You have always known that your child has a lot of energy, but lately, this energy seems to be keeping them from engaging with day-to-day life. They can’t seem to focus on instructions or pay attention in school or at home, they get “off-task” easily and have to be redirected. And trying to keep up with them is leaving you exhausted.
Child ADHD
Their grades, friendships, and family interactions are suffering. And the impulsivity, noncompliance, or sometimes outright defiance, are making you feel like life is out of control.
Whether your child has been kicked out of multiple schools, struggles to make safe choices, or seems to be going in a million directions at once, you know something isn’t quite right.
Lately, your child has morphed into a different person. What used to be your loving, kind, and gentle baby is having a hard time finding any semblance of joy in their life. It’s as if they can’t fully engage with any one or anything because their mind and body are being pulled in several different places.
So here you are, wondering if the answer to your child’s struggles might be ADHD
Often, your child feels frustrated by the inability to focus, distressed by their own behaviors, and upset that they often drive their peers away. They are struggling with everyday life, and you worry about their unhappiness, anxiety, and their future success in life.
You truly want your child to fit in with others and do well in school and at home. But, you have no idea how to help them manage all of the distracting energy they seem to have inside of them. You never imagined how tiring this journey would be. And, you certainly didn’t expect that you’d need to reach out for profession help.
Signs That Your Child Might Be Struggling with ADHD
- Behavioral: your child is aggressive, excitable, hyperactive, impulsive, irritable, or fidgety
- Cognitive: your child is absent-minded or forgetful and has difficulty focusing, problems paying attention, or a short attention span
- Mood: your child often feels angry, anxious, bored, excited, or experiences mood swings
When You Seek Support for ADHD from The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
- You and your child will learn how to structure environments to foster emotional and behavioral success
- Your child will develop greater self-confidence and behavior management skills
- You will learn parenting strategies to increase positive behaviors
- You will learn how to help your child better function at home and in school
- You and your child will grow closer together and enjoy spending more time together
The ADHD Counseling Process
Therapy for child ADHD is intended to help your child gain the skills and tools necessary to more effectively engage in the tasks of everyday life without negative disruptions due to attention difficulties or struggles with self-management. Together, you, your child, and your therapist will work with scientifically-backed, evidence-based therapies to help your child gain control of their inner and outer worlds in more effective ways.
Therapy for children with ADHD is based upon helping them to structure their environments and behaviors in such a way as to promote their success in school, family, and peer environments.
Here’s what to expect…
FIRST CONTACT: Free phone consult
Prior to beginning treatment with us, we want to make sure that we are a good fit for you and your child’s needs. For this reason, we offer a free 15-minute initial phone consult to learn more about your/your child’s current circumstances and to determine if we are the best resource for you. Assuming that we are a good match, you will then schedule an intake session.
WEEK ONE: Intake Session
During this first session, the assigned therapist will meet with you as the parent(s) or guardian(s) to gather background information on your child and to fill out rating scales to provide an assessment baseline upon which to build our treatment plan and goals.
WEEK TWO: Child Intake Session
During this 45- to 60-minute session, the therapist will interview your child as well as meet with you as the parent(s) to ask any follow-up questions which may be helpful in treatment planning and goal-setting to best meet your child’s needs.
WEEK THREE: Feedback Session
Now that we’ve thoroughly assessed your child’s needs, we will meet with you to discuss the diagnoses, identify starting goals, and provide education on the apparent causes and factors which are leading to your child’s troubling thoughts and behaviors.
WEEK FOUR and Beyond: ADHD Therapy for Children
At this point, you (and depending on your child’s age, your child) will attend regular weekly therapy sessions. A typical course of treatment calls for 12 to 16 weeks of therapy sessions, but treatment length depends on many factors and, therefore, could require more or less weeks. Additionally, your therapist may determine that you need to come more or less frequently, depending upon your child’s presenting symptoms.
Together, in each subsequent session, you, your child, and your therapist will use evidence-based psychotherapy models to help your child learn to identify and address the troublesome thoughts and behaviors that they experience because of ADHD. This typically includes the integration of techniques from Behavioral Parent Training (BPT), Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), or other evidence-based modalities.
Each session is designed to help your child learn to effectively focus, to better listen to authority figures, and to gain control of their hyperactive symptoms.
TERMINATION: The Final Sessions
As your child gets closer to their therapy goals, we will develop a plan for successfully transitioning them into a life without weekly therapy. This often means moving sessions from once a week to every other week, to monthly sessions, or to finishing out services completely. We also work with you and your child to develop a relapse prevention plan at this time. Our goal is for your child to be able to retain what we have worked on together and to implement all they have learned in therapy outside of sessions in their everyday life.
Are we the right providers for you?
Click below to request more info, and we’ll be sure to give you all the details about how we can help you take back control of your life.
Who Benefits Most from ADHD Counseling
Therapy for children with ADHD is best for those who need relief from the constant battle to stay on task and to manage behaviors.
Often, the child with ADHD is doing the best that they can but fighting a battle that feels impossible to win. ADHD counseling can help them to more effectively manage their symptoms so that they can gain more control over the outcome of their life.
Your child will benefit from ADHD therapy if:
- They need help to focus in school
- They struggle with peer relationships
- They aren’t reaching their full potential
- You are willing to learn ways in which you can restructure the home environment to help your child succeed
- You are willing to work with your therapist to advocate for changes in your child’s school environment
There are certain situations where your child might not be ready for counseling sessions with us.
These include, but are not limited to :
- Situations where your family’s schedules are too busy to commit to weekly therapy
- Situations where the child or parent does not want to practice the techniques outside of session
- Situations where parents are not committed to the process
If you are currently experiencing any of these issues, we can provide you with appropriate referrals for your level of care.
Frequently Asked Questions
Many children are active, impulsive, or have trouble paying attention at times. ADHD becomes more of a concern when these difficulties are happening consistently, across different settings, and are beginning to interfere with school, friendships, family life, or everyday responsibilities. Because many other factors can also affect attention and behavior, it’s important to look at the whole picture and consult a mental health professional who does a thorough differential diagnostic evaluation.
Not always. Our approach is typically to begin with a thorough evaluation so we can understand the full range of concerns, including whether ADHD may be part of the picture, and develop a treatment plan that is guided by those findings. In some cases, therapy can begin by focusing on the behaviors that are creating the most difficulty and still lead to real progress. However, because ADHD often involves additional considerations and recommendations, a comprehensive evaluation is often helpful in guiding the most effective course of treatment.
Yes. Therapy can help children develop practical skills for managing emotions, improving organization, increasing frustration tolerance, and developing more effective routines and coping strategies. Parents can also learn strategies to better support their child’s success at home. Some children benefit from medication, while others make significant progress without it. Treatment recommendations should always be based on each child’s individual strengths, challenges, and needs.
Many children with ADHD have difficulty regulating their emotions, not just their attention. Although emotional dysregulation is not included in the formal diagnostic criteria, it is widely recognized in research and by experts as a core feature of ADHD. They may react quickly before thinking, become frustrated more easily, or have difficulty shifting when things don’t go as expected. Over time, repeated experiences of struggling at school, being corrected, or feeling different from their peers can also affect self-confidence and contribute to emotional outbursts. Understanding what’s contributing to these reactions is an important part of determining the most effective treatment approach.
Children with ADHD often do best when expectations are clear, routines are predictable, and adults respond consistently. Breaking tasks into smaller steps, giving directions one at a time, providing reinforcement for expected behaviors and mild consequences for maladaptive behaviors, and allowing appropriate movement breaks can all be helpful. Because children spend much of their time at home and at school, they’re often most successful when the adults in their lives are using similar strategies and working together to support them.
ADHD counseling is a fee-for-service program which means that we require payment at the time services are provided. We would be considered an out-of-network provider and would be happy to provide you with receipts which include all of the information you’d need for submitting directly to your insurance company for your own reimbursement.
Our office is conveniently located at 259 Main Street in Chester, NJ, 07930.
Sessions are currently held by appointment only Monday – Saturday.
Your Next Steps
You absolutely can learn strategies to help your family and your child manage attention problems, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.
Knowing how much your child struggles with impulsivity and attention issues may make a calm home life seem impossible, but that doesn’t mean that your child won’t find their place in the world. They just need the support of a caring professional and evidence-based strategies while they figure out how to best manage it all.
Your child will get the tools they need to be more successful in school, build stronger friendships, and be more comfortable at home. And, they’ll also grow in self-esteem as they begin to better relate with others and better manage their emotions and behaviors.
Ultimately, your child will learn to manage the symptoms of ADHD. We can help.
Call or text (908) 883-4173 or book an appointment to schedule your 15-minute phone consult to see if we’re a good fit for your child’s ADHD treatment needs today!
Our Team
Meet our experienced & professional team
Our therapists’ commitment to providing quality treatment and giving you practical, action-oriented strategies are why we are one of the most sought after mental health practices.
