Emotion coaching is a person-centred technique to help children understand and manage their emotions.
The session lasts one hour and there would be at least 6 sessions.
There are various stages to becoming an emotionally literate person and teaching these skills to children as young as possible enables them to grow in a mentally healthy way.
The process, over a number of sessions includes recognising emotions, labelling them and sitting with uncomfortable emotions.
Actively listening to your child and validating what it is they are feeling.
Through empathic listening we then set about problem-solving and coming up with positive strategies together.
We explore self-regulation, what it means to them and importantly what works for them in moments of heightened emotions.
In this way, my child-led approach will result in a more emotionally empowered child who is ready to the face daily challenges of modern life.
The sessions last 1 hour and the content will differ from child to child, but here is an outline of a typical sessions:
Drawing and Talking is a safe and gentle therapeutic intervention. Through a 12-week cycle of 30-minute one-to-one sessions, this non-intrusive tool allows children from the age of 5 to process emotional pain.
The child utilises drawing as a way to help them express their feelings differently from ordinary verbal language.
The Drawing and Talking therapeutic intervention allows individuals to discover and communicate emotions through a non-directed technique.
This is what sets Drawing and Talking apart from existing solution-focused and cognitive-based therapies and interventions.
For 30 minutes on the same day, time and place each week, during a 12-week intervention a child and the Practitioner meet for a session. I ask a number of non-intrusive questions about their drawings, and over time a symbolic resolution is found to conflicts and trauma begins to heal.
Work with an individual is carried out safely and non-intrusively, with respect for their pace and their state of being. This intervention helps to build healthy attachments and helps to process emotional pain.
Once an individual feels safe and the Practitioner has created a secure attachment, their imagination begins to unfold. Based on Jungian principles, they will be guided through the power of healing when working with the unconscious.
After completion of the Drawing and Talking therapy, individuals are more able to control their behaviour and most importantly have higher self-esteem, allowing them to thrive in the world around them.
I have seen how transformative Drawing and Talking therapy can be for children and believe that all types of trauma can be healed in this way e.g. family break up, movement of schools/home, loss of a family member, illness, bullying, complex trauma and community violence.
Sand play is a 12 week child-led play therapy that helps a child to process difficult emotions or traumatic feelings in a safe, unintrusive way.
Each session lasts 45 mins – 30 mins for the sand play, 10 mins before the play for a catch up and chat and 5 mins after to talk about how the session has gone.
I have a sand tray box in which your child places a number of figures and objects that I have on offer to them.
By being curious about their choices of objects and encouraging the stories which are played out in the sand tray, I can sit alongside them and we go on an ’emotional journey ‘ together.
No real world questions are asked, and in this way your child feels safe to explore any emotions that arise in the third person and at a pace that suits them.
Children with SEN find this therapy easy to access and particularly effective for emotional regulation.