Counseling for Children

Children’s counseling is a specialized form of counseling that requires a counselor to be specifically trained for working with children. Because children can suffer from anxiety, depression, and other behavioral issues, there are circumstances where counseling is appropriate and extremely helpful. However, because children are simply in a different developmental phase than adults these issues will often present differently than they would in an adult.

Counseling geared specifically toward a child’s needs often incorporates things like play therapy. Because children learn by playing and by doing activities, children’s counseling, especially for young children will look different from an adult counseling session. It can be done in conjunction with family therapy, or with an individual child.

At Texas Christian Counseling, child therapists are trained to present ideas in a non-threatening way that allows the child to go at their pace and gradually open up to the counselor about issues in their life. It can incorporate artistic expression, play-acting, using pictures of faces, feeling words, etc., to identify emotions as well as any number of other techniques.

Counselors will often use games to allow children to find the narratives of their own stories and begin to make sense of different pieces. Some counseling can also focus on teaching children to manage anxiety or distressing emotions by learning body-based coping skills such as breathing techniques, or ways to ground themselves in the present moment.

Some people might wonder why a child would need counseling – after all, they’re just a kid. While children appear to be extremely resilient, the truth is that they still need help to process and make sense of their internal life. As more studies come out that illustrate the impact of developmental trauma on adult decisions and experiences, it becomes increasingly clear that giving children adequate resources to make sense of their life experiences is one of the most important things we can do to keep hard things (which almost every child will experience) from becoming traumatic experiences.

Trauma, simply defined, is the experience of being overwhelmed by an event. Rather than being able to pinpoint a certain category of experience and label it as traumatic (though some events are easily categorized this way), it is more helpful to listen to a child’s experience of an event. An overly sensitive child may experience a move to a different city as overwhelming and need extra help to metabolize the change. The same experience could be mostly fun and exciting for a different child with a different temperament.

Studies on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) show that these difficult experiences have implications for physical and mental health as adults, with those who have had multiple ACEs having much higher rates of both physical and mental illness. This can initially feel daunting – how do we help kids who experience these things?

What is encouraging about these same studies is that they also studied the impact of a child’s innate resilience and factors that help to build resilience. These are the things that can be influenced, even if you can’t prevent the initial trauma from happening. These are things such as knowing that your parents care about you, knowing that you have safe people to talk about, knowing that you have multiple safe adults in your life that are concerned for your well-being, etc.

One study showed that having some of these protective factors halved the risk of a child experiencing mental health problems as an adult. At Texas Christian Counseling, your child’s counselor can be part of this resilience factor, and counseling can play a part in giving children tools to better cope with difficult life experiences.

Counseling can be helpful for anything that is feeling overwhelming to your child, but some of the most common reasons that a parent seeks out counseling for their children include:

• Anxiety (up to 7% of teens and children experience anxiety)
• Depression
• OCD
• Problems at school, learning difficulties
• Grief and loss
• Family changes, such as divorce, adoption, remarriage
• Bullying
• Behavioral diagnoses like ADD, ADHD, ASD
• Medical trauma
• Sexual abuse recovery

Depending on your child’s needs, different types of counseling or care might be required. For an older child dealing with anxiety and OCD, a counselor trained in CBT or DBT could be suitable. Looking for someone who’s trauma-informed if you know that your child has been abused, or has a history of abuse is particularly important, and there are also child advocacy centers available to provide resources for this type of need.

Behavioral therapy is a more specific form of therapy that can take on many different forms and if your child is struggling with a learning disability or other behavioral challenges, behavioral therapists are equipped to help with methods that are suited to your child’s challenges. The sooner that a child with behavioral issues has a cohesive plan in place to provide appropriate structure and help, the more easily they can adjust to other challenges in their life. Part of counseling for these children included educating parents about appropriate home support and creating plans for consequences, rewards, or behavior goals.

Because children often struggle to verbalize exactly what they’re feeling, it can be difficult to know what’s bothering a child. Rather than rely strictly on the verbal information a child, (especially a young child) is supplying, it’s important to watch for sudden changes in behavior. For example, if a child that has previously slept well at night suddenly starts to fear going to sleep, it might be wise to explore what’s going on. Loss of appetite, inability to sleep well, becoming sad, quiet, or withdrawn, significant weight loss or gain, any sort of self-harm behavior, any talk that references suicide or not wanting to live, becoming obsessive about certain routines, or constantly wanting to be alone are some of the signs that could warrant an evaluation by a trained counselor or therapist.

Other life situations might call for preventative counseling versus a crisis response. For example, if you’re considering adoption or beginning foster care, seeking counseling for your biological children could give them a safe place to process their feelings. For children who undergo extensive medical trauma, cancer treatment, major surgeries, or experience other life-threatening illness, counseling can be an important part of allowing them to express their feelings of loss, grief, sadness, and fear in a safe and supportive environment.

Next steps

More than anything, we want you to know that if your child is displaying concerning symptoms, you are not a failure, but you should ask for help! While this is not something that any parent wants to go through, seeking wise counsel and care for your child is stewarding your God-given responsibility to care for your child.

In God, we have the model of compassionate care and attention, which sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15) and leads us to repentance with kindness (Romans 2:4). As parents, we hope to mirror the way that God parents us as we parent our children. We are called to disciple them with both truth and love, but sometimes parents need resources and support to do this, and when that is the case, we are here to help.

The path toward healing and wholeness might not be easy, and it might require you and your child to commit to working on new patterns, behaviors, and ways of thinking, but be assured that we want to see both you and your child walking in truth and becoming more wholly who God has made you both to be.