed no matter who I was coaching, no matter their age or stage of life, no matter what it was, they were coming to coaching for self confidence was always the barrier to achieving what they desired or a lack of self confidence. And it showed up in so many different ways, right? There was insecurity and a very low or loathing opinion of themselves, doubt in their ability to do be or achieve what they desired. A lack of trust in themselves to follow through with what they said they wanted, and then the necessary steps that they wanted to take to achieve it. And anxiety at the mere thought of even trying. Does any of that resonate? Yep, me too. I always say I am every woman I hope to help. And that includes teens who are overwhelmed with that doubt, insecurity and anxiety, but also that teenage girl that still exists in all of us well beyond our teenage years. Because let’s be honest, most of us didn’t have confidence coaches when we were teenage girls. So in many ways, we’re still operating from that same mindset. So let me explain my inner teen. She was very present when I started my corporate career. She had crippling impostor syndrome always worried she was out of her league or ill equipped to do the job, even though I wasn’t my inner team made her presence known when I became a mom, telling me everything I was doing wrong. And every way in which I was screwing up my kids. And yes, that in our teen also had words when I left that corporate career, to pursue my dream of becoming a coach, and helping others go after goals, chase dreams, or create a life of their dreams. I’ll be honest, my inner team rolls her eyes every time I say the words, life of your dreams. So when I realized that the universal pain point for just about everyone I had the privilege of coaching was self confidence, that that awesome alchemy of self awareness and self trust, self love and belief in self. I focus my practice on just that. And knowing that the source of this suffering started in our formative years, I chose to work with teens to get in on that base level of their belief system to show them that love Loving and believing in themselves was a choice that they could always make, that cheering yourself on will always feel better than beating yourself up. And it’s actually much more motivating. That you can always choose to think highly of you that you can always choose to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. And the goal of all of this, for those teens to become independent and healthy adults, but they can’t do it alone. Parents play a critical role in this. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today with Dr. Leigh Weisz. Dr. Leigh Weisz is a licensed clinical psychologist and profit private practice at Coping Partners on Chicago’s North Shore after 15 years of working with children, adolescents, families and adults. In many settings, Dr. Weisz has extensive knowledge on what it takes to raise and become an independent and healthy adults. And I can’t wait to hear the tips and tools she offers her clients and their parents. And the one she will share with us today. Dr. Weisz, welcome to the show.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 6:04
Thank you so much for having me.
Leslie Randolph 6:07
I’m just thrilled that you’re here. So before we kick off, why don’t you tell us a bit more about you and why you do what you do?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 6:14
Sure, sure. So I have a group practice called Coping Partners in Northbrook. And all of the therapists at our practice tend to work with children, adolescents and families, some of us with adults as well. But all doing parenting work as well. And I think that we live in an era. And we live in a community, a wonderful community, but a community that, like many others across the nation, is struggling in certain ways, in terms of the parenting challenges unique to now. And so I find it very fulfilling to be able to both relate, you know, as someone who, who also is rearing kids in this area, and help other parents as is they deal with the challenges of you know, being a good parent and what that looks like, in today’s age.
Leslie Randolph 7:07
Yeah, I Well, if you can’t see Leigh, she definitely did air quotes with being a good parent. Because it’s kind of like that inner teen that I was talking about, right? We have this idea of what a good parent looks like and what we should be doing. And you know, I didn’t get my manual. Did you get yours?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 7:25
We have too many manuals, actually. So the old the old fashioned parenting style did not require manuals. Yes.
Leslie Randolph 7:33
Oh my gosh, yeah. If I think about my mom, even like through pregnancy, and as I’m raising my children, well, we didn’t do that I did this and you know, everything from not eating Fetta when I was pregnant, to having car seats everywhere, and you know, always an opinion.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 7:48
Absolutely. For sure. There’s so much there’s so much information overload that it can get overwhelming for parents.
Leslie Randolph 7:55
1,000% and conflicting information, right? Like for every Google search you do or friends, you ask, you can find the alternative just as easily, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 8:05
Absolutely. Yeah, it is.
Leslie Randolph 8:07
It’s a tricky one. But we’re gonna go with us the gospel today. And the sound that Dr. Weisz, how’s it all? So, you know, as we talk about raising independent, healthy adults, you know, what are the characteristics of an independent and healthy adult?
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