Is your child struggling with behavioral problems or emotional difficulties?

Is your child:

• Feeling overly worried or anxious?
• Hitting, fighting or having problems making friends?
• Complaining that no one likes him or her and may cry or become upset easily?
• Showing poor results at school, below his/her capacities?

 

As a parent, are you worried or at your wits end?

As a parent, are you:

• Upset with your child’s behaviors or mood?
• At a loss and frustrated with your child academic performance?
• Doubting your skills as a parent?
• Worried about your child social skills and behaviors at school?

 

We all know that parenting is challenging. At times it can be overwhelming and many things can destabilize a child. Some people say that it takes a village to raise a child! Each child is unique and there are numerous reasons why a child may function below his/her capacities and may feel overwhelmed by life.

Significant stressful life events such as divorce, illness and trauma can lead to behavior problems, anxiety, tantrums or depression in your child. However, less stressful events such as; the birth of a siblings, moving to a new school or tension between parents can also have a negative impact. Please remember that each child is unique and that he/she will respond to life events in his/her own unique ways.

 

Family Counselling, Art and Play therapy can help you and your child!

Through Art and Play therapy your child can experience:

• A raise in self-esteem
• An improvement in social skills and  relationships with peers
• An increase in academic performance
• A reduction or elimination of the unwanted behaviors

Through family counselling and/or parent coaching, you can experience:

• An increase in your and your child’s ability to communicate
• Being better equipped in dealing with your child’s behaviors or moods
• Feeling more in control of yourself and less triggered by your child’s behavior
• Becoming a more effective parent

 

My approach

I believe that working effectively with children requires meeting them exactly where they are. Expecting that children will talk about their issues, the way adults do, often lead to unproductive counselling.

I make an effort to meet and engage the child in his or her play, to tap into my own playfulness and to foster the use of art as a form of expression and communication. Children will naturally use play to communicate what is troubling them and they will do so at their own pace.

Sometimes a child may re-enact or play out traumatic or difficult life experiences over and over in order to make sense of his or her past. Children will also re-access their resources and strengths and cope better with their present and future.

Art Therapy, like Play Therapy, is a creative and child centered approach. Most children and adolescents will engage spontaneously in art making. Through art making a child/adolescent can express, communicate and work through his/her feelings. Art Therapy can include verbal processing or not, depending on the child or adolescent needs. To build trust with adolescents isn’t always a verbal process.