Anna Carbone

Motivational Interviewing is a therapeutic technique used to establish rapport with children and adolescents and used to encourage positive behavioral changes. The goal is to help children convince themselves they should, can, and will change. It emphasize the importance of finding internal motivation to change thoughts and behaviors to promote positive experiences. Instead of convincing children to “want to change,” they become aware of their need to make changes in their life to experience success.

Mindfulness is a way to help children and teens slow down their thinking so they can pay more attention to their thoughts and notice what they are doing. This is the opposite of rushing or balancing many tasks at once. Instead, children and adolescents learn to take their time and become intuned with their surroundings. Mindfulness can be thought of as a relaxation strategy to help a child stay calm under stress, avoid becoming upset too easily, slow dow instead of rushing, be more patient, listen and get along better with others, pay attentio and be less distracted, and feel happier doing everyday activities. Being mindful is a great skills that allows children to feel less stressed and experience more joy.

Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) is a type of mindful psychotherapy that helps children focus on the present anf accept thoughts and feelings without judging or evaluating them. The goal is to help children move past difficult emotions to put their energy and efforts on positive healing instead of dwelling on negative feelings. ACT encourages learning coping strategies that are tailored to a child’s situation and can help them better manage challenging experiences. Children are taught strategies to help them accept situations as they occur without attempting to judge or try to change them. ACT uses mindfulness strategies to help children become more compassionate toward themself and others. By doing so, children can also free themselves from obsessing on negative thoughts so they can begin to heal and find peace.

Behavior Therapy is an intervention aimed at managing problemati thoughts and behaviors that are inadvertently reinforced in a child’s environment. As a result, the undesirable behavior may increase in frequency or intensity. The intent of Behavior Therapy is to reinforce and encourage more desirable behaviors for children and result in more positive feedback from others and more success in various situations. Parents are often crucial to helping children learn strategies to reinforce positive behaviors. Behavior Therapy can be applied to help children better manage in the classroom, at home with family, and when interacting with peers. The therapist and child will often role-play and model more desirable behavior and help children practice applying these behaviors to various situations.