Telehealth PCIT & Parent Coaching for Families in California
Meet Diana Gutierrez, LCSW
A child and family therapist helping parents of young children navigate tantrums, defiance and big behaviors with practical skills that build cooperation, confidence and connection.
I work with the kids of powerhouse parents.
The ones who thrive in courtrooms, boardrooms, and demanding careers, and then come home and feel completely outmatched by a four-year-old having a meltdown over the wrong colored cup.
If your preschooler has been sent home from school, if you’re getting calls from daycare, if every transition turns into a battle, or if you have started dreading the stretch between five and seven in the evening, you aren’t doing this wrong. Young children with big behaviors are not a parenting failure. It’s a problem with a known solution, and I would like to show you what it looks like.
What I specialize in
I work with parents of children ages two to seven who are dealing with tantrums, aggression, defiance, difficulty with emotional regulation, ADHD, anxiety, separation anxiety, and behavior that is causing trouble at home, at preschool, or at daycare.
My primary approach is Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), one of the most rigorously studied treatments for challenging behavior in young children.
What PCIT actually is
PCIT is not you sitting in a room talking about your child while they wait outside. It isn’t play therapy where your child works with me, and you get a five-minute summary at the end.
It’s live coaching. You and your child play together while I watch and coach you in real time through an earpiece. I tell you what to say, when to say it, and when to hold steady, in the actual moment the behavior is happening. Not afterward. Not in theory. While it is unfolding.
That structure is the whole point. Reading about a strategy and using it while your child is screaming are entirely different skills, and the second one is the one that changes anything.
The treatment runs in two phases. The first builds the relationship, because a child who feels connected to you is a child who is easier to direct. The second phase builds on compliance and gives you a consistent, predictable way to handle defiance without escalating.
We measure progress with real data throughout, so you aren’t guessing about whether it’s working.
Why the live coaching matters more than it sounds
Most parenting advice fails not because it’s wrong, but because it’s impossible to execute in the moment. You’ve read the books. You know about natural consequences and staying calm and getting on their level. And then it is 5:40 p.m. on a Tuesday, dinner is burning, and none of that is available to you.
PCIT works because the skills get built through repetition with someone coaching you until they’re automatic. That is why the research holds up and why parents tend to feel a difference before the full course is finished.
Working with high-achieving parents
I work alongside Yael Eiserike, LCSW, which means a lot of my families are the children of the professionals she sees.
There’s something specific about this group that I want to name, because it comes up constantly. Parents who are exceptionally competent everywhere else in their lives often take a child’s difficult behavior harder than other parents do. You’re used to being effective. You’re used to problems responding to effort and intelligence. And then you have a preschooler who doesn’t care about any of that, and the gap between how capable you are at work and how helpless you feel at home is genuinely painful.
I want to be clear that this is not a character problem and it is not something you caused. Early childhood behavior is developmental, temperamental, and situational, and it responds to specific skills rather than to being a better person.
What families can expect
Measurable improvement in behavior. Fewer and shorter tantrums. More cooperation with instructions. Parents who feel confident rather than braced.
And, in my experience, the part people underestimate: a genuinely warmer relationship with your child. The behavior work matters, but what parents tell me afterward is that they enjoy their kid again.
Practical details
I provide virtual PCIT across California, delivered live in each session.
Sessions are available in English and in Spanish.
Ages two to seven.
I offer a free 15-minute consultation call so you can describe what is happening, and we can work out whether PCIT is the right fit before you commit to anything.
About me
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, California license number 101114. I earned my Master of Social Work from California State University, Northridge in 2018 and I have been working exclusively with children and families, trained specifically in PCIT.
I work with families, which means my client is the parent and the child together rather than either one alone. Parents know their children better than I ever will. My job is to hand you tools that work in real life, not just in theory, and then coach you until they are yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Children ages two through seven. PCIT is specifically designed for this developmental window, which is part of why it works as well as it does.
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Yes, and the research on remote PCIT is strong. In some ways it’s better, because I am coaching you in your actual home, with your actual furniture and your actual routines, rather than in an office that looks nothing like where the behavior happens.
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Most families complete treatment in roughly twelve to twenty sessions, though it varies. Progress is tracked with real measurement rather than impression, so you will know where you stand throughout.
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No. Many families come in because behavior is hard, not because anyone has diagnosed anything. If something clinically significant is present, we will talk about it plainly.
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Extremely, and it is one of the most common things parents feel guilty about. Children often hold it together in structured settings and release everything with the person they feel safest with. It is exhausting and it is not evidence that you are doing something wrong.
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Yes. Anyone in California with a child in this age range is welcome to reach out.