CHILDREN

It is common for children to experience occasional difficulties such as conflicts over toilet training, bedtime and homework. They sometimes encounter problems with parents, siblings and peers as they attempt to establish a personal identity and practice relating to others. They experience conflict with teachers as academic and behavioral demands increase. As a child is faced with new situations, demands and expectations, it’s common for the child to experience occasional feelings of sadness, fear and anger. These reactions tend to be short-lived, however, and usually do not greatly interfere with the their life. However, at times, a child’s response to life’s pressures may become severe, and the parents’ attempts to help their child may be unsuccessful. At times such as these, an experienced psychologist may be able to help.

WHEN IS THE TIME? How does a parent know when to seek professional assistance for their child? Some considerations might be:

• Their emotional distress is disrupting daily functioning at home, school or socially, threatens to overwhelm the child or interferes with the achievement of age-appropriate developmental milestones. Behaviors can include refusing to follow rules, yelling, talking back, demanding, or seeming to not care about punishment or consequences for their behavior.
   
• Children may also benefit from psychological treatment when the problems they face are complicated and beyond the range of normal daily experience. For example, children who suffer from serious or life-threatening medical problems often derive benefit from the assistance provided by a knowledgeable psychologist. The psychologist focuses on helping these children develop coping skills to deal with their unique situation and advises parents regarding how best to support their child.
   
• The least common but most serious indication that psychological treatment is needed is when a child’s symptoms are severe or the behavior is extreme and potentially life threatening. This would include situations in which a child is experiencing false auditory or visual sensations, setting fires, assaulting others/themselves, destroy property or is severely depressed and making remarks about committing suicide.

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Parents react in a variety ways when faced with the idea that their child needs psychological treatment. Some parents tend to feel guilty and blame themselves for their child’s problem. Other concerned parents may experience confusion or uncertainty regarding their child’s need for treatment. A teacher, for instance, may describe the child as evidencing emotional or behavior problems in the classroom, while the child appears to behave normally at home. Parents who receive this type of feedback often have difficulty reconciling their own perception of their child with those of the teacher.

Most parents are not reluctant to consult a physician for their child’s medical needs. I believe the informed parent also recognizes when their child may need or benefit from psychological treatment and understands that such intervention is not in any way a sign of parental failure.

I consider parental involvement to be a foundation of every child’s treatment. From the first session, parents are relied upon for information concerning their child’s development, behavior, relationships, and habits and they are closely consulted regarding the goals of treatment. Parents are partners in the treatment process and I rely upon them to provide critical feedback regarding the effectiveness of our interventions as they are developed and implemented. In some cases, as with treatment for developmental or disruptive behavior disorders, parents are the most involved in the therapy both in and outside the office.

I have specialized training in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, an approximately 18-session series of treatments in which I coach parents in interventions to use when their children experience:

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Conduct Disorder
• Aspergerís Disorder
• Intermittent Explosive Disorder

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