Children have unique needs when it comes to therapy and counseling.
At different ages, we pass through distinct developmental phases with specific tasks, capabilities, and limitations.
It’s vital for therapists to understand these developmental phases in order to create effective treatment for children and to meet them at the level they’re at.
At My LA Therapy, we have special training in developmental psychology and we always use therapeutic interventions that take a child’s unique developmental phase into account.
In other words, we’re trained to speak in a language that children understand.
Often, kids don’t express their feelings in words.
Young children especially tend to demonstrate their feelings and conflicts through art, play, or acting out.
That means counseling looks quite different when children are involved since they have such varying abilities and needs based on their age and cognitive ability.
We utilize Dr. Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development in order to assess which stage a child is in.
For children ages 0 to 12, this can be divided into four different stages of development:
Infancy, which is from birth up to 18 months;
Early childhood, which represents 18 months up to 3 years;
Play age, which is when your child is between 3 to 5 years old;
And finally, school age, which spans from 6 to 12 years old.
During the infancy phase, it is extremely important to place a “big emphasis on visual content and touch.”
Throughout this stage, your infant learns to place their trust in the world.
That means if their needs go unmet, they might develop a sense of mistrust towards the world.
We’re so confident in our extraordinary therapists that we guarantee you’ll love your match – or your money back.
At My LA Therapy, our highly-vetted Anxiety experts are selected not only for their clinical acumen but for who they are.
This is why Child Parent Psychotherapy can be a vital and important way to approach your child’s mental health needs.
Throughout the early childhood phase, your child masters some of the basic actions of life, including talking, walking, eating, and learning how to use the toilet.
Your child gains autonomy in this stage as they learn how to complete tasks themselves.
However, if your child does not receive the proper support during this time, they can end up developing some negative traits, like self-doubt, and low self-esteem.
During the play phase of life, your child mainly experiments by playing and tries to understand the role that adults hold in the world.
They will also begin to question almost everything they see and hear.
So parents, stay on your toes!
It’s also important to recognize that children generally create their own situations when playing.
However, during this stage, there can be a point where children are confused or do not understand their “natural desires and goals,” which can lead to feelings of guilt.
Finally, throughout the school age, your child will “[develop] a sense of industry” by acquiring novel skills and gaining new knowledge that they will use throughout their lives.
Most of their interactions and time will be spent with their peers at school.
Due to these outside interactions, they could potentially develop feelings of inferiority compared to their fellow classmates, which can give rise to issues surrounding self-esteem.
In addition to these developmental theories, we must think about the impact of external factors such as a child’s home environment, community, and school setting.
These outside factors impact the framework of a child’s personality, symptoms, and behaviors.
At My LA Therapy, our therapists have extensive training in child and adolescent development and we customize our approach to your child’s specific needs and gifts.
When working with youth, we implement a range of research-based, empirically proven techniques, specific to your child’s developmental phase, in order to ensure that their therapy will be the most effective for them.
Let’s take a further deep dive into our therapeutic techniques.
Two of the most common questions we get from parents are “Is my child normal?” and “Should I worry?”
In order to help ease anxiety and provide insight into these questions, we use an important tool called the Ages and Stages Developmental Assessment.
This assessment can be performed in 1-2 sessions and will give parents a detailed analysis of their child’s level of functioning across five domains: Communication, Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Problem-Solving, and Personal-Social.
The communication domain evaluates the child’s ability to express how they feel, what they are thinking, and how they talk with others.
The gross motor domain includes physical skills such as walking, jumping, and running, hand-eye coordination, riding a bike, or swimming.
The fine motor domain involves reaching for and grasping objects, using pencils, and any other skills that use the fingers and hands.
The problem-solving domain encompasses ways that children think about and understand the world around them, and how they solve problems and make important decisions.
Finally, the personal-social domain includes any skills that children use to take care of themselves, including washing their hands, and skills they use to interact with people around them.
This is a fun and interactive assessment that will examine how your child is functioning and additionally identify any areas of concern.
If we see any areas of concern pop up on the assessment, we will formulate a detailed treatment plan for you.
This plan will give you tools and at-home play assignments to help strengthen your child’s functioning in that particular area.
You’ve probably noticed we mention the word “play” a lot in this section.
But it’s important for you to know that this play has a purpose.
We incorporate lots of art and play into children’s therapy because young kids communicate better this way.
Quite often, young children don’t yet have the ability to verbalize abstract emotions through standard talk therapy.
Integrating art, play, behavior, verbal, and non-verbal body language also allows us to take a multi-faceted and comprehensive view of the child’s psychology in order to provide the most effective treatment.
Learn more about our empirically based therapy modalities by visiting our Methods page.
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
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