Before Sending Your Kid to Counseling….

While I am pleased so many parents value counseling and want it for their kids, do know that it is not always helpful and indeed, can be harmful.

Many kids interpret counseling as them having done something bad for which they must now talk to someone. That creates a scary endeavor.

In other situations kids are brought to counseling for behavior that actually originates from parental issues such as divorce, abuse and/or drug/alcohol issues.

Counseling in those situations won’t affect the cause. Counseling can provide the impression that something is being done for the child yet nothing changes. With that, counseling can feel useless to the child and that experience can undermine ever trying it again.

When kids are stuck between separated parents in conflict, counseling can actually escalate the conflict to which they are subjected, making their lives more difficult.

For all these reasons and more, when a parent seeks counseling for their child, I only begin by meeting with both parents first (assuming safe to do so).

Meeting with parents first gives an opportunity to obtain a developmental history and explore matters within the family as well as the parents’ backgrounds. Clues to issues affecting the child may be found through this information gathering.

It is often the case that by meeting with the parents, they can be better helped to address the issues of the child. This better serves the child in the long run as parents are typically more influential and definitely in the child’s life longer than any counselor.

If I do meet with a child, I regularly have parents present for at least the first meeting.

This is to enable a safer feeling introduction for the child, my having coached the parents on how to introduce the concept of counseling, my involvement and managing the first meeting.

Counseling is a serious psychosocial intervention.

One wouldn’t call a surgeon expecting surgery without an investigation and tests first. So too with counseling.

It’s all about the well-being of the child.

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I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

gary@yoursocialworker.com
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Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.