Claim OwnershipParenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment
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© 2026 Parenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment
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Your guide to parenting a struggling teen or young-adult, whether they’re home, transitioning home, or presently in treatment.
Parents, say goodbye to exhausting confusion, overwhelm, panic and the unhelpful patterns that keep you and your family stuck. Learn how to develop healthy responses and set healthy boundaries with your teen instead of acting out of fear and anxiety.
Experience the relationship-changing power of focusing on your own behavior instead of futile attempts to control your teen.
Your guides to Parenting Post-wilderness are Beth Hillman, a life coach for parents of struggling teens and mom to a post-wilderness teen, and part-time co-host Seth Gottlieb, a wilderness therapy guide turned teen and young-adult recovery coach. Their unique combination of experience and training yields candid conversations chock full of practical, actionable tips and tools to smooth the challenges both parents and teens experience surrounding treatment.
Every week, you can expect conversations around:
- Parenting a struggling teen or young-adult;
- Setting healthy boundaries with your teen;
- Treatment options for your struggling teen or young adult;
- Bringing your kid home from treatment;
- Parenting skills to support your struggling child;
- Teen substance abuse, drug addiction, gaming addiction, suicidal ideation, or other teen mental health concerns;
- How to end power struggles and instead foster healthy communication with your teen or young-adult;
- And much more.
Listen in to discover how parents like you have learned to influence equanimity in the home and rebuild connections with the teens they love.
Connect with Beth on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or find more information about working with Beth at www.bethhillmancoaching.com.
182 Episodes
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When your teen is engaging in self-destructive behaviors, what you usually see is the tip of the iceberg. You see the cutting, the substance use, the school refusal, the shutdowns or blowups, and it’s scary, confusing, and exhausting. But what’s happening underneath those behaviors is often invisible. Big emotions. Overwhelm. Shame. Anxiety. A nervous system that’s trying to survive. And when all you can see is the behavior, misunderstanding and frustration are almost inevitable. In thi...
Have you ever found yourself thinking, “This has to be rock bottom… surely it can’t get worse than this,”? As painful as that thought is, it can also feel strangely comforting. Because if this is the worst of it… then maybe things will finally start to get better. When your teen or young adult is making painful, risky, or destructive choices, the idea of rock bottom can feel like a lifeline. A way to survive the moment. A way to believe that relief, change, or recovery must be just around the...
You’re doing everything you can, and yet you feel like you’re failing as a parent… Believe me, you’re not alone, and today, I’d even like to offer you a change of perspective: What if you’ve been giving the wrong job description as a parent? You might believe your role is to keep your kids happy, safe, and “on track.” And when it inevitably becomes clear that you don’t have any control over this during the teen years, the shame comes creeping in fast, right? You start questioning every decisi...
Recently, we lost a dear friend to suicide. One of my son’s best friends, who had become a part of our family. This is a tender and deeply personal conversation in which Seth and I talk about the loss of a young man who mattered deeply to our family, and what witnessing his death taught me about struggling teens, their ‘yellow’ or ‘red friends’, pain, and connection. This is not an easy conversation. There are tears. There is grief. And there is also something profoundly important here for pa...
Learning to let go is one of the hardest but most necessary parts of parenting a struggling teen, especially when your child’s behaviors feel frightening, confusing, and completely out of your control. In this episode, I’m joined again by Michelle, a mom who has walked a long, painful, and ultimately transformative path with her daughter, who was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Together, we talk honestly about what it looks like to parent through intense fear, misd...
✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! There’s a kind of grief many parents of struggling teens carry that doesn’t always get named. It’s not just the fear. It’s not just the exhaustion. It’s the quiet heartbreak of realizing that the life you once imagined for your child may never unfold the way you thought it would. In this epi...
✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! When your kid keeps struggling and nothing seems to change, it’s natural to focus all your energy on them. Their choices. Their behavior. Their refusal to do things differently. But have you ever tried looking at your own part? Because even though it might feel unfair, change in families oft...
✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! If you’re parenting a teen with a mental health condition, like borderline personality disorder, you may recognize the constant confusion: Is this normal? Am I helping, or making it worse? Why does nothing seem to work? In this episode, I’m joined by Michelle Park, a mom who courageously sha...
✨ 6-week Boundaries Masterclass ✨ Starting January 13th -- Early Bird price until December 31st! 👉🏼 Click here to sign up, or go to bethhillmancoaching.com/boundariesmasterclass I hope to see you there! It’s never an easy decision to send your struggling child to treatment, whether it’ll be their first time or their tenth. As a parent, you’re exhausted, scared, unsure what’s actually best, and constantly questioning whether things are really as bad as they feel, or if you’re just out of opt...
What if the behaviors you see in your struggling teen aren’t just “problems,” but signs that the identity they were given no longer fits? What if their resistance, shut-down, or self-destructive choices are really the early stages of something Jake Wood knows all too well: the painful beginning of learning to trust yourself again after trauma, addiction, and conditioning? In today’s conversation, Jake returns to share the part of his story most parents never get to hear from their own child: ...
Before your child has the chance to understand who they truly are, the world is already telling them what they are. Jake Wood knows this firsthand, and his story turns our whole conversation about teen drug addiction upside down. In one of the favorite interviews I’ve ever done, I sit down with transformation guide Jake Wood to explore a perspective on teen drug addiction that most parents never hear: one rooted not in pathology, shame, or “fixing,” but in soul, story, and deep humanity. “Sha...
Does your teen always have one more promise, one more deal, or ‘just this once’ plea? You’re not imagining it. The moment you start negotiating with your teen, you’re pulled into a messy family dynamic that almost never works out the way you hope it will. In this episode, Seth and I talk about why these IOUs, bargains, and “I swear I’ll do it tomorrow” promises fall apart so quickly, and why they often leave you feeling resentful, confused, or taken advantage of. And more importantly, how can...
You want to be honest with your child… but when emotions run high, it can be hard to know where the line is between healthy emotional expression and unintentionally putting a burden on your young child, teen, or young-adult kid. If you’ve ever felt terrified, overwhelmed, or lost in the fear of “what if,” and weren’t sure whether to show your child how scared you really are… If you’ve ever wondered why expressing your emotions towards your child sometimes leads to more distance instead of mor...
So much work happens during treatment, but the real test begins when your child comes home. The patterns that once kept your family stuck can easily reappear unless you intentionally create space for something new. This week, we talk about how to allow a fresh start after treatment and rebuild trust in a way that supports lasting independence and connection. I’m joined again by Colin MacDonald, co-founder of Not Therapy Coaching and a former struggling teen himself. Colin now mentors young pe...
What do former addicts wish their parents had done differently? Josh and Heide Case are joining us today to explore that question. Both Heidi and Josh began using as teens and spent decades navigating addiction before finding lasting recovery. Their stories are raw, real, and filled with moments every parent of a struggling teen can learn from. Now, through their platform and podcast Sober.Buzz, they’re using those experiences to help families better understand what’s really happening beneath...
You’ve probably found yourself reacting before you even realize what’s happening countless times. I certainly have. Those fast, heated moments, when your blood boils, your breath shortens, and everything speeds up, can feel impossible to stop. And before you know it, you’re in a reactive back-and-forth with your teen or young adult kid. But what if things could go differently? In this episode, Seth and I talk about one of my favorite parenting tools of all time: learning how to pause before r...
When your teen starts doing better (going to school, staying sober, following through), it’s natural to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s also natural for your teen or young adult to plead their case and ask you to loosen the boundary. But that’s the trap many parents fall into: they loosen the boundaries that helped create that progress in the first place. Today, Seth and I unpack the psychology behind this “everything’s fine now” mindset and why it can quickly unravel the stability your family...
You want to trust your teen again when they come back from treatment, but every setback and every little misstep can send your mind spiraling back to worst-case scenarios. Luckily, we’re joined again by Colin MacDonald from Not Therapy Coaching to explore what it really looks like to parent your teen after treatment, and how to make sure fear doesn’t take over. He shares powerful mindset shifts for parents and offers practical ways to focus on what’s actually happening, rather than cata...
Teen suicide is every parent’s worst nightmare. Andy Campbell lived through it when his 18-year-old son took his own life. “I used to tell my son, ‘make any decision you want, but not the irreversible decision’, until he did.” - Andy Campbell Andy shares his story with raw honesty, describing the years of living with his son’s suicidal thoughts, the heartbreaking day of his death, and the painful yet powerful lessons he has learned since. As we talk, Andy shares about the illusion of control ...
Stories about wilderness range from life-saving transformations to devastating failures, and often, the loudest voices online lean toward fear and controversy. That’s why I’m so excited to be joined by filmmakers Mark Strauss and Vince Dixon, co-directors of the upcoming documentary Forest for the Trees: The Truth About Wilderness Therapy. With lived experience of loss, addiction, and healing in their own families, Mark and Vince share why they felt compelled to create a film that tells the w...
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