Therapy for Children and Their Families

The time for “let’s wait and see” has passed.

While moving at the speed of life, there’s only so much a parent can problem-solve at once. And the younger kids are, the wider the range expected for their development. As time passes, kids grow into themselves, like they usually bounce back after a challenging experience.

Resilience is one of the most amazing things to witness in children! Their ability to be resilient makes judgment calls about whether the time is right for therapy to be anything but straightforward. Messages from our social networks and culture framing mental health in terms of brain diseases, genetic causes, and character flaws also weigh heavily.

The innately human act of reaching out for help may seem like a source of stigma and shame, and concerns about the impact of life-long labels and medication quick-fixes abound.

The irony is that attempts to protect your child and family short term can promote suffering in silence for years with problems solvable in weeks or months. Suffering is the last thing anyone would want!

You know what isn’t working but can’t seem to get unstuck.

The hallmark of a problem worth going to therapy for your child and family is that it’s a vicious cycle – like a whirlpool drawing you in toward a place you don’t want to go.

Those problems come in many forms, including the following: meltdowns and defiance while trying to get through daily routines, concerning reports from teachers about struggles in school, witnessing the impact of being rejected by other kids and hearing them talk about not feeling good enough, out of control emotions over minor frustrations lead to situations that are increasingly difficult to navigate, feeling dread rise within you as you prepare to head out in public with your child, and the aching of yet another tense interaction with your kiddo that ended in disconnection and never got repaired.

Issues in each domain ripple further into your lives, strengthening the swirling waters. Eventually, no matter how hard you paddle against the current, you go around and around.

When you are in the midst of all this – still moving at the speed of life – it’s no wonder it’s hard to get unstuck!

There is hope for a bright future for your child and family.

No matter how big the issues are, everyone feels tied up in knots at the start of therapy. Those feelings are like those lights you swore you put away neatly last year and feel mortified to find. As frustrating as this situation is and as urgent as it feels to get everything untangled ASAP, success always starts with slowing down enough to find the first place you can loosen things up – and then another and another.

Therapy sessions are a rare occasion to slow life down, take a careful look at how to loosen up the next bit of the knots and get ready to try out some ideas for how to do that.

Therapy with children is unique because it’s always a significant, active collaboration. No, I won’t ask your kiddo to lie down on the couch and tell me about their dreams – even if our work focuses on sleep problems! And it’s not like an oil change where you drop them off and pick them back up all fixed up – #sorrynotsorry.

Making the right connection is the goal.

I will prioritize building a genuine connection with your kiddo (and you!), no matter how the format of our work together appears.

For my clients, therapy is often a source of joy and anticipation for the weekly visits – not because it’s all fun and games and we aren’t doing hard work. Our work is more like that African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”

I bring to the table a perspective and skill set that I use to empower my clients through partnership to get back on track and thrive long after completing our work.

So don’t spend another moment wondering or worrying – waiting and seeing! Reach out today for a free consultation to see what I can do to help.