When Parents Want You to “Fix” Their Child [Alumni Check-In Session #2] (Episode 57)
What happens when your clients think they need one thing… but you actually treat something deeper?
This is such a common tension for therapists. A parent searches for help with tantrums—but you know the real work is supporting them as the agent of change. A client says they have anxiety—but you know trauma is driving it.
In this Confident Copy alumni check-in session, I’m answering a question from Casey, a child psychologist who specializes in working with parents of toddlers and preschoolers. She’s crystal clear on what works in her model: parents learning new tools, building new skills, and showing up differently at home. But she’s wrestling with how to market that without recreating the burnout she experienced in the past.
This episode is all about bridging that gap—meeting clients at their point of need without compromising your model, your energy, or your boundaries.
If you’ve ever wondered how to call in the right-fit clients while blessing and releasing the rest, this one will feel grounding and strategic.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ How to meet clients at their “visible problem” (tantrums, anxiety, conflict) without diluting what you actually do.
2️⃣ The copy shifts that attract self-aware, motivated clients—and gently repel the ones who aren’t ready.
3️⃣ How clear expectations in your marketing prevent burnout before a client ever books.
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Hey, hey, welcome back to Marketing Therapy. This is our second Confident Copy alumni check-in session. So these check-in sessions are opportunities for our Confident Copy alumni to submit questions to me about their marketing, things that they're working on related to the Confident Copy curriculum or.
Related to what they're doing after the program. So moving into networking or SEO or social media, whatever that might be, they have a chance to submit those questions to me. And then just like you might have a check-in session with a client after they've discharged, this is a chance for us to sit down, quote unquote together and discuss it.
So what you get here in these alumni check-ins is a bit of insight into what's going on for one or two of our competent copy alumni, and then exactly what advice I would give them if we were sitting together one-on-one. .
Now, what we're talking about in this check-in session is a really common experience for a lot of therapists. Now, we talk all the time about meeting clients at their point of need, how your marketing's job is to join your clients where they currently are. But what happens when, what your clients think they need.
Isn't what you actually do. That's what Casey's question is about today and what we're really gonna be getting into. It's similar to if your clients come to you thinking they have anxiety, but really you're treating trauma. Do you market it to anxiety or do you market to trauma?
Okay, that's the tension here. So Casey is a child psychologist in Minnesota and she said, Anne, I'm hoping for insight on how to better tailor my copy and marketing to what the client believes they need as opposed to the more clinical description of the services I provide. So she said, I'm a child psychologist and I help parents of toddlers and preschoolers navigate problem behaviors, sleep difficulties, feeding struggles, and potty training issues.
Casey, I am so glad that there's a therapist like you out there. You're doing good work. She said I did my internship and postdoc with an organization that focused on the parents as the agent of change. Parents knew when they walked in the door that much of the work would include helping them learn new skills to improve their child's struggles at home.
So during her internship, parents coming in, recognizing I have work to do. After I finished my training, I transitioned to a large healthcare organization where the referrals came from pediatricians, and the focus was on fixing the child. So parents expected me to meet weekly with their child rather than with them to solve the issues.
She said, I spent weeks, months, sometimes years helping families understood the adults are actually the agent of change, and that the most effective work came from teaching parents new skills. It totally burned me out. Okay. So Casey had this contrast of parents coming in, recognizing they needed support and looking for it, versus having to essentially be convinced that they were the ones that needed to change versus just fixing their child.
Casey says, as I sit down now to write my copy, I get stuck on how to effectively draw in the right client. I want to market to parents of toddlers and preschoolers. Though I think my clients are often searching for a child psychologist who can fix their child, so she wants to work with the parents. She wants those parents coming in, recognizing they're the agent of change and wanting to invest in themselves, not just Here, fix my kid.
A really, really common challenge for therapists that work with children and teens or anyone that has a caregiver. She said, I don't know how to bridge that gap without getting myself stuck in the same cycle that initially burned me out. Alright, so one thing I wanna highlight here, Casey, is what you've already done really, really well.
You know what burns you out. You know what you do not want, which is huge. You know which clients you work best with. You know your model works. You have a lot of confidence, not just in who you're talking to, but in what you can actually deliver when you're working with the right person, and you have a really, really deep sense of who that ideal client is.
So a lot of good things happening here, and I don't wanna just skim over how hard it can be to actually reach, that level of clarity and insight. So Casey, well done on that. That's gonna serve you very well. 'cause it ultimately is the foundation of your ability to market yourself well.
You cannot call in the right client if you don't know who the heck you're talking to, right? So good on you there. Now we just need to be thinking about how you're communicating it. Now, I want you to know you, Casey, and everyone listening, that is very, very possible to market to qualities in a person. You can implicitly call in people who are self-aware, who are motivated, who are insightful, who are. Type A, who are interested in structure, who want to go deep. All of that is possible with good copy.
It's why the Confident copy process is so powerful. So here we are trying to talk to parents who have a deeper level of insight. We're trying to talk to parents who aren't necessarily viewing their child is the problem, but instead of recognizing that they have a role to play and wanting to change that role.
Okay.
So the risk here is if you market just to the child's problems, then you end up attracting clients who are expecting kind of that drop off therapy experience. You child is struggling with feeding. I can help your child overcome those challenges. Great. Here's my kid, and off they go.
So your fear here is that if you're speaking to these really amazing and specific things that you help with, tantrum, sleep, feeding, whatever, that you're gonna recreate the burnout.
We know that your ideal clients are the parents who are accepting responsibility, who are willing to learn new tools, who want structure and strategy. We can speak to all of those qualities. We can also bless and release people who want a weekly fix or who are unwilling to examine their role or who do just wanna drop their kid off and go run errands during your session.
Right? So here, instead of feeling like you have to convince or educate parents on needing to be the agent of change, 'cause that really does sound like it was the root of your burnout. I want you to focus on calling in parents who are already ready. The way that your internship organization, it sounds like they were doing very, very well.
So we need to be acknowledging the point of need that your clients are coming in with. Like I talked about at the beginning of the episode, your marketing is about meeting your clients at their point of need. So what is your ideal client's point of need? It is not just that their child is having sleeping issues or tantrums or feeding challenges.
It is that they, as the parent feel completely helpless, feel like they've tried everything, don't know what to do, are questioning whether or not they're cut out for this. We have to recognize that there are challenges the parent is facing as well. Now, how we're gonna shape expectations in your copy, is that about speaking to the solution.
So not just your child is going to eat better, but your child's going to eat better and there's gonna be more connection in your home. You're gonna experience more ease in your parenting. It's about making sure that the parent, as the client is highlighted throughout your copy, not just the child. So if the visible problems are the tantrums and the sleep struggles and the feeding battles and the potty training issues, then the pathway, what we're gonna be referencing in your copy is the parent learning new skills to respond, shifting the way they show up to difficult scenarios, changing the environment to shape the child's behavior.
So instead of, I treat toddler behavior problems. You talk about the fact that behavior happens in context, that real change happens at home, and that your work is focused on equipping parents to support their children. Changing that means in your copy, for instance, your about page where we do the expectations setting, you're gonna be clear about who your sessions are with what parents are gonna be doing, and how involved they are, what their participation will look like.
And really keep that idea of skill building central. I think it's also really important here, Casey, that you be direct about who your best fit clients are. Saying things like you're open to trying something different. As a parent, you recognize that the way you respond influences how your child reacts.
You are interested in tools. You want practical guidance, you are ready to be consistent. You are ready to show up differently. You understand your child doesn't exist in a vacuum. So we need to be stating in your copy the awareness that your ideal client has so that the ideal client says yes. Oh my goodness.
Yes. And you are not ideal client. The parent who is looking for drop off therapy is gonna say, oh. No, that's not what I'm looking for. And go elsewhere. Excellent. Good copy, as we talk about, should both attract and bless and release. So when you're empathizing Casey in your copy, like your homepage or perhaps your specialty pages, we want to be speaking again, not just to the challenges of the child, but the challenges of the parent.
The feeling helpless, the being embarrassed. Right. That's really, really key for these parents. Most likely the exhaustion, the questioning of their own skills or abilities as a parent. So this isn't just about the challenges the child is facing, but it's about the challenges of the parent and you seeing them so that you can support them.
Your toddler won't sleep, you dread bedtime, your child won't eat. Mealtimes are stressful. Your preschooler is acting out. You feel judged in the pickup line. We need both of those represented in your copy. 'cause ultimately parents are seeking support because of what they're seeing in their child.
Totally. But they're also seeking support because of their distress and their exhaustion. So we need to honor that and speak to that, because that's gonna call in the parent recognizing that their own needs. Need to be met and that they have a role in doing that.
So don't beat around the bush in your copy. Be direct about the expectations for parents while honoring the very delicate and challenging and complex emotions that your parents are bringing to session. Your marketing cannot be focused solely on the children, even if that's the catalyst for getting that.
Family into therapy. It has to also honor the experience of the parent. That is what is going to support the filtering that we need to see happen in your marketing and in anyone's marketing, because really filtering is part of marketing. Well, it's that attracting and blessing and releasing.
As someone engages with your website and moves through the different pages and scrolls down the page, it should be setting expectations. Creating alignment or exposing misalignment, and ultimately Casey preventing the burnout. You know, you're trying to avoid, right? This is a strategic thing. You are allowed to repel the parents that aren't the right fit for you.
There are other clinicians out there that can serve them very well. You are not that person, and that is okay, but it's important that you state that. Not every parent is ready, but you can call in the ready ones here. So Mark to the tantrums, mention the sleep issues.
Talk about the feeding struggles for sure, while also layering on the parent's emotion and the ideal parent's insight into their role. And that's where I think you're gonna kind of see the dynamic duo at play. Where people are so glad you are a therapist that exists for these types of challenges. And also recognize that they are the ones that might need the support and that can be the agent of change for their children.
Alright, Casey, I hope this one was helpful for you. If you are someone who has sat and wondered how the heck do I market to, for instance, parents or caregivers, or just how do I market to something people don't know they need? Then hopefully this one was helpful for you, Casey. I'm wishing you well and I'll see you for our next check-in session.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
Confident Copy: https://walkerstrategyco.com/cc
The Walker Strategy Co website:https://walkerstrategyco.com
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About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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