Is your child flunking out at school? Struggling to make friends? Isolating themselves and staying in their rooms? Refusing to do new things?
Are you struggling to cope with your child’s behaviour? Experiencing anxiety about their choices and wellbeing? Or just feeling unconfident in your parenting decisions?
Therapy with children
From clinic rooms in Double Bay, Sydney, our team works directly with children and adolescents to help them build the skills and strategies they need to improve their wellbeing.
Our clinical psychologists also work directly with you as a parent, to help you build skills to effectively support your child and feel confident that you’re doing the best to set them up for a healthy and productive life.
When working with children and adolescents, our clinical psychologists consider the child’s presenting issues in the context of your family system as a whole. Things your psychologist will consider include whether your child has a secure attachment to others, is able to freely express themselves in their environment, can independently explore their environment, and is accepting of themselves.
We adopt a range of therapeutic approaches to help children and young people. This includes a family-focussed cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) approach and other empirically proven approaches such as Schema Therapy for Children and Adolescents and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.
Our clinicians make every effort to develop a strong connection to your child. We believe the key is to add an element of fun to sessions, so we often incorporate games and novelty.
When issues are affecting school, we can (where appropriate) liaise with the school to promote healthy functioning in this environment.
The extent to which you as a parent will be involved will depend on the child’s presentation, age, and their preferences.
Working towards change
To give you an idea of the skills we might teach a child, let’s consider an example of an eight-year-old child who is suffering from separation anxiety and not wanting to go to school.
Every child is different, and there is no one-size fits all approach in therapy, however these are techniques we may use:
Thought strategy
Emotion strategy
Behaviour strategy
Parent strategy
The Cool Kids Anxiety Treatment Program
The Cool Kids Program is a widely regarded CBT program that teaches children and teenagers and their parents how to improve the management of anxiety.
Some of our clinical psychologists are accredited to deliver the Cool Kids Anxiety Treatment Program from our Double Bay rooms.
The Circle of Security Parenting Program
The Circle of Security Program is a parenting intervention designed to promote a secure attachment between a child and caregiver.
Some of our clinical psychologists are also accredited to deliver this program.
