Preparing your Child or Teen for Therapy
You have signed your child or teen up for therapy and you may be asking yourself, how do I talk to them about therapy and prepare them for the first session?
Our children and teens come to therapy for a variety of reasons and helping them feel seen, understood and supported is the very first goal for both parents and the therapist.
It is normal for our young people who are coming to therapy for the first time to have many questions, feel nervous or not want to come because they are worried.
Normalizing therapy, explaining the process, and using tools to show them what therapy is all about can help a child or teen orient themselves to therapy and help them feel prepared and supported.
Explaining Child or Teen Therapy
Sometimes our teens and children may feel like they are going to therapy because something is “wrong” with them. They may feel worried that a therapist will tell their parents everything they share or they may feel uncomfortable and anxious about talking to someone they don’t know all together. These are normal feelings and it is important they are understood and validated. It can help to share your own experiences with therapy before diving into what they are going for. It is also important to be honest, share why you want them to go, what you hope it will help with and allow them to share what things they would like to feel better about or learn more about. There are age appropriate ways you can share about therapy, here are some examples for children and for teens:
Child Therapy Script:
“You are going to meet someone whose role is to help kids with their big, or confusing feelings, worries, and the things that have been hard for you lately. You will play and talk and you can share with them how you are feeling and they will help you learn new tools so that you can feel your best. Do you have any questions for me?”
Teen Therapy Script:
“You are going to go see a therapist so that you can have a place that is your own to share whatever is going on for you and they can support you without judgement. It is a private space to work on your goals, process anything sticky, and learn tools and strategies so that you can feel your best. You can share what you want and you get to decide what that is based on how comfortable you are. What you share with your therapist is private and they will go over what that will look like with us both during the first session. Do you have any questions or worries?”
Explaining Confidentiality in Therapy with Children and Teens
Therapy is private but not secret. It is important that our teens and children understand that they will have private conversations and do activities that are for them but that there are some things that will be shared with parents.
In sessions I say, “Therapy is private but not secret and there are times where I will share with your parents what is happening in therapy so that we can work together to help you feel your best. I may share themes, goals, ways they can support you, but I will not share the things you say or are doing. I will always share with your parents if something is shared that could put you, or someone else in danger and that is if you are being hurt, hurting yourself, know of someone being hurt or are planning to hurt someone.”
I always communicate that in therapy, nothing will be secret from them and that the therapist will always communicate with them what will be said to their caregiver so that they feel comfortable and are never caught off guard.
It is also important for our children and teens to know that the therapist and their parents are a team and that our goal is to help support them, which means their caregiver will need to know our treatment plan, how things are progressing, tools and strategies that can help at home.
Explaining What The First Therapy Session With Your Child or Teen Will Look Like
The first time the therapist meets a child or teen the goal is always to get to know one another, to explain the therapy process and to talk about confidentiality and the reasons and goals they have for being in therapy. This usually occurs with their caregivers present so that communication is open and honest right from the beginning. After the first 10-15 minutes, the therapist and the child or teen will spend the rest of the session talking, playing or doing an activity to build the relationship. Some children or teens may feel pressure to talk or are scared they will be interrogated; this is not the case.
Every child or teen that comes into the office has a voice and choice. In Play Therapy, most sessions start off child-led where they can explore the room and get comfortable with the toys and expressive materials. The therapist will sit with them, observe patterns, themes and behaviours in play that help develop the treatment plan and to get to know the child. For teens, the therapist will ask questions to get to know them and explore what they like, don’t like and what they hope to get out of therapy. The teen gets a choice on what they feel comfortable sharing and if they want to play games or do expressive art activities while getting to know their therapist, they can. At Canopy Cove Counselling, the relationship between the therapist and the family, child or teen is the most important and the goal for every session is to ensure that trust, safety and connection is established while working on the therapeutic goals.
At the end of the first session we explore next steps. We can talk about the goals of therapy and explore booking the next few sessions if the child, teen, caregivers and therapist feel it is a good fit. The following sessions will be to further strengthen the relationship and to work towards their individual therapeutic goals.
Explaining What Your Child or Teen Can Do In Therapy
There are a variety of activities that can occur in the therapy room with children and teens. There are games, expressive art materials like clay, paint, markers, and scrapbooking materials. There is a dollhouse, baby dolls, musical items, cars and trucks, army figures, a whole cabinet filled with miniatures for the sand tray, or they can choose to sit and talk. There is no pressure to perform and each individual gets to choose what, and how they share what is going on for them.
The therapist’s goal for the first few sessions is to build a strong relationship with the child, teen and family and to solidify the goals and treatment plan. In child and teen therapy sessions are then tailored to the treatment plan and can include play therapy, TraumaPlay, EMDR, somatic work, DBT skills, ACT or CBT and expressive art work. Our therapists are integrative, which means all sessions and treatment plans are tailored to each unique individual rather than tailoring an individual to fit a plan. After a few weeks of sessions, the caregiver and therapist will meet and check in to explore how things are going at home, school and in the therapy office.
Children, teens and caregivers all have a voice and there is opportunity in each session to communicate what is going well, what needs to change and how the whole family system is feeling.
Some Other Common Questions Caregivers or Teens Have About Therapy:
My child is here for separation anxiety and they may not want me to leave:
This is a great question and we have worked with many children and teens that feel most comfortable when their caregiver is present. In Play Therapy and TraumaPlay, parents are welcome to join in and they can engage in the play or, if they choose, they can sit back and observe. When the child is ready for the parent to leave, the parent can go to the waiting room and the child can check in with the parent if they need. Attachment and safety is so important and we always want our children and parents to feel comfortable.
Our teen does not want to come but we feel like it’s essential for their wellbeing:
It can be so hard when you know that therapy can support your teen and they are hesitant to come. The most important thing would be to ensure they don’t feel that coming to therapy is a punishment. You could share how you are feeling, what the goal for therapy would be and how you think it would help. It would be important for you to give your teen space to share how they are feeling, any questions they may have and you can have them explore our website and therapist bios to help build comfort. Teens can also have consultation calls with our therapists to help build comfort, have their questions asked and help them orient themselves to the first session.
Do you have other resources for children on how we can explain therapy to them?
Absolutely! I love the idea of using books or videos to support children and teens in normalizing therapy. The beautiful thing is you do not have to go out and buy the book, you can go on YouTube and search the title, and there are read-alouds for almost all children’s books! Here are a few favourites:
When a Donut goes to Therapy: It talks about feelings about therapy, what they may do in therapy and how it can help them.
The Color Monster: This book is short and can be really helpful for littles. You can share that a therapist helps children make sense of their feelings when they get jumbled up like the color monsters feelings.
A Terrible Thing Happened: This book can be helpful for children who may have experienced something traumatic and may need some support talking about the event.
If you have more questions about how to communicate with your child or teen about therapy, you can always share your concerns during your consult call and your therapist can help you problem solve and come up with a plan that supports you and your child or teen. If you are still exploring if therapy would be a good fit for your child or teen, fill out our intake form and our office manager will be in touch to set up a consultation call with one of our child and teen therapists to explore if therapy could be helpful. We have blogs on PlayTherapy, TraumaPlay and When it could be helpful for your child or teen to see a therapist, these may help answer any questions you, or your child may have.
