Interventions: The person inside my outside self Population: Ages 4 to adults Treatment Phase: Assessment/Working/Termination Treatment Goals: 1. To practice making positive self talk statements 2. To increase the client’s sense of competence/mastery of the environment. 3. To increase overall self-esteem. Props: a cut out of a person (made from construction or art paper) Crayons, markers and any other arts and crafts supplies Procedure: Provide the child with a cut out of a person and a nice supply of arts and crafts, including markers and crayons.  Begin by instructing the cl ..read more

Developing self-esteem is recognized as an important part of child development. Research noted in the Psychology of Infancy and Childhood tells us that unhealthy self-esteem in childhood can contribute to fear, anxiety, anger, depression, relationship problems, and other complex issues as children get older. Children experiencing low self-esteem may feel that important peers and adults in their lives do not accept them, causing issues with self-esteem to grow. Signs of low self-esteem in a child may include…….. the child having a negative view of themselves difficulty making and maintaining f ..read more

Parenting doesn’t come with a manual – especially not a manual for raising children who have emotional and behavioral struggles.  As parents we often attempt to apply parenting tactics that worked for us when we were growing up or that worked for our other children that we have raised. But sometimes those tactics don’t produce the same results for our struggling children as they did for us or our other children we have raised. As a result, we as parents have the tendency to assume that more is better…. ….maybe more punishments will yield the result we are looking for, ….more rewards might ..read more

“I want them to tell me how they’re feeling”  This is one of the most common desires I hear from parents. There are many reasons why children struggle with openly expressing their feelings. No matter the reason, one way adults can encourage children to talk about their feelings is modeling what it looks like. If you’re asking a child to be open, honest, and talk about their thoughts and feelings, I’m wondering do you do the same? Adults may think we need to protect children from our negative emotions, which causes us to hide when we’re upset, disappointed, sad, frustrated, annoyed, etc. W ..read more

So many people have asked me over the years I have been in the field of child psychotherapy, specifically as a registered play therapist, “How do you do it?” How do I do it? Well, my reply is typically, God gave me the passion, the drive, the motivation to do it. He gave me the patience. He gave me the aptitude for such work. He gave me the love of children. He gave me the talent to connect to those beautiful children. For those of you who do not have a God, I would say, I was just born with it. Right? Really, it’s no different than any of you and the work you do every day. If we all had the s ..read more

The book “Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World” by Dr. Michele Borba goes into detail about the fact that empathetic children are generally healthier, happier, and more successful than other, more self-centered children. It aims to answer the question, “how do I foster empathy in my child?” This is an especially relevant question in today’s society, where empathy in children is decreasing and rates of bullying are on the rise. With technology being a forefront in our lives today, self-interest has become the norm, causing a decrease in empathy that has resulted in bu ..read more

The adoption of a child is an exciting time. However, some adoptions may bring forth some unforeseen challenges. Often times parents reach out for help when they feel they have tried everything, yet nothing seems to work. Fortunately, there continues to be research in order to aid parents in parenting their adopted child. A child may be greatly impacted by deprivation and harm suffered in early life which can impact the child’s coordination, ability to learn, social skills, size, and neurochemical pathways in the brain. These hardships can linger with the child for years even after leaving a l ..read more

There are many types of challenging children to parent. Some children experience severe temper tantrums, defiant children, and children who struggle to make real and lasting connections with their parents. The children who struggle with all three of these aspects may have experienced developmental trauma in their lifetime and can fit the diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD).  Children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) have experienced social neglect in early childhood. One of RAD’s diagnostic criteria is that a child has experienced a pattern of insufficient car ..read more

The goal of Trust Based Relational Intervention is to develop a warm, nurturing and connected relationship with the child.  Often, loving parents believe love and nurturing will resolve their adopted child’s trauma history.  We wish this were true.  Unfortunately, you cannot truly change behavior in a child with a trauma history unless you and the child are connected.  Our capacity to change children, to teach social skills and coping skills is based on the relationship we have with the child.  Attaching and connecting should be the primary job of parent the first year ..read more

By Molly Gratton, LCSW, RPT-S I am asked regularly if one should parent their adopted child differently than a biological child. The answer is…YES!  I praise parents when I am asked this as it demonstrates they have something….intuition, forethought, insight…..something that will open their hearts and minds to learn the best way to help their child to achieve success. Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is currently the most popular and sought after treatment approach in the adoption world.   I receive daily phone calls from families who are in desperate need of help and guid ..read more