Teen and Child Counseling
Is your child experiencing a significant life change?
Does your child struggle to express their thoughts and feelings openly?
Has your child been struggling in school, at home, or in their relationships?
These are all signs that your child would benefit from the support of a therapist.
Insight Northwest Counseling provides child and teen therapy for children in the state of Oregon.
It can be difficult to know when your child needs the help of a counselor. As a parent, you can feel confused as to what falls within the “normal” range of behavior. You want to do the right thing by your child and be as intuitive and proactive as possible, but there is no playbook to parenting and that certainly applies when your child is struggling in life. If you are noticing changes in your child’s behaviors, the first step is noticing that shift. Beyond that step, it is understanding as a parent what you can do for your child and what goes beyond your scope of capabilities.
When you come to the conclusion that your child needs the help of a child therapist, Insight Northwest Counseling is here for you. We offer child and adolescent counseling with mental health professionals who are highly experienced and qualified. Our child counselors specialize in the therapy treatment of children and teens and have specific tools and methods that are key in supporting children and teens through the hardships they are experiencing.
As a parent, you may have an intuition that triggers you to seek therapy for your child. But that’s not always the case, and you are not an inadequate parent if you are having a hard time knowing when to seek help.
Some behaviors to look for in your child to indicate the need for counseling:
Heightened attachment to parent
Separation anxiety
Sleep changes (trouble falling asleep & bad dreams/night terrors)
No longer will communicate thoughts or feelings
Symptoms of anxiety or depression
Acting out or misbehaving more than usual
Suddenly struggling in school/relationships
Big emotions and outbursts
If you are noticing any of these changes in your child and there have been no stress-inducing changes in their life, they could potentially be struggling with a mental health issue or mental health disorder. It is crucial to seek help for your child before their symptoms and behaviors worsen. As a parent or adult in their life, it is your responsibility to advocate for your child – part of that responsibility is offering them the resources accessible to get them the help and support they need.
Of course, in the life of children and adolescents, there are some very significant experiences that can be cause for the treatment and help of a trained child therapist.
Some of the experiences in a child’s life that would be cause for seeking the help of a professional are:
Parent/guardian divorce
Moving/uprooting of the current living situation
Any abrupt change or significant adjustment
Traumatic loss
Grief
Abuse
Sexual trauma
Experience with adoption or foster care
If your child is in the midst of any of those experiences, it is best to seek the help of a professional right away – even without the classic indications of mental health issues. Oftentimes, in extremely difficult situations, parents are limited in their ability or knowledge in handling their child’s emotions and behavior. Getting your child into counseling proactively in these circumstances is the most useful and healthy thing you can do for them. If they have experienced trauma or are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, child counseling is absolutely necessary and will benefit your child in their healing.
Teen Counseling
If you have a teenage child who is facing adolescent issues, you may be observing different challenges than that of a younger child. As teens are in a different season of life, with a completely different scheme of challenges, it is only normal that their issues and troubles will be different. Some challenges you might be facing with your teen are:
Depression
Anxiety
Irrational Fears
Eating disorders
Low self-esteem
Emotional disorders
Our approach to teen counseling is much like that of child counseling. We want your teen to feel safe, supported, and comfortable in sharing their feelings and struggles. It can be particularly difficult for teens in such a vulnerable age to speak about their struggles, so our role as their therapist will be to dig deeper to find where their struggles are stemming from and how we can best resolve and heal from them. We want to build your child up, collaborate with them to work toward positive self-talk, positive communication, and healthy coping habits that will carry them through to adulthood.
Therapy Techniques
When you’re embarking on the journey of mental health counseling for your child or teen, it can be intimidating and overwhelming. Often it is uncharted territory and you don’t know how to seek the help you need and where to begin. At Insight Northwest Counseling, we have the resources and specialists to make the process as easy and comfortable as possible. We have pre licensed and licensed child and teen therapists on staff who each bring their own methods and therapy styles to the table.
There are several different methods that child and family therapists use to work with children and teens.
Some of therapy techniques our team uses at Insight Northwest are:
Behavioral therapy
Child-centered play therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Narrative therapy
Solution focused therapy
Family Systems Theory
Internal Family Systems
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Art therapy
Family therapy
Just as we treat adult individual therapy, we understand that each child we are working with has their own individual set of needs and issues. We approach our therapy sessions with an understanding that it is not a one-size-fits-all process, and we will work with the child to collaborate and find the most effective form of therapy for their emotional and mental health and well-being.
Our goal is to offer your child or teen a safe space to share, open up, heal, and grow.
We aim to walk by their side through the process of that growth and healing, offering them tools and support in ways they need it. Teaching children communication skills, how to process and cope with their emotions and giving them the tools to process their life’s challenges with greater ease is something we strive for in our practice. We care about your child or teen and want them to thrive mentally and emotionally and are here to do everything we can to achieve that.
If you are interested in seeking counseling for your child please click the button below to request an appointment, schedule a free 15 minute consultation call, or give us a call at 541-357-9433.