The Child and Family Clinic: Articles
Filial Therapy is a strange title for a therapy that helps to improve relationships between children & their parents, it also has a knock on effect in that it also improves the children’s behaviour both at home and at school. It works best with children of age 3-12 years So here’s how to do it!
The aim is to become more ‘attuned’ to your child by giving them undivided attention for 15-30 minutes or so, depending on your other time commitments. The parent explains to the child that the time is specially for the child and that it will last x minutes, for a young child it may be helpful to use a timer or show where the hands will be on the clock when the session ends. Ideally sessions should be daily, and this will show faster results, but this is the real world and for many parents this will not be possible. However it is important that your child knows when and how often the session will be. It is important that the sessions happen regularly and do not get pushed out for other things.
There are a few rules, no one must get hurt, and things must not be broken. If this does happen the session should be ended until next time.
The child chooses the activity and the parent follows the game without any criticism or issuing instructions, allowing the child to lead the play session.This is surprisingly hard to do, as parents we often want to advise our children or simply make suggestions about how something might be done better. For the duration of the session, the parent ‘goes along’ at the child’s pace and request, and puts aside checking computers, mobiles and any other distractions.
It is best to do this for 8 weeks or so to really begin to notice a difference, though many parents report changes surprisingly quickly.
My Background
I have four children and four step-children so I know that family life can be challenging.
I believe that good relationships are very important for the emotional wellbeing of all family members, and for the healthy development of children and teens.
When families work together, this can have a positive impact on everyone.
I also work with parents towards finding ways of co-parenting through separation and divorce so that children do not have to suffer from their parents’ differences.
To get in touch any time, call 07780 653588, email me, or click here to view full contact details.