Children & teens
Before asking a young person to change, understand what their experience is saying.
Children and teens communicate in many ways: through words, behavior, silence, school, relationships, play, frustration, and the ways they adapt to the world around them.
Experience
Decades with children.
I have been working with young people since I was 17. That path went through a preschool classroom and a Waldorf kindergarten, the Child and Family Team at Jackson County Mental Health, work with teens in the juvenile system at Community Works, and 21 years as a Child Development Specialist in the public schools, with a small private practice alongside it and years of teaching parenting classes.
What that time gave me is a sense of range. A behavior that alarms one family is ordinary for a particular age. A quiet child in one setting is a different child somewhere else. Before deciding what a difficulty means, I want to understand where this young person is in their own development and what the world around them is asking of them.
My work with children often involves therapeutic teaching stories that address anxiety, sadness, friendship struggles, and how to manage conflict and anger. Play, drawing, and stories give a young person a way to work with something difficult without having to explain it directly.
- At 17
- Began working with children
- Preschool
- Classroom teacher
- Waldorf
- Kindergarten teacher
- Jackson County
- Child and Family Team, Jackson County Mental Health
- Community Works
- Teens involved in the juvenile system
- 21 years
- Child Development Specialist in the public schools
- Parents
- Taught parenting classes
What families notice
Families often reach out when something has shifted.
None of these are diagnoses. They are the everyday signals that make a parent think it may be time to talk with someone.
- school feels harder than it used to
- a child seems overwhelmed, worried, or discouraged
- big emotions are creating conflict at home
- something painful or frightening has happened
- a teen feels misunderstood or disconnected
- ADHD affects routines, school, or family relationships
- a transition is difficult
- parents are unsure how to respond
Working with parents
Parents are part of the context.
When I work with a child or teen, I also want parents or guardians to understand how communication and involvement will work. The right level of parent participation depends on age, context, and what will best support the work.
We talk about that at the start rather than leaving it unspoken. A ten-year-old and a seventeen-year-old need very different arrangements, and it helps everyone when those expectations are clear before we begin.