Child Psychotherapy and Behavioral Management

Children younger than 12 or 13 years of age have their own specific development issues. Most require the assistance and encouragement of parents to solve them. In the vast majority of cases, childhood issues are environmentally based. This means that occurrences at home or at school are responsible for their discomfort. A prerequisite of successful therapy is active parental participation during therapy sessions. Parents serve to affect changes in the home environment encouraging positive behavior and giving consequences to negative ones. Since it is impossible to affect meaningful change for a child in the therapist’s office in a single session, lasting behavioral change requires the consistent application of positive and negative consequences which can only be employed by those adults present in the troublesome environment.

Some of the more common difficulties in childhood are attention deficit, hyper active disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, disruptive behavior disorder, and the more serious diagnostic disorders such as Asperger’s and Autistic disorders. Children may also have a number of disturbing symptoms for this age range that are not attached to a particular diagnosis such as phobias (fear of the dark, fear of loud music), frequent nightmares, moodiness, or ritualistic behavior such as avoiding cracks on sidewalks.