One of the key themes of working with children and adolescents is “Limits with Love”, derived from the book “Boundaries with Kids”, by Dr. Henry Cloud. The overall theme is when to incorporate healthy structure and when to encourage freedom. I work with children of all ages in psychotherapy and worked with thousands of children during my years in the Junior High School setting, and from my experience children thrive with consistency and love.
Does it ever feel like your family has “bad” habits in place and life could be drastically better with slight improvements.
In therapy, we will work to open up communication with children and parents. Children want to be heard and often it can be as simple as bringing parents into the room at the end of session and allow their child to voice their opinion-freely and safely-without fear of repercussion.
A large part of session can be incorporating play therapy, art therapy or sand play.
Often children have a lot to say but don’t have the complex language to verbalize their thoughts and feelings in sessions. This is a great benefit of play therapy, art therapy and sand play-children can show you what they are feeling-when they cannot verbally express it.
The incorporation of play is natural and emits children’s natural energies. Once your child is comfortable-growth and learning and fun can occur. Because the reality is if your child is not having fun they probably won’t want to come back to session.