Connect Your Child with a Therapist That Truly Cares at LICS – Counseling and Therapy on Long Island
When a child experiences anxiety, it can affect their development, their formative memories, and potentially their experiences as adults. If your child is struggling with anxiety, or you suspect that they may benefit from mental health support, please reach out to a therapist at Long Island Counseling Services.
Our therapists will help your child feel more calm, relaxed, and in control. We use evidence based treatment plans to teach your child confidence, resilience, and the ability to control their emotions. Working with your child, we’ll help them navigate the challenges of youth and learn not only the skills to help them in adulthood, but also the ability to enjoy the present.
You can reach out to us via our online form, or call either of our offices in East Meadow (516-882-4544) or Melville (631)380-3299 to connect with one of our team members.
Does Your Child Have Anxiety?
Some children are able to voice their anxiety. They may talk about their social phobias, or their fears, or their worried thoughts. In those types of situations, parents of children with anxiety can typically recognize that their child is struggling, and know that they need to get help.
One problem, however, is that not all children are capable of voicing their feelings this way, nor does childhood anxiety always manifest the same way it does for adults. Your child may be struggling with anxiety if they:
- Appear to complain of physical symptoms like stomach discomforts when they’re not sick.
- Wet the bed or seem afraid to do tasks like go to the bathroom on their own.
- Experience dropping grades in school that cannot be linked to other academic issues.
- Show irritability in strange situations, especially before something that might cause anxiety.
- Cling onto their parents more so than one would expect for their age.
These types of signs may go unnoticed, or may not be as easily linked to anxiety. While it would be great if children could voice their anxieties the same way adults do, many children are still learning how to process emotions and better understand themselves. That may make it harder for them to express their feelings to you. As parents, we also can have difficulty differentiating between “normal” anxiety in children, and unhealthy anxiety.
Here at Long Island Counseling Services, we often emphasize that “diagnoses” are not particularly important. It’s not about “normal” anxiety vs “abnormal.” What matters is trying to determine if a child might benefit from professional help, and then giving the child the help that they need.
Why Treat Anxiety in Children?
There’s a tendency for parents to wait before seeking therapy, assuming or hoping their child will grow out of their anxieties. We know now that this isn’t exactly how it works. It is true that some children develop coping mechanisms that help them manage anxiety in adulthood, but many children with anxiety grow up to be adults with anxiety. During these formative years, it can be especially helpful to teach children resiliency now, before they get older and are no longer in your care.
Similarly, even in situations where a child is destined to outgrow their anxiety, the experiences they had in their youth will still affect them as adults. Awkward experiences due to social anxiety, bullying, trouble feeling confident in certain situations – there are many ways that our pasts as young people affect us to this day, even when our mental health changes.
Therapy addresses this. Therapy teaches critically important skills that help children as they grow, including:
- Confidence
- Resilience
- Stress Coping
- Relaxation
It helps children be more confident and brave in situations they experience in their youth and develop skills that will help them as they grow and change into adults. Our therapy for anxiety that is centered around children is evidence based (meaning, extensive research confirms that it is effective), and designed to help children both now and in the future.
Supporting Your Child with Long Island Counseling Services
Long Island Counseling Services is here to provide your child with psychotherapy that is built around them and their needs. We have a great team of therapists that understand how to support your child’s emotional and psychological wellness, and we’re happy to talk to you about their different specialties and why we are so confident in their abilities.
If you would like to get started, or want to learn more about our mental health services, please contact us today. We’d love to introduce you to our team members and get you some added help for your child’s psychological needs. We also work with adults as well, so if you would like support, let us know and we’re more than happy to talk to you about what we offer.