When caring for your child and their wellbeing, you may sometimes feel that their needs are exceeding your knowledge and capabilities. Parents regularly seek out physicians to help with physical needs, or tutors for academic support. A child’s mental health is no different, and pursuing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents struggling to reach their full potential in Washington, D.C. can be life changing.
Helping your child learn how to engage with the world in safe and effective ways is an integral part of their development. CBT can help kids develop healthy coping skills, allowing them to regulate and respond to their emotions in more positive ways. Our skilled team of child therapists at The Wake Kendall Group will work with your child to better equip them to thrive.
CBT is an empirically supported treatment that has significantly positive impacts across many different mental health concerns, including ADHD, anxiety, depression, and behavioral difficulties. CBT works by focusing on several core principals that address maladaptive thought patterns and learned behaviors. The goal of CBT is to help children learn more positive ways of coping, which in turn helps decrease psychological symptoms and improve their well-being.
As your child engages with CBT, they will learn how to better understand their emotions and recognize cognitive distortions that may occur in their thinking process, such as which thoughts trigger their symptoms of anxiety or depression. They will learn how to identify problematic behavioral responses, and build a toolbox of more positive responses and coping mechanisms that they can utilize instead. This will help them better navigate their own experiences, as well as the experiences of those around them. By developing better problem-solving skills, relaxation techniques, and cognitive strategies, your child can better cope with and manage difficult situations that arise in day-to-day life.
At The Wake Kendall Group, we work to meet children and adolescents in the Washington, D.C. area where they are. With CBT as a framework, we engage your child at a level that is developmentally appropriate and that they can understand in order to help them learn and make measurable progress. We may use a variety of approaches to help your child including psychoeducation, behavioral incentivizing, cognitive strategies, and parent training.
Our CBT-trained clinicians use a collaborative approach to helping children and adolescents with mental health concerns in Washington, D.C. We regularly consult with parents, teachers, and other doctors in order to provide the best care. By working collaboratively, we can build a treatment plan to help your child feel more mastery over their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Watching a child struggle emotionally or behaviorally is difficult for all parents. Reach out to learn more about utilizing CBT with children and adolescents, and how your child may benefit from our services in Washington, D.C. We will answer any questions you may have and discuss the best plan to meet your child’s needs.