Child Therapy

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Are You Looking To Ensure Your Child’s Healthy Development?

Is your child struggling with emotional, cognitive, behavioural, or educational challenges? Are they:

  • shutting down, having tantrums, or acting out in school or at home?

  • having trouble focusing, completing tasks, or following directions?

  • having difficulty making friends, adapting to new situations, or managing emotions?

  • coping with anxiety, depression, ADHD, OCD, or issues related to being neurodivergent?

Perhaps you have to fight to get them out of the house, to go to school, or even leave your side. Or maybe you’re at your wit’s end trying to support them on your own, and you’re hoping that child therapy can help you both find some relief.

Children Show Signs Of Distress In A Number Of Ways

Emotionally, they may be irritable, defiant, hyperactive, or just seemingly unruly. They may show somatic signs of stress or anxiety, such as headaches, stomach aches, chest pains, or brain fog, that affect them behaviourally or emotionally.

Maybe your child is having trouble adjusting to a significant change, such as divorce, moving to a new home, or losing a loved one—even a pet. On the other hand, it could be they lack self-awareness, self-esteem, or communication and interpersonal skills.

The fact is kids face a lot of challenges that the majority of parents are not naturally equipped to address, so you are not to blame. Our child counsellors at Healing Voices Psychotherapy want to offer you clarity about what’s going on while helping your young one become more confident, do better in school, and feel more balanced.

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Being A Kid Isn’t As Easy As It Used To Be

Researchers estimate that as many as one in five children and youth in Ontario will experience some form of mental health problem.(1) That statistic is even more profound when you consider that 70 percent of all mental health issues in adults manifest symptoms before the age of 18.(2) Plus, tens of thousands of children struggle with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, and other challenges.(3)

Many kids also have to navigate unseen stressors:

  • trauma, abuse, exposure to domestic violence

  • loss of a loved one, separation and divorce

  • social isolation, lack of friends, bullying/cyber-bullying

  • academic stress, moving, changing schools

  • undiagnosed mental health or developmental issues

All of these factors can affect a child’s development. Unfortunately, a lot of kids with these issues are misunderstood—their behaviours looked at as defiance, laziness, or incompetence. As a result, teachers, school counsellors, and parents are relegated to merely treating surface symptoms.

However, our caring and objective therapists can help your child share their story, explore their challenges, and get to the core of what is going on so we can treat the real issue at its source.

Therapy Gives Your Child A Safe Space To Be Honest And Open

Many children worry that being honest about what they’re truly experiencing will get them into trouble or hurt a parent’s feelings. So therapy focuses on giving your child a safe space where they can really open up without that fear holding them back. At the same time, it gives them a chance to shape new perspectives and gain effective strategies for regulating emotions and behaviours.

We can even practice those skills in counselling sessions to help your child build resilience and discover better ways of coping with stressors. Using the insight, strategies, and support your child receives, they can create a mental health toolkit to use and carry with them throughout their life.

How Do Our Child Counselling Sessions Work?

We’ll start with a virtual consultation, meeting with you for 15 minutes to explore your concerns and goals for therapy. Then, your therapist will begin meeting individually with your child in weekly, 50-minute sessions. In some cases, kids are anxious in the beginning, so we occasionally invite the parent to attend therapy for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the session.

However, it’s important that your therapist uses the remaining time to meet with your child alone so that they can begin to establish a therapeutic alliance—an important independent factor in the change process. That said, we may call you into sessions for updates when needed and at your child’s request.

Alternatively, if you are working through a recent issue with your child that came up in session, you can send occasional emails to your counsellor for guidance. As a separate service, we also work with parents who are seeking support for a variety of parenting needs and difficulties.

How Do We Approach Therapy For Children?

Our online child therapy services use a systematic approach for identifying, processing, and managing big emotions. That could translate into treatment that focuses on helping your child manage anger, stress, fear, sadness, anxiety, OCD, or depression. Some of the tools we use include:

  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT for Children, teaches tangible skills to help kids modify their thinking in order to change their moods and behaviours.

  • Virtual Play Therapy for children and expressive therapeutic art techniques offer kids non-verbal means of communicating, building trust, and sharing emotions.

  • Mindfulness-Based Therapy involves learning specific strategies for regulating emotions, behaviours, and responses to stressors.

  • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a powerful treatment option for addressing anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in children.

Combined, these tools offer children different ways to increase effective communication, set boundaries, build resilience, and improve distress tolerance. Kids can practice social skills and learn how to make and keep friends and manage school work. They can also gain a deep understanding and appreciation of themselves that improves how they move through this world as an individual.

Many children experience challenges that affect how they act, feel, and learn. So whatever you are going through, our caring therapists at Healing Voices Psychotherapy want to help your child navigate this world with resilience, grace, and confidence.

Perhaps You’re Considering Therapy For Children, But You Have A Few Concerns…

  • We typically recommend weekly sessions for the first four weeks so the counsellor and your child can get to know each other, establish rapport, and learn and practice skills to offer some immediate relief.

    If that is not a feasible approach for your family, you can discuss this with your therapist who will make recommendations based on your goals. We offer a flexible approach to counselling that includes single sessions that can get your child started—as well as full treatment plans.

  • Often parents help their child get online and stay with the child for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the first session. We then request that the parent leave the child in a private room in their home with a door that closes for the session. This assists the therapist in developing rapport that will allow your child to open up in the privacy and confidentiality of the session.

  • The free, 15-minute consultation gives you an opportunity to discuss your concerns about your child's needs and circumstances. We ask that you attend the consultation without your child so that you can go over developmental, family, and medical details as well as other topics that you wouldn’t typically discuss with children. This also gives you a chance to set goals with your therapist and talk about some of the administrative details of counselling for children.

 
mother and daughter embracing
 

Let Us Help You Ensure The Healthy Development Of Your Child

If your child is struggling and you’re at a loss for what to do, our compassionate therapists at Healing Voices Psychotherapy want to help. Please call our virtual clinic at 705-715-9107 for your free, 15-minute consultation—or click Book Now to schedule your child’s first online therapy session.

Our Child Therapist:

I'm Dana D'Arville, Registered Psychotherapist, specializing in child and adolescent therapy. In today's world, it's not uncommon for parents to worry about their child's well-being. If your child or teen is showing signs of anxiety, depression, OCD, or coping with learning disabilities like ADHD, please know that I'm here to offer guidance and support.

With over a decade of experience, I understand the importance of learning effective coping strategies and lifelong behavioural tools. I'm also available to assist you, the parent, in reinforcing the progress your child is making through counselling. I draw from various therapeutic approaches, including mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), all delivered with a collaborative, person-centered approach.

I understand that taking the first step into therapy can be a challenging one for children and teens. My role is to create a safe, empathetic counseling space where clients learn to trust, develop essential skills, and ultimately thrive. Whatever your child's challenges may be, my aim is to help them gain independence and control over their mental and emotional well-being.