Counseling for Children: 5 Principles to Bear in Mind

There are many reasons why a family might want to make use of counseling for children. A child may have experienced a traumatic event, such as death or divorce in the family; or been a victim of abuse or bullying. Other less serious circumstances can be perceived as traumatic for a child, for example, a move to a new school or another unexpected change.

While children may be less equipped to verbalize their feelings than adults, it is important to bear in mind that counseling for children is not all that different from counseling adults. Children are people created in God’s image and sinners in a fallen world.

The struggles and desires they face are not unique to those experienced by all people, and their only hope – as with adults – is the hope presented in Jesus Christ. This reality is encouraging when considering biblical counseling for children which can sometimes be deemed inappropriate or inaccessible for younger counselees. The following five principles are good to bear in mind.

Involving parents in counseling for children is a priority.

Where possible, it is important for parents as the primary caregivers of their children to be involved in the counseling process. In some circumstances, this might not be suitable. For example, if there is an incidence of abuse by a parent or if the relationship between parent and child is strained.

It might be that the parents are immature in their faith. But if they are open to bringing their child to a Christian counselor, then it is a great opportunity for the whole family to be exposed to the redeeming power of God’s Word.

Children can grasp wisdom from God’s Word.

The Bible is accessible to every person, regardless of their education level or intellect, provided that they can hear or read the words of Scripture. While a child may be immature, God has created him or her as a whole person, with the complete capacity to be touched by the Holy Spirit at work through the Bible.

Christian counseling for children, as with adults, is about coming alongside a person in his or her suffering and helping him or her to dig into God’s Word so that the child can see the truth in it and how it applies to his or her life.

Children need to work through their suffering to see God’s character.

Counseling for children involves helping them to go through the process of wrestling with their feelings and suffering, with the eventual outcome that they can get a view of who God is, how He loves them and sent His only Son to die for them, and how they can move forward to a place of healing and hope, with God’s help.

The end game is the same: to know and love God.

God uses the disappointments and difficulties in our lives to bring us to our knees and to help us to realize how dependent we are on Him. This is because He loves us and longs for us to be in a right relationship with him.

Unlike secular counseling, biblical counseling for children focuses less on the problems we face and how they make us feel (while not in any way diminishing the importance of one’s feelings and being able to adequately express these), and more on who God is and how we fit into His magnificent plan to redeem and restore a broken world.

Tools and techniques used in counseling for children

It can be assumed that the myriad tools available for counseling for children make it a unique field of specialization. These tools and techniques are, however, just that, and have been designed to make the process of counseling easier.

Play therapy has gained wide popularity and is simply a way of helping a child access emotions and describe them so that a counselor can then assess where the child is emotionally and mentally.

In many cases, simply being able to describe how one feels can serve the purpose of uplifting the mood and emotions. In Christian counseling for children, it can be useful to ask a child to draw a picture depicting, for example, how they view their relationship with God or with another person in their family circle. Games can also be used to create a more relaxed environment, rather than the formality of speaking directly to one another.

Lastly, it is also important to remember that children, just like adults, need to be confronted with their sins, so that they can repent and grow in Christlikeness. How this is approached in counseling for children needs to be handled with care but is critical in bringing about the heart change we all need.

Contact us at Plano Christian Counseling today to learn how counseling for children can help your child.