Counseling children

1. Counselling children
Art, sand tray and play therapy

2. Art therapy with children

3. Sand tray therapy with
children

4. Session with parents or
parent

5. Session with parents

6. Initial session with
parents or parent
 First session with the parents or parent to
get information about the situation that
doesn't need to be talked about in front of
the child

7. Parents – initial session
 What works well?
 What doesn't work
well?
 Family background
 Are parents together
 Are parents separated
 Are they re-partnered
 Step parenting issues
 Parenting disagreements
 Boundaries
 Strengths and talents
of the child
 Hobbies
 Issues with siblings
 Issues that brings child
to counselling:
  emotional
  behavioural

8. Who will benefit from
counselling? The parent (s)
child / whole family
 Assessment of who
will benefit most.
 What are the
issues?-
 Do they relate to the
parenting or
surrounding
situations between
parents
 Child’s issues
 Behavioural
 Emotional
 At home
 At school
 With friends
 With separation from
parent ?

9. Child’s emotional signs
 Fears: fear of monsters
 Nightmares
 Fear of new things, fear of going to school, fear of visits
etc
 General anxiety
 Sadness: crying a lot, being clingy at separation of
parents, after moving house – loss of friends
 Anger and aggression: throwing things, generally
angry after certain events, towards certain people,
 acting out, destroying toys, hurting siblings, pets etc

11. Child’s behaviour
 Aggressive behaviour: kicking things, destroying things
like toys,
 hitting or kicking others, siblings friends etc
 Bullying others ,
 acting out at school
 Not listening
 Not obeying, being disrespectful to others
 Back chatting to parent (s)
 Not wanting to go to school: being bullied by other kids,
 Shyness and feeling anxious about going to school,

12. Play is therapeutic in
itself

13. What is play and sand tray
therapy and how does it
work?
 Sand tray therapy has been developed by a
Jungian therapist over 50 years ago.
 She found that this kind of therapy is a non –
intrusive, non-judgemental approach to help
the child express itself
 Play is the natural language of a child
 It works often on a symbolic level and lets
children work inner and outer conflicts out in a
non threatening way

14. Self directed play
– story telling
 Figurines are placed in the sand tray
 The child either talks or is silently placing
figures in the sand and moving them
around
 I ask about the story and who is in the
story

16. How it works
 Fears can be externalised as a dragon or
monster in the sand tray
 Sadness can be expressed by choosing
a figurine that looks sad – or by isolating
a figure
 Anger can safely be expressed
(motorbikes or warrior figures often help)

20. Kids skills
 Kids skills
 Learning to have courage
 Learning to challenge fears
 Turning fears into challenged that can be
overcome
 Creating support to help challenge fears
 Reward system