For Children
Psychotherapy can be adapted in ways that are accessible and developmentally appropriate for children. It is generally held to be one part of an effective strategy for some purposes and not for others. These are four purposes that are generally considered inappropriate or pointless reasons for placing a child in psychotherapy:
- to determine why a child originally began misbehaving,
- to improve the child's self-esteem,
- to make up for inconsistent parenting, and
- to make the child capable of coping with a parent's drug addiction, interpersonal relationships, or other serious dysfunction.
In addition to therapy for the child, or even instead of it, children may benefit if their parents speak to a therapist, take parenting classes, attend grief counseling, or take other actions to resolve stressful situations that affect the child.
Read more about this topic: Psychotherapists
Famous quotes containing the word children:
“Other people’s harvests are always the best harvests, but one’s own children are always the best children.”
—Chinese proverb.
“No one ever promised me it would be easy and it’s not. But I also get many rewards from seeing my children grow, make strong decisions for themselves, and set out on their own as independent, strong, likeable human beings. And I like who I am becoming, too. Having teenagers has made me more human, more flexible, more humble, more questioning—and, finally it’s given me a better sense of humor!”
—Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 4 (1978)