CHILD THERAPY
Depending on the unique needs of your child, their age and developmental level, we offer a variety of interventions that may involve working with the child or parents.
- Positive parenting interventions to reduce challenging behaviors, for example temper tantrums and meltdowns and to promote pro-social behavior.
- Behavioural interventions to promote independent self-care, toileting, feeding, and dressing.
- Psychological interventions for parents to support their child’s coping and social skills.
- Individual therapy (for example cognitive behavioural therapy) with children and adolescents to promote social skills, emotional resilience and self-esteem.
- Group-based therapy for children to develop emotional and social skills.
Social Skills Group
Our Social Skills Program is designed for children with autism spectrum disorder. We cover areas such as:
- Understanding friendships
- Problem solving
- Initiating and sustaining play
- Being flexible with play ideas
- Understanding other people’s perspective
- Greeting peers
- Identifying emotions
- Playing cooperatively
- Sharing
- Turn taking
- Recognizing non-verbal behaviours
The social skills programme runs for eight weeks and are taught in various age groups.
Emotional Resilience
This group is designed to help children enhance their emotional resilience and well-being. It is suitable for children who may become overwhelmed by their emotions and prone to temper tantrums and anger and frustration. The group aims at teaching children skills in managing stressful events in their life and enhance coping skills. The group will help them to understand their own emotions and the emotions of other people. The groups are taught in various age groups and are suitable for children aged 6-12. The group runs for eight weeks.
We cover areas such as;
- How to recognise simple and complex emotions in themselves and others.
- How to express feelings in appropriate ways.
- How to cope with feelings of anger and anxiety.
- How to tell the difference between friendly joking and mean teasing.
- How to manage bullying.
- How to cope with making mistakes.
- How to handle new situations and ask for help when needed.
- Problem-solving skills
The skills groups for children are purposely kept small, with a high ratio of adult support, to ensure that that we are best able to meet each child’s specific learning needs. Parents are also provided with useful information and training to assist them in helping their child to practice and further develop these skills in their daily activities. Places are strictly limited. Please contact at info@dublinpsychologycentre.ie to arrange an initial meeting. As each child may have different areas to further develop, an initial planning session is booked individually with each parent and child to set specific goals.
PARENT WORKSHOPS
Positive Parenting Workshop
This workshop explores challenging behaviour in children with autism spectrum disorder and equips parents with practical parenting strategies to reduce challenging behaviours and to promote positive behaviours. The workshop topics include using play to develop positive behaviours, visual supports, social stories, introducing reward systems and teaching your child problem solving and frustration tolerance skills.
Promoting Emotional Resilience in your Child
It is very common for children on the autism spectrum to experience greater difficulty with managing their emotions. The workshop explores emotional regulation difficulties in ASD, its’ impact on behaviour and practical strategies for helping children develop positive coping strategies. Topics include helping your child identify and express their emotions, develop problem solving skills, stress management, and strategies for preparing for change in everyday situations.
Developing your child’s social skills
This workshop is designed to help parents develop positive communication, interaction and friendships skills through an activity-based workshop. The workshop includes strategies in helping your child.
- Initiate interactions
- Respond to approaches from other children
- Cooperative play and turn-taking
- Making and maintaining friendships
- Reading non-verbal cues
- How to start, continue and end conversations and play activities with others.
- How to tell the difference between friendly joking and mean teasing.
- How to manage bullying
.