You are trying your best to support your child’s academic success, but no matter what you do, your child seems to be struggling. You’ve spoken to teachers and administration. You’ve gotten tutors. Maybe just talking to your child about school can send them into an intense negative mood. Maybe they’re refusing to even go to school, and you’re not sure what to do.
Child School Issues
Their grades and/or social relationships are suffering. You know that they’re spending a large chunk of their day in school, and you don’t want them to be miserable for the duration.
Whether your child has received lower grades than you expect, detentions for misbehaviors, expulsion from schools, or your child is just angry or negative about the topic, you hate feeling helpless.
You just want your child to have a normal childhood and to actually enjoy it. You want them to have a love of learning and embrace challenges, but you’re concerned that this is not happening.
So here you are, wondering if your child’s school issues are normal or if intervention is needed.
You know that school issues are common. You remember your own issues from your childhood. You’re doing the best you can, but you know that your child’s potential is not showing. You know they’re struggling, and you worry about their future.
Signs That Your Child is Having Significant School Issues That Might Warrant Professional Help:
- Behavioral: Finds excuses to avoid school, avoids discussions about school, has trouble connecting with peers or teachers; suspensions or expulsions from school; often gets detentions; avoids or actively refuses to do homework; grades are lower than expected; schoolwork appears to be very challenging
- Cognitive: negative self-talk (“I’m dumb”), negative perception of peers, teachers, or the school environment
- Mood: gets anxious, angry, sad, or uncomfortable when going to school, thinking about school, or talking about school
When You Seek Support for School Issues from The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
- You and your child will learn how to identify factors contributing to his or her unique circumstances
- Your child will develop greater self-confidence and behavior management skills
- You will learn parenting strategies to help your child demonstrate his or her true potential
- You will learn how to help your child communicate thoughts and emotions clearly so that you can support your child
The School Issues Counseling Process
Therapy for child school issues is intended to help your child gain the skills and tools necessary to more effectively communicate what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling in addition to choosing behaviors that will be best in the long term (for example, avoidance is great in the short term but is often not the best overall decision). School issues can stem from multiple factors, so seeking professional intervention to determine the unique factors for your child are important; treatment recommendations may not be the same for each child.
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 school issues is based upon helping them handle stressors in ways that set them up for long-term success.
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 your child’s needs. For this reason, we offer a free 15-minute initial phone consult to learn more about your child’s current circumstances and to determine if we are the best resource for you. Assuming that we are a good match, you would then set up 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) or guardian(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: Therapy for Children with School Issues
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, feelings, and behaviors that they experience. 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 identify triggers, express emotions calmly and clearly in a socially appropriate way, understand short- and long-term consequences of various choices, have motivation to make the appropriate choices, and gain control of their emotions and behaviors.
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.
More About The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
As a team of licensed therapists, we are experts at teaching you to make the behavioral choices that get you closer to your goals.
We work from an evidence-based perspective. This means that our job is to help you and your child understand any struggles and provide solutions proven to be very effective. Negative thoughts, distressing feelings, and unhelpful behaviors don’t have to be part of your life, and therapy at The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management is about changing the way you think, recognizing how your beliefs are holding you back, becoming informed, seeing the world more accurately, and engaging in behaviors that you won’t regret later.
We make it our mission to help you regain control of your life by providing effective strategies supported by science. We are dedicated to being on top of the most recent knowledge and helping you solve problems based on what the research says is effective. It is our passion to educate you on what is and isn’t working in your life so that you can get back in the driver’s seat and take yourself where you want to go.
Who Benefits Most from School Issues Counseling
Therapy for children with school issues is best for those who are not showing their true potential and need help identifying barriers.
Often, the child with school issues is doing the best that they can but fighting a battle that feels impossible to win. 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 therapy for school issues if:
- They need help to regulate negative emotions
- They need to make better behavior choices
- They have negative self-confidence and/or self-esteem
- They need to build awareness of the triggers of negative emotions and behaviors
- They struggle with peer or adult 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
There are certain situations where you and 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.
What Does Therapy for School Issues Cost?
Counseling for school issues 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.
When and Where are Counseling Sessions for Behavior Issues?
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 child manage intense emotions and negative behaviors. You absolutely can help your child to build confidence and self-esteem.
Knowing how much your child struggles 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 life, build stronger relationships, 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 demonstrate his or her true potential. We can help.
Call (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 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.
