Child Anxiety Counseling in Georgetown, Round Rock, Cedar Park
What should you expect from child anxiety counseling? Hopefully your child anxiety counseling would take place in a comfortable, non-threatening environment. I’m Brad Mason and my office is a little old cottage in Old Town Georgetown a few blocks from the square. It is not in a strip mall, not a sterile, clinical looking office setting, and does not have multiple therapists in one building. My cottage office is located on a quiet street. It is very private. It does not look like you are going to a doctor’s office, it looks like you are going to visit somebody’s grandmother, with flowers and climbing vines, indoor and outdoor meeting areas, a playscape next to the private drive where you can park.
How do we get started with child anxiety counseling? I usually ask parents to write down their questions, concerns, observations, and goals. This way I can read them quickly and we don’t have to start with your child or teen waiting in the living room wondering what we are saying about them, and doesn’t have to start by listening to a list of all their problems, the things that are “wrong” with them. Up to the age of 12, I normally meet with parent(s) and child together. 12 and up, I usually ask the teen if they prefer to meet alone, together, or start with a parent and then kick them out a little later. Teens like to have some input and control.
Next I usually find out if you or your child have any questions to ask me. Then a little small talk, like what do you live for, what do you love to do? Get them to start talking about something comfortable and not threatening. Finally I ask about what is bringing you guys here? I explain that I help people learn skills for feeling and doing the way they want more often. I describe how cognitive behavioral therapy works. Often I say it is a way the kids can use their smart brains in even smarter ways, so they can be smarter and feel the way they want more often. Kids are often reluctant to try therapy, but when I ask if they would be okay with learning how to be smarter and happier, that’s a hard one to say no to!
Cognitive behavioral child anxiety counseling is probably the most supported and validated technique in counseling methods. It involves learning to watch thoughts and question if they are really true. We learn categories of thinking errors, or irrational thoughts, such as predicting disaster when outcomes are unknown, inflating the size of a problem, overgeneralizing, and so on. We practice with some games. We learn how to detect distorted, upsetting, and untrue thoughts with thoughts that are more accurate and feel better. We talk back or replace unwanted thoughts. I instruct them in how their thoughts are what make their feelings.
Child anxiety counseling also usually includes defining stress and understanding the stress response process from a biological, mental, and behavioral perspective. We might do an inventory of stress triggers, how you know when a stress response is starting, and stress management strategies already utilized and new ones your child indicates willingness to try. I give the menus they can highlight applicable items from. I get a lot more information this way. Asked as an open-ended question, I may just get shrugs or “I don’t know.”
We might then place information about stress triggers, stress signs, stress behaviors, and stress management strategies into a graded matrix. We make a visual. Gradations are important, we want to teach the ability to detect a stress response at the initial phase before it gets blown up into a full fight or flight response, when the thinking brain is bypassed and we either run, freeze, or fight. Our first step, if we want to better manage a stress response, is we have to recognize the stress is at a level 2 or 3, before we get to a 5, when the worst stuff happens and it is too late to intervene and manage, at this point we have to wait for the body to process through adrenaline and calm down to where we can think reasonably again.
These process can be completed in 2-3 sessions. We might also talk about life in general, what situations and relationships are difficult, learn how to navigate or avoid some of the difficulties, and consider lifestyle, or preventative maintenance interventions. Like exercise, good sleep hygiene, limiting video games before bed, incorporating some daily routines that keep a person more relaxed in general.
Finally, we often need to enter what I call an accountability phase. It’s easy to teach ways to manage stress and anxiety. It can be harder to get a person to try the strategies- usually once triggered we continue to avoid or act out in predicable patterns. I do a lot of coaching with parents on providing incentives to try new strategies, and how to respond when their child is anxious. Don’t be the genius, I often say. If your kid thinks you are responsible for fixing their feelings, they may go as far as pretty much bullying and harassing a parent with their feelings to get the parent to make an anxiety provoking situation to go away. We have to teach them that only they can make, and only they can fix and manage, their feelings. So, it’s not a matter of desperately offering solutions during an episode. More effectively a matter of “Honey, it looks like you are starting to get nervous. I wonder what you might like to try doing now to help yourself feel better?”
If you are looking for child anxiety counseling in Georgetown, Round Rock, or Cedar Park areas, I hope you will schedule with me here on my website now, or call me at 512-636-6250.
I also have a video course detailing how you can help your child with anxiety, it is indexed and broken down into small bits with supporting forms and templates you can use and some questions to make sure you are focused and with me!
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline