Parent-Child Interaction Therapy in San Diego
Kids and Family Counseling in San Diego, CA
Estes Therapy offers San Diego therapy for kids and families.
Child family counseling is a form of therapy that helps families support their child with the guidance of a licensed mental health professional. When a child is affected by difficult events, parents may struggle to find the right words to explain what happened, or the child may not yet be able to express their thoughts or emotions clearly.
Through their psychology services, an experienced counselor works with the child and their family to improve communication, enhance understanding, and provide strategies to support the child’s emotional and psychological well-being.
How Estes Therapy Stands Out in Child and Family Counseling
At Estes Therapy, we take the time to listen to you and your child’s story. Our sessions are relaxed, collaborative, and focused on getting to the root of the issue to promote lasting change and healing for your family. With a dedicated team of Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs), Associate Marriage and Family Therapists (AMFTs), and Associate Professional Clinical Counselors (APCCs), we offer the support your family needs, whether through individual sessions (children counseling), couples counseling, or family sessions.
What Children and Parent Counseling Helps with
Is your child withdrawn or acting out? Are you feeling at a loss for how to help them?
Children facing daily stressors (school, friends, etc.), clinical diagnoses, or sudden life changes may experience emotional, behavioral, or developmental difficulties. Early intervention through children and parent counseling in San Diego can provide crucial support and guidance for these problems. Our therapists work with families to address a wide range of concerns, including:
- ADHD
- Depression and mood disorders
- OCD and anxiety disorders
- Eating disorders and body image issues
- Anger management
- Self-harm and suicidal thoughts
- Disruptive behavior and conduct disorders
- Trauma and PTSD
- Grief and loss
Lasting Benefits of Counseling for Kids and Their Family
Children can develop positive behavior patterns through child family counseling and better understand their challenges alongside their parents. Through San Diego therapy for kids and family, they can receive anxiety treatment, depression treatment, trauma therapy, and more.
Improve Family Interactions
Child and family counseling helps strengthen family interactions by focusing on open communication, active listening, clear expectations, and positive reinforcement.
Encourage Emotional Expression
Child family counseling fosters a safe and nurturing environment to model healthy emotional expression in children. Parents can help support their child as the counselor teaches them to recognize and process their own emotions as well as those of others.
Reducing Anxiety and Stress
Stability is the center of a child’s healthy development. The counselor guides the parents on creating a safe and predictable environment while teaching children coping skills, positive habits, and other ways to foster positive emotions and stress release.
Foster Empathy and Respect
It is crucial for adults to model empathy for children. Child family counseling guides children on perspective-taking and understanding other people’s emotions.
Help Parents Build Self-Confidence
When children struggle, parents can experience self-doubt. A child family counselor helps parents be more confident in their parenting by providing them with skills to support their children effectively.
Building Resilience and Problem-Solving Skills in Children
Therapy helps children manage everyday challenges and recover from setbacks by fostering a growth mindset, promoting positive self-talk, and equipping parents to model and teach resilience at home.
What to Expect from Therapy for Kids and Family
Child and family counseling will include initial assessments and goal setting. Some assessments may be conducted one-on-one with the parents to address their concerns or separately with the child to better understand their needs.
At Estes Therapy, we utilize techniques such as play therapy, EFFT Emotionally Focused Family Therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help children learn communication, conflict resolution, and coping skills with the support and understanding of their parents.
Our San Diego CBT therapy for kids and parents involves different approaches. In some therapy sessions, the counselor and the family talk together. We may talk about school, the sports the child is into, and focus on things that matter to them. In other sessions, we let the child play or make art to process their emotions or with the parents to engage them.
Child family counseling typically lasts between 6 and 12 sessions, with each session lasting 40 to 45 minutes. Depending on the complexity of the issues the child is facing, counseling may extend over several months to ensure lasting progress and support. People can have sessions in our location in San Diego, CA, or use our online therapy services for their convenience.
Book Your Free Matching Appointment Today
Our children’s counseling with family in San Diego, CA, also includes individual child counseling and teen counseling. While you can meet our team to select which professional to book an appointment with, you can skip the guesswork of which child therapist would be a perfect fit for you and your child by scheduling a 10-minute matching appointment.
In this phone call, our Care Coordinator will ask thoughtful questions about what you look for in a child family counselor. Do you wish for a therapist who can also speak in Spanish? Or one who is a therapist of color? Our therapists come from all walks of life but share one thing in common—a commitment to giving you and your child compassionate and individualized care.