Child & Youth Counselling

You know your child. And you know when something isn’t quite right.

Maybe you’ve watched anxiety slowly take up more of their life.

Maybe they’re struggling with friends, school, confidence, anger, fears, intrusive thoughts, perfectionism, low mood, or emotions that seem to overwhelm them.

You may have tried talking about it. Reassuring them. Giving them space. Encouraging them. Reading about it yourself.

Sometimes it helps.

And sometimes you can be doing everything you know to do and still find yourself wondering what your child needs.

You don’t need to have the answer before we begin.

I’ve spent more than 15 years working with children, youth and families. One thing I’ve learned is that the most visible part of a struggle is rarely the whole of it.

A young person can know they’re safe and still feel afraid.

They can know a thought doesn’t make sense and still feel caught by it.

They can really want to do something and find themselves avoiding it anyway.

None of this means they aren’t trying.

It gives us somewhere to get curious.

Therapy gives us space to understand the thoughts, emotions, physical reactions, protective patterns and experiences that have become connected to what they’re going through.

Sometimes we also discover the conclusions a young person has started making about themselves along the way:

I’m too sensitive.

I can’t handle things.

I’m just an anxious person.

Something is wrong with me.

Those conclusions are worth getting curious about too, including how they became so convincing and what they may be leaving out.

Because I’m also interested in everything the struggle doesn’t tell me about your child.

What matters to them. What they care deeply about. What makes them laugh. What they’re good at. The ways they’ve already been trying to handle hard things. The qualities you know are there, even when they’ve been harder to see lately.

All of this matters in therapy too.

The goal is to help a young person better understand what’s happening and have more choice in how they respond.

What therapy can look like

With younger children, therapy may include play, drawing, therapeutic activities and sand tray alongside conversation.

With older children and teens, sessions are often more conversational. Some young people know exactly what they want to talk about. Others aren’t quite sure where to begin.

Both are okay.

There’s no expectation that a young person arrives knowing how to explain what’s happening. We can take the time to understand it together.

I also offer parent sessions when they would be helpful. These give us space to talk about what you’re noticing at home, make sense of difficult moments, and explore ways of supporting your child outside of therapy.

Therapy can be a place to understand what’s been hard, while staying connected to everything else that makes your child who they are.