The parents of the children I treat are usually, or hopefully, a very large and important part of the therapeutic process. Of course, some parents just want me to fix their child! And this is ok, too. Parents can decide how involved they wish to be in their child’s therapy, but it has been my experience that the parent’s involvement does indicate a better outcome for the case or the problem that was brought to me initially.
If the parent(s) decide to be involved in their child’s therapy, there at least three options: the first option is to have their child begin therapy, be it once, twice or three times a week (these being the most common), while the parent(s) meet with me for sessions that can vary in frequency between once per week to once every 4-6 weeks. These are important sessions that, while not being like regular psychotherapy, can be therapeutic in that they provide parents with time to explore their relationship to their child, examine progress at home and in therapy, and explore parenting issues that they may be wondering or worrying about.
The second way of including parents in their child’s therapy is parent-child psychotherapy, in which one or both parents are invited into the play room with their child to explore the problematic issues directly. This includes discussion and exploration with your child, but also involves playing with your child, as play is considered one way of facilitating a healthy relationship between any two people, but especially parent and child. Parent-child psychotherapy sessions can replace the child’s individual therapy sessions, or can be alternated with the child’s sessions, depending on the needs of each individual case. As the parent-child psychotherapy continues, meetings alone with the therapist to discuss progress and parenting issues occurs at a varying frequency.
The third option is to begin parent counselling sessions in which the problems are explored with the therapist, without directly including your child in the process. This approach views the parents as capable of faciliating change in their child with the therapist's support and expertise. It is not uncommon to meet with parents for a number of sessions, while important changes begin to slowly occur in the home environment.
