Child Therapy in
New York City
Overview
Your family and children mean everything to you and we understand the importance of maintaining its health and happiness. As a parent, you may be struggling with concerns and find it difficult to accept that your child could benefit from therapy.
Often times parents are concerned about their child's behaviors at home or in school as well as social, emotional, and/or intellectual development. Due to old stigmas about therapy, parents often wait too long to get their children the help and support they need to reach their fullest potential.
Our goal for child therapy is to provide an opportunity for positive development while addressing behaviors and symptoms that may be impacting relationships and quality of life.
There are many challenging and even traumatic issues children encounter during their development in which a qualified and trained professional can help. Although issues like abuse, neglect and loss can be addressed in therapy, therapy is also extremely beneficial with high functioning children to help them develop even better coping methods, organizational skills, grit, social and emotional intelligence to increase self-esteem and confidence as well as other positive traits that will help in development towards a successful and satisfying future.
Why consider child therapy?
You may feel that you have tried everything to help or connect with your child but continue to fall short. Therapy can work to give your family and child/children the support and skills it needs to function at the optimum level.
Many children and adolescents experience problems that impact the way they feel, behave and even perform in school and at home. Many times children and teenagers do not tell their parents difficulties they may be experiencing at school, with friends, or even with managing their own thoughts and feelings.
Psychotherapy helps children and adolescents in a variety of ways. They receive emotional support, resolve conflicts with people, understand feelings and problems, and try out new solutions to old problems. Goals for therapy may be specific (change in behavior, improved relations with friends or family), or more general (less anxiety, better self-esteem). The length of psychotherapy depends on the complexity and severity of problems.
Therapy offers an opportunity for children to explore, discuss, and learn how to resolve issues they may be facing in a safe and supportive space. As a parent, you will feel comforted to know that your therapist’s main goal is to help your child and family reach goals and improve quality of life.
Dr. Hersha offers a personalized and tailored approach to her clients and families in order to best meet their specific family structure, needs, and goals. She helps children and families develop strong problem-solving techniques and healthy coping skills for a variety of emotional and behavioral issues.
What is child therapy/child counseling?
Child therapy offers a supportive and safe space where children can feel heard and understood while learning tools and coping skills to help them bring change and growth in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Children receive emotional, empathic and non-judgmental support in their sessions. They may focus on the number of issues including understanding and learning ways to manage automatic negative thoughts and feelings as well as developing new solutions for reoccurring problems.
What are some goals of
child therapy?
Building the child’s confidence and self-esteem
Helping to improve the child’s social, emotional and communication skills
Stimulating healthy, normal development
Develop healthy coping skills
Improve insight and self-awareness
How can child therapy help?
+ Divorce/Separation:
The unfortunate reality is that in today’s society, close to half of all marriages are likely to end in divorce by the time once child reaches 18 years of age. Divorce can have many devastating effects on children if not managed in an emotionally healthy manner. Study show that adult children of divorce tend to have; a history of vulnerability to drugs and alcohol and adolescence; lower paying jobs, less college education than their parents; unstable father child relationships; fears about commitment and divorce. (Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study, New York, Hyperion, 2000) While divorce or separation is daunting and overwhelming for the parents, it is often a process for children that can shape the rest of their emotional lives and relationship patterns. Children often need help to express and process thoughts, emotions and behaviors in a therapeutic space while parents can benefit from having a safe, neutral, non-judgmental space to receive insight and support for their child.
+ Social isolation/withdrawal:
Some children feel anxious, unsure or insecure when it comes to interacting with others. He or she may not have the social skills necessary to connect with other children and foster interactions that help nurture relationships. As this generation of children get older, they tend to rely heavily on technology, video games, or social media such as Instagram, Snapchat for interactions and socializing. It is important to make sure that your child is developing appropriate interpersonal skills through human interaction that are necessary to create healthy and long term relationships.
+ Anxiety:
Children will experience anxiety throughout different phases of their life, however children with an anxiety disorder may show signs of avoidance, shyness, withdrawal, bed wetting, eating issues, behavioral regression etc.
Dealing with stress and anxiety caused by homework/tests
Sometimes there may be underlying causes that are impacting your child’s school performance. A child may be struggling with an undiagnosed learning disability and this can impact mood and behavior. You may be wondering why your child is irritable, easily frustrated or seems to lack effort. It is critical to rule out whether there is a particular challenge when it comes to learning or if there are other external variables that may be impacting a child’s mood and performance in school such as conflict, low confidence or a change in home/school environment.
Therapy can be helpful in that children are able to develop positive coping skills, increase confidence and improve performance anxiety.
+ Bullying:
Most parents struggle with either their child being bullied or their child being accused of being a bully. It is estimated that over % of children will experience bullying via internet and social media. Bullying can be a serious problem that children may not share with an adult or parent out of concern that the adults intervention will be embarrassing or create more conflict.
+ Child therapy can be an effective treatment for a wide range of issues including:
Low self-esteem
Confidence
Autism spectrum disorders
Selective mutism
Bed wetting
Shyness
Tantrums
Anger
Lying
Problems at school
Sibling rivalry
The details
+ How can I help my child make progress in therapy?
You should bring in your child’s report cards, progress reports, medical records etc if it is related to your concerns. Support your child in developing a relationship with the therapist. Remember the therapist is their to help your child improve the quality of his or her life. If your child does not want to attend, encourage an honest and respectful conversation with the therapist. Check in with your child’s therapist and inquire about ways to support your child’s progress at home.
+ What type of therapy is best for my child?
The decision will be based on such things as the child's current problems, history, level of development, and ability to cooperate with the treatment plan. Psychotherapy can be used in combination with other treatments (medication, behavior management, or work with the school) when warranted in order to bring about greater and lasting change.
The relationship that develops between the therapist and child is very important. The child or adolescent must feel comfortable, safe, and understood. In addition the parent plays a key role in fostering that trust and developing This type of trusting environment makes it much easier for the child to express his/her thoughts and feelings and to use the therapy in a helpful way. How long will my child need therapy? Length of time will depend on the goals for treatment, motivation for therapy, as well as the child’s developmental and emotional abilities. Most parents see significant results by 12-18 sessions.
+ Will you meet with my child or both of us?
The structure of the meetings will vary depending on the child’s age, level of comfort, progress, and presenting problems. Your therapist will tailor a plan to specifically meet your child’s needs.
"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."
- C.G. Jung
Get started
Don’t wait any longer, get started with Dr. Hersha today.