What Does a Child Therapist in St. Louis Do?
When your child experiences anxiety, anger, or overwhelming behaviors, you as a parent can feel like you’re at a loss. Are you doing something wrong? Is this problem solvable and you’re just missing the mark?
You want to help your child feel better.
Anxious, angry, and easily overwhelmed children don’t enjoy feeling this way - and you don’t enjoy seeing them struggle. You may be at the point where you’re considering all of your options. If you can’t solve the problem at home, even after trying out all the tools you can find online, and you’ve read the parenting books, and you’ve talked to the school - you may be wondering if it’s time to look at child therapy.
Image credit: Unsplash, Jon Chambers @jttchambers
Why would my child need to see a child therapist in St. Louis?
You may already be considering looking for a therapist for your child or wondering if therapy would be helpful for your child.
There are many reasons to work with a child therapist.
Anxiety and anxiety-related concerns are common reasons. Other common reasons include increasing emotional regulation skills, processing grief, building social skills, divorce, trauma experiences and more.
As a parent, you want to help your child as best you can, and there comes a point where therapy services are key. The good news is that child therapy has been shown to have a positive impact on children and their development.
What does a child therapist in St. Louis do?
Child therapists have many different approaches when working with kids and it’s OK to ask your child's therapist what their approach is.
At Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, our therapists use evidence-based therapy practices, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), art therapy, play therapy and more. We use feedback-informed treatment, which means that we are tracking outcomes each and every week that you come in for therapy.
Is it just your child who needs help, or is it you, too?
When you have a child who is struggling with big emotions, you can often feel at a loss. Child therapy makes a big impact on kids - and parents need support, too, which is why we offer Therapeutic Parent Coaching at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis
What does a child therapy session look like at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis?
The research shows that the relationship between you and your therapist is the best predictor of a good outcome in therapy. Child therapy is no different.
Your child therapist should work to create a therapeutic relationship with your child to make sure they are feeling understood and safe in the therapy sessions. While the therapist is building this relationship with your child, they are also working towards the goals that you have brought your child to therapy to reach.
Child therapy sessions at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis:
A typical session with our child anxiety therapists at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis always starts with a parent check in. We then meet individually with your child to get their outcomes scores for the week, and we tailor every session to each client.
We might include some play therapy interventions, games or art, along with building anxiety and anger management skills through CBT.
What skills can a child therapist in St. Louis help you and your child to build?
Child therapists are trained to help children understand their feelings, regulate their emotions and build social skills as well as meet other needs. A child therapist can help children develop the skills to understand their big emotions and express them, as well as learn to identify more helpful thoughts and behaviors.
Connecting with a child therapist in St. Louis
We know that early intervention can have a positive impact on children and benefit their mental and emotional health. If you’re wondering if child therapy is the best next step for you and your family, we’d love to chat. We’ll discuss what’s going on, what we’d recommend, and figure out if Compassionate Counseling St. Louis is the best fit. And if not, we can connect you with our robust referral network.
Curious to hear more, or are you a little reluctant about counseling? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website
