Children are miraculously well-programmed to grow up. Their innate brilliance never fails to amaze us all. Where kids tend to have problems is when something keeps them from growing up as they should.
You may have heard of the developmental stages that doctors like Erik Erickson or Jean Piaget found. If a child comes into my office who is stuck at an earlier stage than he should be (or perhaps is at too advanced a stage for his age), my job is to help him work through whatever he needs to, so that he can develop at his innate rate.
For example, we all know about the “Terrible Twos.” If a parent called me up and said that their two-year old was being a brat and saying “no” to everything, I’d explain why this is totally normal, and help them find ways to cope with this Tasmanian Devil, who two weeks ago was a giggling gurgling sweetheart. But if that same behavior was coming out of a six-year-old, I’d see something being off, and encourage those parents to bring their kid in to therapy, to help her move past that two-year-old stage.
Child Therapy is different from the therapy we usually see pictured – adults sitting on couches, talking about their past. After all, kids don’t have much of a past to talk about yet!
But more importantly, children don’t work through things verbally, the way we can as adults. Kids work best through directed play, in which they can express themselves genuinely, while being guided and encouraged through their development by a warm, friendly, creative, and fun adult, trained in speaking the Language of Childhood.
This is where the right Psychotherapist can be enormously useful.
Please contact me to schedule a free telephone consultation.