Child Therapy

Do You Worry About Your Child’s Behavior Or Mental Well-Being?

Does your child have uncontrollable temper tantrums or meltdowns that involve kicking, hitting, and biting? Do they often cry a lot—sometimes unbearably—leaving you feeling embarrassed, exhausted, and powerless to do anything about it?

Perhaps your child is acting out at school, misbehaving, or being defiant—even aggressive toward others. Or maybe you’re worried that their self-isolating behavior and inability to form and maintain friendships is indicative of something deeper, such as depression, anxiety, or trauma.

Parents Seek Child Psychotherapy For Many Different Reasons

For instance, you may see your child fidgeting all the time, biting their nails, or twirling their hair—and you want to know if it’s stress or just a phase. You may worry that their lack of focus in school or inability to follow directions is either behavioral in nature or due to ADHD or some level of autism.

Perhaps your child is struggling with academics or separation anxiety, which is creating sleep problems, poor eating habits, and a general sense of low self-worth. Or it may be that, as a parent, you’ve been separated from your child in some manner, and you are looking for a way to bridge that disconnect and build a true relationship with them.

Whatever your situation is, not feeling connected to or capable of helping your child can be a painful experience for any parent. However, at Key Counseling Group, our specialists can help you gain the insight, solutions, and support you need to improve the overall, long-term well-being of your child.

The Childhood Years Are Complex And Full Of Challenges

Some of the greatest, most common obstacles to a young person’s well-being are issues of mental health. In fact, research estimates that anxiety, depression, behavioral issues, and ADHD affect a combined 20 million children nationwide.

Children are also exposed to a multitude of adverse experiences that shape who they are. The pandemic, for one, threw the door open to anxiety, depression, and trauma, exposing many kids to unparalleled levels of stress, fear, isolation, and even grief and loss. There are also a multitude of difficult life transitions that can be rough on kids, such as navigating separation and divorce, moving to a new place, starting a new school, and making new friends.

Social Media Can Also Have A Major Negative Impact On A Child’s Well-Being

It creates a landscape so polluted with cyberbullying and toxic information that the difference between the real world and make-believe becomes blurred, which warps a child’s sense of identity and self-worth. And for children who have experienced neglect, abuse, or a forced separation from their parents, just feeling safe can border on the impossible without the right help.

Unfortunately, many parents are so stressed out from providing for the family and tending to other responsibilities that many signs go unnoticed. And because most people aren’t trained to recognize what is going on beneath the surface of symptoms, parents and even educators can mistake a child’s expression of their pain for behavioral problems.

Fortunately, therapy with one of our child specialists can give you the answers you seek and the support your child needs to heal, grow, and navigate this world with confidence.

Therapy For Children Offers You A Chance To Finally Understand Your Child

At this point, you’re probably exhausted, wanting nothing more than to have a strong, trusting relationship with your child. And that can happen, especially with the help of a warm and caring therapist who has the ability not only to reach your child, but also to provide you with answers and a sense of relief.

Therapy, whether online or in person, acts as a safe space for children—a very literal safe environment where they can express their thoughts, feel their feelings, and be who they are without judgment. That said, we’ll also keep you apprised of their progress and what you can do to help at home.

Ultimately, we want to give your child an opportunity to organize their feelings so they’re no longer at the mercy of them. At the same time, counseling for children also benefits you in that it enables you to better understand and respond to what your child is experiencing.

How Do Our Child Therapy Sessions Work At Key Counseling Group?

Before your initial session, we’ll provide you with a free, 30-minute consultation to get some background on you, your concerns, and how the child’s behavior is presenting itself. This will also give you a chance to familiarize yourself with your child’s counselor and the therapeutic options available to you.

After that, we’ll schedule your first virtual or in-person session. At that time, we’ll meet with both you and your child to help make the transition to talking with a therapist feel more comfortable and natural. Some younger children may need more support from parents at the beginning of the therapy process while others may do better on their own with the therapist. So we’ll explore which option best suits your situation.

Our counselors take a dual approach to child therapy that involves tackling immediate concerns while also healing deeper emotional wounds. To accomplish that, we use several tools, including situational analyses, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT) for children, and Play Therapy.

A situational analysis early in the process can help us identify and tailor solutions to specific challenges. Alternatively, TFCBT is capable of addressing deeper emotional wounding in your child’s past that may be affecting their well-being now. And child-centered Play Therapy is a powerful way of getting on a kid’s level and building rapport with them to facilitate deeper discussion.

Whether they are into video games, anime, art, chess, or music—Play Therapy creates a non-verbal bridge between what your child is experiencing and how they express that. By identifying their interests and researching those topics, we can reach your child on a level that talk therapy alone often cannot.

There Is No Such Thing As Perfect Parenting

So working with a therapist also involves coaching you on understanding your child’s needs, following their lead, and preparing for the unexpected. Like your young one, it gives you a space to unpack and organize your own feelings as well. At the same time, it offers you practical parenting skills for managing stress, anxiety, and difficult situations while creating a deeper relationship with your child.

Whether you are navigating behavioral problems, mental health issues, or a challenging separation from your child, therapy for children can help. Together, we’ll tailor a treatment strategy that will help you and your child find greater peace of mind.

Perhaps You Are Considering Child Counseling, But You Still Have Concerns…

I’m worried that my child’s counselor won’t understand our demographic.

Key Counseling Group prides itself on having a diverse staff of therapists who can understand and respond to the cultural, racial, and relational needs of our clients. Whatever you are going through, we’ll meet you where you are—as you are. After all, every person and every human experience is unique, and we want you and your child to be as comfortable as possible.

I feel like I messed my kid’s life up so much it’s hopeless now.

There really is no such thing as perfect parenting; we all make mistakes—but the good news is that a young person’s brain is extremely resilient. That means, even though a child is particularly vulnerable to negative experiences, they are also particularly resilient. Therefore, one negative incident is not going to derail their life, especially if they have proper support. And that is what we are here for.

We don’t have the time for child counseling.

We understand that raising children is time-consuming enough, which is why we offer both in-person and online child therapy options. Plus, children are growing more and more comfortable with working in online environments, which makes teletherapy a natural and, often, less intimidating experience. That said, we offer in-person and virtual options, a plethora of evening availability to see kids around their school schedule, and limited Saturday availability on a case-by-case basis.

Let’s Build The Relationship You’ve Always Wanted With Your Child

If you would like to become more emotionally available for your child and build the relationship you’ve always wanted while safeguarding their development, therapy can help. Please email us or call 678-400-9477 for your free consultation to see how counseling for children may be able to help you and your child.