Children / Adolescents Counseling
At Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services, P.C., we believe that the emotional demands placed on our children in the socially challenging and academically competitive school environments can result in behavioral problems and generate obstacles to developing important life skills. We believe that all behavior has a meaningful explanation and that all too often a child’s challenging behavior is trivialized by dismissing it as a demonstration of rebellion, attention-seeking, or an opposition to authority. These are not explanations for the behaviors but labels that we have come to accept as way of identifying the alleged “cause” of the behavior.
We have discovered after working with many challenging children that a child’s problematic behavior is as much a problem for them as it is for you and that they find it to be as much a mystery as you do. So, stop asking WHY and stop punishing in the name of discipline because your child is also a victim of their behavior.
We believe all problematic behavior serves a function that is often rooted in the child’s stressful relationship with peers, siblings, teachers, and parents. We will help you and your child identify HOW© (Honesty, Openness, Willingness) the unwanted behaviors have taken hold and help you develop strategies for replacing the needs that are not being met.
We are committed to understanding the multifaceted function of the behaviors that you are attempting to intervene on. Most of us would prefer to identify a simple cause/effect relationship that would explain why our children are struggling academically or socially. When educators look for “simple explanations” many will end up engaging in useless “bashing” in an effort to blame someone for the “problem.”
We believe that we must all work together to build a plan that fully examines the nature of each of these relationships. Our Children Counseling Services will promote teamwork to find interventions that will help your child change from the inside out rather than relying on token rewards that they will not find later in life.
We believe that each participant of the child’s life must examine the role they play, for we are either a part of the solution or a part of the problem.
Our Children Counselors are committed to supporting students, parents, and educators in their efforts to reduce the negative impact of the unavoidable stressors our children face in our schools and communities. Let us know how we can help.
Child Counseling Services are available at our office or in your home provided that you assume the cost associated with travel time.
Children Counseling Treatment Options
Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services, PC is committed to the provision of a comprehensive approach to the therapeutic care of children and requires that everyone who cares for them be committed to treating the child with the utmost dignity and respect. We will not work with caregivers who insist on physical discipline and we will not see children against their will. The following modalities are available at our offices, in your home, and through the use of video conferencing.
Individual Child Counseling
We do not practice from the child advocacy model and do not work with children alone or apart from their parents. We believe that blood is thicker than therapy and that a child’s primary therapeutic relationship needs to be with their parent or guardian and not their therapist. We do not enter into confidential therapeutic relationships with children, as we believe it would be counter-therapeutic. Therapeutic homework for child and parents should be expected. The frequency of sessions and the duration of the therapy relationship are determined by the client and parents.
Children Counseling Focal Points
Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services provides private and confidential support to children and their families who are struggling with personal, family, and school-based challenges that are threatening the young person’s social, emotional, and academic success.
In the 33 years of service to families, we have learned that “blood is thicker than therapy.” The skills we bring to the counseling relationship will not be effective with children unless they have the loving support of their families. The parent/child relationship, when available, must be strengthened because it is primary. We do not believe that the child/therapist relationship should be one of complete autonomy and therefore we practice from a systems perspective that aims to eliminate the need for secrets.
We do not view the child as the problem and do not see him/her as the only client. Our “client” is the family and the school, whenever possible, and not the solitary student. We remain committed to open communication between therapist, child, school, and parents. We avoid becoming trapped in the confidences with children that might diminish their relationship with their parents.
Services are available to help your child with the following challenges:
- School Avoidance
- Separation Anxiety
- Coping With Chronic Illness
- Building Social Competence
- Managing Powerful Peer Personalities
- Overcoming Peer Group Anxiety
- Understanding Parental Alcoholism
- Minimizing Family Conflict
- Working Through Divorce & Separation
- Avoiding Drug & Alcohol Use – Transitioning High School to College
- Reducing Misplaced Anger
- Accepting Imperfection
- Building Friendships
- Improving Teacher Relationships
Adolescent Counseling
Adolescents enter counseling for a wide variety of reasons. We will highlight some of the more common reasons: because their parents have insisted that they get help and the adolescent can not speak up for themselves; because “there needs to be an attitude change” and their caretakers have the ability to reward or punish the adolescent’s decision on whether or not to enter counseling; because a juvenile justice authority has ordered it; and our favorite, because they are trying to manipulate a parent into getting help.
While it is true that adolescents seldom enter counseling on their own volition, they are not really any more reluctant to seek help than their adult counterparts when you consider the age difference. Adolescents cannot see what they are doing to themselves because they have not had as much time on the planet as adults who are willing to seek professional help. Life experience, in sufficient quantities, will help you see what is not working, even if you do not know what to do to fix it. Most adolescents do not have enough life experience to see their role in the problem so they assume the problem must be outside of themselves and they expect everyone else to change.
Proponents of the TOUGH LOVE school of child rearing would have us believe that they know what is best for a teenager and that a firm hand is the answer. TOUGH LOVE attempts to impose a “greater” and “wiser” will on a troubled teenager when most proponents would willingly admit that they do not have a clue about what is troubling the young person.
If adolescents find mood altering “solutions” to the problem such as alcohol and other drugs, the real problems will begin. TOUGH LOVERS grew in numbers as the “Just Say No” campaign of the Reagan administration failed to achieve its foolhardy expectations. Young people were saying “yes” to addictive substances in greater numbers than the “Woodstock” generation. YES offered a temporary solution to living problems young people were being faced with. Besides, it is doubtful that any generation of adolescents ever bought into the adult party line of – “Do as I say and not as I do.”
We believe that adolescents can learn to identify the problem, can be aided in developing strategies for addressing the problem, and respond in loving and responsible ways to learning that THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. We can help you engage your adolescent in developing family solutions to life problems if you are willing to replace TOUGH LOVE with Love and you are willing to examine the ways your adolescent’s home and family life may be contributing to the problem.
Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services provides adolescent counseling services in our offices or in your home. Adolescent counseling is a subspecialty we developed in the course of our work with behaviorally-challenged special education students and patients recently discharged from residential drug and alcohol treatment services. Our adolescent counselors are seasoned and will not be practicing on your children. Call us for more information.
Adolescent Counseling Treatment Options
The Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services is committed to the provision of a comprehensive approach to the therapeutic care of adolescents and require that everyone who cares for them be committed to treating the adolescent with the utmost dignity and respect. We will not work with caregivers who insist on physical discipline and we will not see adolescents against their will. The following modalities are available at our offices, in your home, and through the use of video conferencing.
Individual Adolescent Counseling
We do not practice from the child advocacy model and do not work with adolescents alone or apart from their parents. We believe that blood is thicker than therapy and that an adolescent’s primary therapeutic relationship needs to be with their parent or guardian and not their therapist. We do not enter into confidential therapeutic relationships with adolescents, as we believe it would be counter-therapeutic. Therapeutic homework for adolescent and parents should be expected. The frequency of sessions and the duration of the therapy relationship are determined by the client and parents.
Family Counseling for Adolescents
Family therapy can be an effective tool for helping an adolescent develop the social and emotional skills they need to feel successful but only if they are not identified as the “problem.” All family members attending family counseling sessions are expected to fully participate in the session and may be asked to address their personal issues that appear to have nothing to do with the problem that brought the adolescent to counseling. Therapeutic homework for adolescent and other family-counseling participants should be expected.
Therapeutic Intervention
We will train a group of concerned individuals selected by the adolescent’s parents to conduct a therapeutic intervention to facilitate the adolescent’s acceptance of the need for professional treatment of alcoholism or other substance dependency.