Stigmas persist about getting help from a counselor or mental health therapist. And when it’s your kid who needs child therapy for anxiety, it’s not something proudly posted on social media.

Talking to children about participating in therapy is like many other things we have to speak to our children about. Kids often take their cues from adults. If we present therapy as a place where a child must talk to a therapist, a child can feel a tremendous amount of pressure to not only please their parent but also to talk to a complete stranger about something that is already difficult to put into words. If we are tentative and worried when we talk about therapy, which can be natural because we have concerns about our child, he or she may believe there is something to worry about. If we appear to be evading questions, they may feel we are hiding something from them.

Yes, you read that right…ways you can increase your child’s anxiety. I really wish when my children were younger someone would have told me that as a parent I may be at times my child’s greatest source of anxiety.

When I think of children who are quieter, I think about clients in the past and how art therapy helped them. While I cannot tell you their confidential stories, or share pictures of their artwork, their images created in art therapy still come to my memory. Powerful images.