Parenting

It is absolutely not true that all children who start therapy need to continue seeing a therapist long term. Therapy can often provide individuals with the skills or perspective they need to branch out on their own and continue growing without additional assistance.

But there is also no reason to discourage them from continuing to see a therapist if it is proving helpful. Therapists can develop wonderful long-term relationships with their patients, both as children and through adulthood.

It is important that your child’s therapy sessions remain confidential unless the therapist feels the need to discuss certain issues with you, or if the therapist determines that joint sessions would be beneficial. This allows for the child to feel safe and comfortable discussing sensitive topics.

You should be supportive of this level of confidentiality, while also working to help your child feel like they can share what was discussed if they want to. By normalizing the situation and showing your support for their participation, they may come to want to discuss part of the process with you, which can be a wonderful experience.

When providing therapy for children, and particularly for younger children, it can often be helpful to incorporate familiar tactics of play through the use of toys, games or puzzles to help them feel relaxed and willing to share things that may otherwise be difficult.

Play therapy allows children to get the most out of their session and feel at ease while providing the therapist with additional communication tools.

There are a number of general things that you can do to help your child fall or stay asleep, including:

• Talk about it with them to understand the problem from their perspective.
• Develop a nighttime routine that’s relaxing and repeatable.
• Make sure the room is comfortable and cool.
• If they’re afraid of the dark, consider a nightlight or a sound machine.
• Don’t allow them to sleep with a pet, which can wake them in the night.
• Don’t allow them to eat or drink anything too close to bedtime.
• Wind down without technology by reading them a nighttime story or, if they’re old enough, join them while they read their favorite book to you.

Children and adults may develop food preferences for any number of reasons, including, late introduction of foods, pressure to eat when they are not hungry, an unhealthy concern for nutrition and more. Start by talking with your child about what they do or do not like to eat and why. From there, you might get a pretty good idea of the type of picky eater you have.

While it may be tempting to try and force your child to eat the same meals, it could actually have the opposite effect. It’s important to respect your child’s appetite. If they’re not hungry, now might not be a good time, so put the food aside for later.
You need to be patient when introducing new foods, or even when a familiar food suddenly becomes intolerable. This can be a normal part of development.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to cook exactly what they demand when they demand it. It’s perfectly understandable for you to ask them to follow the same mealtime schedule as the rest of your household. And if they do not like a certain item being served, you can encourage them to eat around it.

In most cases, picky eating will be overcome through time and patience and it’s nothing to worry about. If their behavior becomes concerning, reach out to a professional.

It is not uncommon for children to have trouble self-motivating when it comes to school. As a parent, the best thing that you can do is take an active role in their education while allowing them the space to explore their interests.

That means getting involved and being willing and able to assist or encourage them when they need it, while also not making a big deal of mistakes or shortcomings when it comes to their educational journey. Help them understand that education is important, while also working to make the process of learning as fun or rewarding as possible.

It’s important to recognize that everyone excels more in some areas than others. Strengths may include personal, social, language, literacy and math and logic. Quite often, children gravitate toward certain categories. It’s important to expose them to a variety of scenarios in order to help them discover where their strengths lie, as well as to build strength or resilience in the areas they don’t naturally excel.

While it’s true that not all children will naturally gravitate towards athletics, it is important to encourage them to get involved in extracurricular activities in general. Benefits to these activities include physical activity, socialization, confidence building, and more.

It’s important to note that “encourage” is the correct word. It’s important to not push children into activities that they have no interest in. Allow them to sample a variety of activities and work with them to choose the activities they enjoy the most.