Therapy with Children and Teens

When working with children and teens, parent involvement is one of the most important factors in successful treatment. Anxiety and OCD never impact a child in isolation—they always try to pull in people around them. Over time, families can unintentionally get pulled into the cycle by providing reassurance, changing routines, or helping a child avoid uncomfortable situations. These well-intentioned responses can actually strengthen anxiety and OCD rather than weaken them.

By involving parents in the process, we can identify the subtle ways anxiety shows up at home and how it tries to recruit “teammates.” This allows us to build the most effective strategies that reduce accommodation, strengthen coping skills, and support your child in facing challenges with confidence. Parent involvement also ensures we have a more accurate and complete understanding of your child’s struggles across settings, leading to more effective, lasting change.

You don’t need to have all the answers or know how to fix things. Your role is to be part of the team—learning alongside your child and helping create a supportive environment where new skills can truly take root.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • That’s actually fine and I encourage parents to come without their child at times, even when their child is willing to attend. There is so much we can do whether they are ready to cooperate or not.

  • Siblings have an entirely different relationship than that of parent/child and often offer valuable perspective on family dynamics. Typically, they don’t share the emotional reactivity of parents, making them objective observers. Their input can shed light on how the problems bringing you in to therapy are having an impact that might not be immediately noticeable.

    Sibling involvement is in no way mandatory.

  • It’s not. And you’ll never need to convince me that you’re a good parent. I have children of my own who I have been worried about, embarrassed by, and snapped at out of frustration. I empathize completely with feeling lost and like nothing you’ve tried is working. What I don’t want is for your family functioning to be dependent on your child’s cooperation, no matter how old they are.

    The truth is that a lot of things that work in the moment actually make anxiety worse in the long run. Of course, you’d have no way of knowing that. I want to illuminate patterns that might be keeping you stuck so you can get back to enjoying your family.

  • I understand that children and teens don’t always want to disclose certain information in front of their parents and I am happy to offer a space for this from time to time.. However, I have found that it is all to easy to fall into the habit of “venting” for a majority of the sessions with only minimal input from parents. This type of talk therapy rarely leads to meaningful change outside of the sessions and can even make problems like anxiety worse in the long term.

  • Yes. I am familiar with the needs of ADHD and ASD and the behavioral challenges that come with them.

    I do not subscribe to “low demand” parenting methods.

  • No. I do not do play therapy, which can be very effective for children who have suffered trauma.

    I do keep some fidgets and games in my office, but these are not the focus of the session.