Are you worried about your child’s emotional or psychological wellbeing?
We are ready to give your little ones the best care.
Have you been noticing out of the ordinary behaviour? Maybe academic performance has changed, maybe your child seems more quiet and isolated than normal? Maybe they seem to be having a harder time than usual getting along with others in the family, in their community? Maybe you’ve found out that they’ve been getting bullied or mistreated in some way, and it hurts the heart.
Could child therapy help?
If you’re a parent wondering how you can help your child, you’re not alone. We know how difficult and painful it can be to watch your child struggle and go through life with additional challenges that a child should not have to face. It can also be very challenging as a parent to find the right support for you and your child to make sure you are getting the help that you need.
Child Counselling Helps Expression
Sadly, when a child is going through stress, they don’t have the vocabulary to communicate to teachers and parents what they are going through and how to best help them. Instead, they communicate their distress by their behaviors, such as not having much of an appetite, not wanting to have those playdates they used to love, or having a hard time following directions.
Here at Designed Counselling, we specialize in child therapy & counselling that will help you and your child find the expressions beneficial to communicate and navigate life better.
Parents are Forever
Our child therapists not only aim to connect with your child and make them feel as comfortable as possible during treatment, but they also work to connect with the parents to ensure parents feel supported and heard during their time of need.
We are with your child for a season of their life, we work ourselves out of a job by working towards connecting them with you for the rest of their lives! You are their best resource, best cheerleader, best life-long supporter.
Parenting has also become harder. Many of the families we work with have multiple children with both parents working full time. It can feel impossible as a parent to stay on top of your work demands, your own personal self care, and parenting your child who may be going through a tough time.
That’s where our therapists at Designed Counselling come in. We know how hard it can be navigating the school system when you need to address school issues, how it can feel like you’re drowning when you’re juggling work, parenting, and everything else in your life.
We want you to know, we can help!
Child Therapy Approach
Our approach in child therapy focuses on your child, but also how you can best be supported. If you decide to take the next step, you can expect your child therapist to focus on the following:
Gathering
gathering information from you as the parent because you know your child best,
Understanding
getting to know your child and building rapport with them because every child is unique and special in their own way,
Sharing
sharing our clinical and professional impressions on what factors may be contributing to the struggles impacting your child
Learning
introducing potential new ways to connect with your child and help them in the ways that your child needs most outside of therapy sessions
Providing a safe and therapeutic environment for your child to express their inner world where they can express painful feelings they may not know how to verbalize,
Encouraging the use of healthy coping skills and promoting a better understanding of themselves,
Integrating the growth that has taken place in therapy and their day to day lives, so you as the parent can see first hand the remarkable change and benefit your child experienced from therapy.
But how do we do that at Designed Counselling?
We provide our therapy services using a child centered approach, implementing techniques from play and art therapy. Our therapists use various games, toys, art supplies, puppets, and a number of activities that naturally engage and encourage children to participate.
By using these tools in therapy, we’re able to bridge the communication gap and connect with each unique child in a non-threatening and natural way.
Using play and art in your child’s therapy sessions can also give them free expression to act out their fears, anxieties and experiences in a safe environment.
Through play, we’re also able to model and teach coping skills and ways to navigate a variety situations in a manner that the child can readily understand and apply in their day to day life.
With our approach, your child will also develop a unique bond with their therapist that will demonstrate to them how to build the trust necessary to make psychological and emotional breakthroughs.
Child Therapy Prince George
The Art of Child Therapy
Child Therapy can be fun, engaging and life-changing! There are typically three stages:
Play
Your child plays in a safe environment and builds a relationship of trust with the counselor.
Communicate
Your child begins to communicate through struggles, building on the exploratory experiences we had in the first stage. It is here where the counselor begins to fully understand and examine the issues the child is facing through how the child is playing during the therapy session.
Care
We lay out a continued self-care (and parent-guided care) plan in which we empower the child to engage in their world with confidence, and a much deeper understanding of themselves and how they can manage stressors when they come their way. This can take a few sessions or a longer course of care may be recommended depending on the diagnosis of the child and their response to therapy.