For parents
Explore how to stay connected as your adult child makes their own choices, express concerns, and respond when the relationship feels different from what you hoped.
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Relationship and family counselling online
Online couples and family counselling across Australia.
Support for couples, individuals and families navigating communication, conflict, disconnection, boundaries, caregiving, loyalty and the expectations people carry into relationships.
Online couples counselling · Support for parents and adult children
Couples, individuals & familiesWhole-system perspectiveAustralia-wide telehealth
Request a free 15-minute call
Couples counselling online
Support for your relationship, wherever you live in Australia.
Work with Meg Bonetti, an AASW Accredited Social Worker, on recurring arguments, communication, disconnection, boundaries, changing roles or separation. Counselling considers each person and the pressures around the relationship, without assuming that staying together is the only outcome.
$200 for two people for 60 minutes. Private fees apply; Medicare rebates are not currently available. View couples counselling fees.
What happens before a joint session?
Contact Meg to discuss what you are looking for and whether joint counselling is suitable. Goals, participation, confidentiality and safety are considered before shared work begins. If there is fear, coercion or violence, joint counselling may not be appropriate; you can ask about individual support instead. Please do not send sensitive relationship details in an initial email.
Prefer counselling on your own? You do not need your partner to participate to seek support for yourself.
Parents and adult children
Counselling for parents and adult children
Sometimes advice feels like criticism. A request for space feels like rejection. A conversation about a visit, a partner or a family expectation becomes the same argument again.
Counselling offers space to explore communication, boundaries, changing roles and what each person wants from the relationship. You do not have to agree about everything before asking for support.
This includes mother–daughter, father–daughter, father–son and mother–son relationships, as well as parents and adult children of any gender.
For adult children
Explore boundaries, guilt, independence and the kind of contact that feels workable for you.
Start with an enquiry
You can ask about support for yourself even if the other person is not ready. If you are considering attending together, contact Meg first to discuss suitability and the available options. Each adult's choice to participate matters.
Finding the right arrangement: Individual counselling is $185 for 60 minutes. The existing family session fee is $200 for two people for 60 minutes. Contact Meg before booking together so the arrangement can be considered. Reconciliation is not a required outcome.
Not sure where to begin?
A free 15-minute introductory call is a chance to ask about the service and discuss a next step. It is not a counselling session or a commitment to book.
Opens an email draft. Add a safe contact method and times that suit you, then send it. Meg will arrange the call with you. Please keep personal family details for your conversation.
Prefer a text? Text Meg to request a call.
What happens next?
- Start with a conversation about the support you are looking for.
- For joint work, Meg speaks separately with each adult and discusses suitability, confidentiality and fees.
- If the arrangement fits and everyone agrees, choose your first appointment.
Ready for support on your own? Book an individual session — $185 / 60 minutes.
Can I attend on my own?
Yes. You can seek individual support around your own experiences, boundaries and choices. Counselling cannot make another person participate or change.
Do we have to attend together?
No. Ask Meg about the options first. A joint session is not automatically the appropriate starting point.
Will counselling decide who is right?
The focus is on understanding experiences, patterns and possible changes. Your needs and boundaries matter, and repair is not the only possible outcome.
A social-work and family-systems lens
Relationships exist inside real lives.
Communication and conflict cycles
Notice the repeatable sequence beneath recurring arguments: pursuit, withdrawal, escalation, silence, repair attempts and the needs each person struggles to express.
Roles, boundaries and responsibility
Explore who carries emotional labour, decision-making, caregiving, money pressure or family diplomacy—and what a fairer pattern might look like.
Connection, repair and change
Build safer ways to speak, listen, disagree, apologise and reconnect without expecting one person to absorb all the discomfort.
Complex relationships, separation and safety
When the relationship problem is bigger than communication.
Separation, divorce and co-parenting
Support to think through a difficult or high-conflict separation, shifting family roles, parenting communication, grief, anger and decisions that can be hard to separate from the emotional impact.
Police or domestic and family violence involvement
Trauma-informed support that takes safety, power and coercive dynamics seriously. Joint couples work is not assumed to be appropriate; suitability and safety are considered before any shared session.
Preparing for mediation or advocacy
Clarify priorities, boundaries, questions and language before mediation, legal appointments or advocacy conversations. Counselling can support your participation, but does not replace legal advice, formal advocacy or accredited family dispute resolution.
Restorative family counselling
Making room for repair, transition and shared decisions.
Restorative relationship work
Create a structured space to understand impact, responsibility, unmet needs and what meaningful repair could look like. Reconciliation is not assumed; sometimes restoration means a clearer, safer way forward.
Caregiving and later-life decisions
Support for siblings, partners and extended family navigating ageing, changing capacity, aged care, health decisions, grief, uneven responsibility and old family patterns returning under pressure.
Separation, divorce and mediation preparation
Prepare for difficult conversations, mediation or co-parenting decisions with greater clarity about priorities, boundaries and the emotional pattern around the dispute. This is counselling and preparation, not legal advice or formal mediation.
Family session fee: $200 for two people for 60 minutes, plus 10% of the base fee for each additional participant. Three people are $220; four people are $240. Contact Meg before booking so the people attending and the purpose of the session can be considered.
Not every family looks the same
Immediate family is only part of the picture.
Relationship work may include extended family, blended families, chosen family, co-parenting, faith, disability, neurodivergence, migration, community roles and intergenerational expectations. The aim is not to impose one “healthy family” template, but to understand the system you live inside and create workable change.
Before a first session
Practical questions about parent and adult child counselling
Can I get support if my parent or adult child will not attend?
Yes. You can work individually on your own experience, choices and boundaries. You do not need their permission to seek support for yourself. Counselling cannot make another person take part or guarantee a particular relationship outcome.
What happens before we attend together?
Meg speaks separately with each adult about suitability and what they want from the work. Before joint sessions, you agree who is receiving which service, the goals, fees, confidentiality boundaries and an early review. Separate check-ins within family work are not automatically ongoing individual therapy for each person.
Will private conversations be repeated in the joint session?
Private disclosures are not routinely forwarded to relatives. Meg discusses the proposed use of separate information and seeks permission, subject to lawful confidentiality exceptions. If information makes joint work unsafe or unworkable, the arrangement may need to change. These boundaries are discussed with each adult before joint work begins.
Can we attend from different locations?
Ask Meg about the telehealth arrangement before booking. Each adult needs a private space and a way to take part without pressure or interruption. Suitability is considered individually; being able to connect online does not itself mean a joint session is appropriate.
What will it cost?
Individual counselling is $185 for 60 minutes. A family session with two participants is $200 for 60 minutes. Confirm the fee and duration of any separate suitability conversations before booking. View family fees and additional-participant pricing.
Your practitioner is Meg (Megan) Bonetti, Accredited Social Worker, founder of MEB Counselling, with more than twenty years of social work experience across community services, leadership and direct practice. Sessions are offered online across Australia.
For support with the strain of caring and other responsibilities, explore burnout and overwhelm counselling. You can also read how online counselling works before enquiring.
Online workshop
Relationships, family patterns and expectations.
MEB Counselling's next 4–8 week facilitated workshop explores communication, boundaries, repair, family roles and the gap between personal needs and inherited expectations. Sessions are 50 minutes online and cost A$40 each. Dates are announced when the next cohort forms.
Express interest in MEB Counselling's next workshopTake the next step at your own pace.
Ask about support for yourself or explore whether attending together could fit.
Request a free 15-minute call