What is parenting consultation, and how is it different from therapy?

Parenting consultation coaches the parent, not the child. Instead of putting your child in treatment, we work on what you do at home — the routines, responses, and language that shape behavior. It is practical and time-limited: you leave with strategies you can use that evening. It is not psychotherapy, and it is not a diagnosis.

Alexis Hinchey Davis is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW #113150, Massachusetts) with a Master of Social Work from Boston College. For over 15 years she guided pediatricians on children's emotional and behavioral challenges through the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project at Tufts Medical Center, where she was trained in the Incredible Years and Triple P programs that anchor her consulting practice.

What approaches do you use?

Two evidence-based parenting curricula with decades of research behind them: the Incredible Years and Triple P (Positive Parenting Program). Rather than handing you a manual, sessions adapt what works in those programs to your children, your household, and your constraints.

How much does it cost, and is there a free option?

The first step is a free 15-minute consultation with no cost and no obligation — tell me what's going on, and I'll tell you how I can help. Ongoing coaching is a paid service; rates are discussed on that first call.

Do you work with families outside Massachusetts?

Parenting consultation is coaching rather than clinical treatment, so it is available more broadly than licensed therapy, and sessions are held by video. Clinical services requiring a Massachusetts license are limited to Massachusetts. If you are unsure which you need, ask on the free call.

My child is having tantrums and nothing works. Can this help?

That is the most common reason parents call. Repeated tantrums, refusal, or defiance usually have a pattern underneath them — a trigger, a routine, or a response loop that is quietly reinforcing the behavior. Consultation identifies that pattern and replaces it with a specific plan you can run consistently, which is what actually changes behavior.

What ages do you work with?

Families with young children through adolescence. The Incredible Years and Triple P frameworks both scale across ages; the strategies change with the developmental stage, but the underlying method — clear expectations, consistent responses, connection first — does not.

How do I get started?

Book the free 15-minute call. Tell me what's going on, and I'll tell you how I can help. The strategies come in the sessions, built for your family.

A straight answer

My child whines all day. How do I make it stop?

Alexis Davis, LICSW. Parenting consultation, Medford MA and Greater Boston.

It starts before breakfast and it's still going at bath time. The cup is the wrong color, the socks feel weird, the snack is the wrong snack, all in that voice. By dinner you'd hand over almost anything to make it stop. You're not failing, and your child isn't out to wear you down. It's one of the most fixable things parents bring me.

Why the whining keeps coming

Whining keeps going because, some of the time, it works. The fifth "pleeease" gets the cookie, or it gets you to stop and argue the point. If the whine wins even once in a while, it's worth trying every time. That isn't manipulation: your child has learned which voice pays off.

The answer holds, whine or no whine

The fix starts with your answer. When a no stays a no however long the whine goes on, and you say it calmly, the whine has nothing left to win. In our sessions, we work out together what that looks like with your child's age and your hardest hours.

Give the regular voice the payoff

Right now the whine probably gets more of you than the regular voice does. Turn that around, so the regular voice is what gets your attention. I have two boys, and I know the whine that carries through a closed bathroom door. Your patience runs out like anyone's, so refill it on purpose: time with other adults, time alone, time for you.

Why I do it this way

None of this is my opinion. Each step comes from programs with decades of research behind them. Here is the research, in plain words, with the study under each one.

Why the whine gets to you
In a lab study, 37 adults, parents and non-parents alike, were told to disregard a whining voice and tuned in to it anyway: they made more mistakes and their skin response rose more than with ordinary speech, so giving in isn't weak willpower.
Source: Chang and Thompson, Evolutionary Psychology, 2010
Calm, and the answer holds
Across 14 randomized trials and 3,252 families, the two parenting changes that best explained why the programs worked were less harsh words and more following through.
Source: Laas Sigurdardottir and colleagues, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2025
Your pediatrician watches development
The American Academy of Pediatrics asks pediatricians to watch development at every well visit and to screen or refer when a concern comes up, which is why speech is on the list below.
Source: Lipkin and Macias, Pediatrics, 2020

When to call your pediatrician instead

Talk to your pediatrician if the whining is constant and nothing seems to explain it, if your child also seems in pain or unwell, or if their speech seems behind other kids their age. Those are a doctor's questions. This page is parenting consultation, not therapy and not a diagnosis.

15 minutes, free.

Tell me what's going on, and I'll tell you how I can help.

Book the free call