If your child is in need of a therapist, they might be struggling to process big, intense feelings. Is your little one angry, emotionally upset, or crying more than usual? Or, is your toddler having a difficult time separating and going to preschool? Do emotional meltdowns disrupt family life and sibling relationships? Your child might not be getting the emotional education in school that they need to process their big feelings. Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
Right now, it might feel like your house is chaotic or your child is annoying to peers. As a parent, it may feel like you can never get a break from their emotional meltdowns or separation anxiety. Even, their school might label your child as a “bad kid.” Children who have big emotions need help through specialize child therapy and play therapy. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling specialize with helping emotionally sensitive children thrive.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult for child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
Is your child having angry, emotional meltdowns?
Right now, your child might be having meltdowns or even getting angry with siblings. There may be feelings of competition, jealousy, or loss present. Feeling left out or unwanted often comes out as anger or an emotional meltdown. To add, emotional children need professional help processing and releasing big feelings. As well, your child might be experiencing jealousy, anger, sadness, loss, and not know how to release these emotions. Children often feel intense emotions but do not have the coping strategies to talk about how to let them go.
What are signs that your sensitive, emotional child will benefit from play therapy in Southeastern Connecticut?
Often times, children who need therapy will tell their play therapist that they have an “icky” feeling inside. Children do not have the words to talk about what they are feeling as adults do. So, child counseling and play therapy helps assist little ones in developing emotional language and a vocabulary. Feeling icky doesn’t feel good to a child. So, low self-esteem and criticism develops.
A child may feel punished for feeling “icky” inside and not coping in a healthy way.
Often times, in a school setting, a child feels unsafe because they may have been punished for having an icky feeling or negative behavior. Yelling, sibling conflict, arguments with peers, and separation anxiety come from icky feelings. Slowing the process down for your child is a specialty in play therapy. In child therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling, our team can help your child develop the confidence to process emotions and let them go.
Is your child criticizing themselves and has low self-esteem?
Furthermore, your child might be taking on negative behaviors such as criticizing themselves or others. Your child may tell you that they are stupid and have low self-esteem. As well, your emotional child may be causing conflictual arguments between siblings making home life really challenging. Your child may feel that everything needs to be in its place or perfect. And, when things are not perfect or the way they want or need, they have a meltdown. These are signs your child will benefit from working with a play therapist in Southeastern Connecticut.
Does your child meltdown when something doesn’t go their way, or everything has to be perfect?
In addition, your child might have emotional sensitivities and get upset or annoyed really easily. For instance, if your child senses that something didn’t go their way, they might have an emotional outburst or an emotional meltdown. Your child may have specific needs or emotional sensitivities that their therapist can help them better understand.
Is your child needing social skills and friendship tools since the pandemic and corona virus shutdown?
Since the coronavirus and the pandemic, many children, especially toddlers, have developed separation anxiety from their parents. As well, some children have issues with hugging animals too hard, not making eye contact, and need to improve social learning. Your child can benefit from the safe place of a play therapist’s office in Mystic, CT. Play therapy helps your child build positive emotional attachments and social skills. Separation anxiety due to the coronavirus may be causing your toddler or child to have panic attacks and meltdowns when they leave their parents such as at daycare or preschool. A child who is having a major emotional meltdown might even begin taking their clothes off at preschool because they are so emotionally distressed.
Has the corona virus and pandemic left your child needing your presence too much?
The coronavirus and the pandemic is leaving an emotional mark on children, guardians, and parents. Your little one may have spent so much time with you. It is a major adjustment to leave your side and goto school. Unfortunately, your child is now struggling to goto school and build positive attachments with teachers.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult for child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
What is separation anxiety in child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut?
At this time, it is very upsetting for your child to leave you. Anytime your child leaves your, that separation causes anxiety and an emotional meltdown. For you as a parent, it is emotionally upsetting for you to observe this cycle. Your preschooler, around the age of three or four, needs to go to preschool. It is important to socialize at a young age. However, to your child, it is scary and new for them to leave your side. They feel very, very upset anytime you need to goto work. You deeply want the transition to not be anxious. Right now, your child has separation anxiety. Watching your child meltdown emotionally impacts your workday. Wisdom Within Counseling can help support children in developing confidence to overcome separation anxiety.
How can play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut support separation anxiety tools and self-confidence?
Due to spending so much time together during the pandemic and coronavirus, toddlers and preschoolers are now having separation anxiety. As well, children with separation anxiety are having meltdowns and panic attacks before school. Play therapy and child therapy are wonderful tools for preschoolers and toddlers to gain confidence and social skills that are important for their social development.
How did mask wearing impact preschoolers and children negatively?
In addition, wearing masks has limits a lot of social development in children. Wearing a mask means your child did not get to see you smile or recognize facial signs. So, mask wearing means that your child was missing out on facial recognition skills. Understanding social skills from reading faces did not develop. As a result, your child, around six or seven years old might not be able to make eye contact easily. In addition, your children may not be able to socialize with friends in ways that are developmentally appropriate.
What are signs that your child needs helps with improving their emotional and social skills?
Now, your toddler or your young child might be looking at the floor while talking to you. This may be because of recent lack of social time with friends and mask wearing. As well, the coronavirus and pandemic leaves impacts on children in other negative ways. Therefore, play therapy and child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut can help rebuild social tools. Play therapy in child therapy uses puppets, clay, sensory tools, to teach social and positive relationship skills. Plus, in play therapy, children can use action figures, animals, or puppets to talk about how they are feeling. As well, using puppets and play therapy helps children rebuild trust.
How does child and play therapy help little ones build confidence?
Right now, it might feel like your child is emotionally distraught with anyone besides you as their period next to them. Child therapy and play therapy can help your child develop confidence. Play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut helps anxious children to know that it is okay to trust other adults like their therapist and teachers. This way, the transition to dropping your child off at preschool is calmer. For children, going off to kindergarten becomes much smoother and less emotionally challenging for both of you. In addition, play therapy can help children feel happy, loved, and understand all emotions are okay.
Has your child had a bad teacher or someone in their life who traumatized them negatively?
Sometimes, a child may have had a preschool teacher or person who created more negative associations with some thing that should be more positive. For instance, your child no longer likes toilet training. Perhaps, your child had a preschool teacher who used some old-school methods and punished them. Maybe, your child fears punishment again when they pee their pants.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult for child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
Different traumas and negative experiences create a negative association for children that play therapy can help undo.
Sometimes, not all teachers or people know how to truly nurture and relate to your child. Having bad experiences with teachers can make trusting new teaches and people very hard. As well, your chid’s fear contributes to seperation anxiety. Your child might be withholding bowel movements or getting really upset to use the bathroom as a result of their negative experience. And, your little one may have low self-esteem now from negative punishments.
Why is play therapy for children so helpful for processing trauma?
Children in preschool, do not have the verbal skills to talk about the traumas or the fears due to negative associations. If your child had a preschool teacher who punished them for wetting their pants or created a negative association with using the bathroom, they will have challenges using the bathroom now. Unfortunately, your child will not be able to verbalize their story to you. Working with a child specialist in play therapy can help your child create a positive association with another adult. You child can learn to overcome fears and have positive, happy feelings about using the bathroom. Toilet training can be really stressful for the whole family. Your child’s therapist in Mystic, Connecticut at Wisdom Within Counseling can help promote positivity around new milestones.
What is regression and how does child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut help?
Often times, when a child goes to a really scary event like a trauma such as losing a sibling or losing a grandparent, they will often regress. To note, regression is when a child has learned how to do some thing such as potty training or talking, and then stops doing this behavior. Often, this is because they feel trauma and scared. For example, a child may have begun to speak or use their verbal skills. Then, one of their primary caregivers, a grandparent dies suddenly. From this moment on, this changes their life and emotional processing. This becomes a traumatic event for your child. From loss and grief, your child is now feeling major emotions of loss, grief, sadness. And, your child may have new fears about losing more people in their life.
Does your child have a fixation or a fear of death?
Toddlers and children often develop a fear of loss and death as a result of losing a primary caregiver. As a result, your child may become overly attached to another caregiver in their life. Separation anxiety and panic disorders when going to school increase. After loss and grief, children may fear being dropped off at preschool or kindergarten. To add, your emotional, grieving child may also not know how to verbalize feelings of being afraid. Play therapy helps children talk about their fears to lose someone else they love in their life.
How does play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut support children in processing trauma, grief, loss, and death?
Often times, children who experience loss, sadness, and grief may show this as annoyance, anger, or through sibling conflict. Therefore, play therapy for children uses toys, puppets, stuffed animals, and child games. In Southeastern Connecticut, play therapy can help your emotional child feel confident talking about the traumas and losses they experience. Sometimes, children go through a major loss or grief and stop speaking. This is called selective mutism. Stopping speaking is a form of regression from trauma that the team at Wisdom Within Counseling supports.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult for child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
What is selective mutism in children?
And, how does play therapy in child therapy in Mystic Connecticut support children who have selective mutism behaviors?
Selective mutism is a form of negative coping that many children will do when they feel unsafe in the world. Your child may stop speaking and develop selective mutism due to feeling afraid. Working with a child therapist that specializes in selective mutism such as one of the child therapists at Wisdom Within counseling can help your child feel safe talking again. Many times, a specialist in selective mutism such as at Wisdom Within Counseling will be able to help your child feel safe.
Why is it important to work with a play therapist or child specialist when your child has selective mutism?
Children with selective mutism move in their own timing to talk again. However, if you bring your child to a “talk” therapist, that therapist will not have the proper training or specialized tools in play therapy. On the other hand, the play therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling truly relate to an anxious child who does not want to speak. In Southeastern Connecticut, at Wisdom Within Counseling, we support children in gaining confidence, self-esteem, and security. We offer play therapy, toys, puppets, art, painting, and even musical instruments and music therapy. This way, anxious, afraid, emotional children can learn how to talk about their emotions and ways beyond words.
How does play therapy work?
In order to get benefits and positive coping tools from play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut, children do not need to have verbal skills. Even if your child doesn’t talk yet due to being a toddler, play therapy still works. Or, if your child has selective mutism, our team knows exactly how to step into their young, emotional world. Children feel intense emotions in the same way as adults do.
The team of child therapists in Southeastern Connecticut specialize with children who do not talk, but still need help with emotional coping tools.
For instance, your child might be going through different emotions. And, our child does not know how to talk when they feel scared. They may freeze or have a meltdown. Using painting and clay as well as puppets and play therapy can help your child process traumas they have been through. Play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut can help your child feel emotionally calmer. So, after their play therapy session with their therapist, they feel lighter and more calm. We do not force children to talk.
Instead use other methods of communication such as creative, play and art therapies.
Music therapies and play therapies to help children feel safe letting go and releasing big emotions.
Using a mixture of creative expressive arts, we help children learn how to feel safe in the world again. Feeling safe in the world naturally reduces concerning behaviors and alleviates negative coping tools that are fear-based.
What support does the team of child therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling offer to parents?
As well, parents can attend positive parenting sessions to learn how to understand their child when they are having intense feelings. Plus, parents build a toolbox of their own self-soothing skills. Managing emotional meltdowns can lead to parental burnout. So, children therapy includes parent counseling sessions to prevent burnout. Many times, as a parent, you might feel exhausted, confused, or even angry that your child is continually not listening to you. There are many reasons why a child doesn’t listen or even begins to lie. In play therapy in child therapy in Mystic Connecticut, we can help you, as a parent or guardian, understand what your child is really trying to communicate through these negative behaviors.
To begin, click the button below for a phone consult for child therapy in Mystic, Connecticut.
As a parent, we teach you skills to nurture yourself and you child in emotional moments.
If your child is hitting their sibling, physically punching you, yelling, or even having tearful meltdowns, these are all signs that your child would deeply benefit from working with a play therapist.
Play therapy is a language of a child and helps a child feel immediately calmer. Specializing with preschoolers, toddlers, children, and the elementary age, our team at Wisdom Within counseling knows how to step into an anxious child’s world. We build trust, playfulness, and help a child develop flexible thinking. Then, we help an emotional child identify the different emotions they are having. From play therapy in Mystic, Connecticut, we help your child to find coping strategies to release big feelings in ways that feel positive.
From play therapy in Southeastern Connecticut, your child can make friends, navigate different sibling conflicts, and build a positive relationship with friends and family.
Their emotions don’t have to get in the way of positive social friendships like they are currently. At Wisdom Within Counseling, we specialize in working with selective mutism, children who don’t talk, and young children who don’t have verbal skills yet.
If your child is having anxiety and panic attacks on the way into preschool or kindergarten, we specialize in separation anxiety. We also incorporate creative expressive art including music therapy, yoga therapy, art therapy, and nature therapies.
How do animal therapies help in child counseling?
We also offer animal therapy groups where sensitive, emotional children can learn to increase their positive social skills and build self-acceptance. So, we offer animal therapy groups where an owl, frog, turtle, snake, and rabbit come. These animals offer children a hands-on learning experience to build positive coping tools. Children do not have as much anxiety when they are petting a bunny rabbit or getting to hold a snake. As well, holding a snake for the first time helps a child overcome emotions like fear while also building confidence and excitement.
Animal therapy groups in Southeastern Connecticut are incredibly beneficial for toddlers and children.
As well, animal therapy helps emotional children improve social skills and make new friends in a playful way.
Animal therapy groups take the negative focus off of your anxious child and their concerning behaviors. Instead, animal therapy provides a positive experience right in the social group. Wisdom Within Counseling offers individual child counseling, play therapy, and positive parenting sessions. Our team of child and family counselors focus on helping your family thrive. If your family life feels chaotic and overwhelming, our creative team of child and family therapists would love to help your child build confidence and self-esteem. Our team teaches positive coping tools to help your little one feel at home, safe, and happy in their world.
