When to seek help

[Beccir88]

Hey all,

Hoping to get some advice and pointers in relation to my 8 year old.

Me and her dad are separated and have been since she was a baby. She still sees him on some weekends but he isn't very hands on or emotionally involved and most of the time on his weekends she is with his other half, not that that is a bad thing but you can tell she is craving his attention.

As she is growing up it is becoming more apparent that she is very closed off with her feelings when it comes to him and just not open in general as she is a people pleaser and worried that she keeps a lot of thoughts and feelings in and worries if she does say what may be on her mind she will upset someone.

It has crossed my mind to seek counselling/therapy for her so she has an outlet but don't even know where to start.

She has had a few issues in school with friends l and I want to make sure she is able to speak up for herself with out worry. I know this an important time in her life and want to make sure I do everything in my power to support her and she grows up to be a well balanced child.

Any advice and experience on this topic is welcome!

Thanks

[Chatterboxnz]

It may be helpful to seek therapy but the type of therapy matters. Also some people respond better to therapy than others.
There is a connection between thoughts, feelings and behaviours (ie: how you think will determine how you feel and how you behave).
By what you have said you are concerned with her ability to express her feelings and her confidence in sticking up for herself.

You could try actively modelling your feelings over things (include a range of emotions and reasons, you can phrase it like "it makes me feeling when explanation") it may also be helpful to say something like "I know I am emotion because *physical response) (Eg I know I am angry because I feel hot and my body feels tight) this may encourage normalising expressing feelings and also provide her with emotional cognition (the ability to think about and recognise her emotions). Sometimes people actually have difficulty pinpointing what they are feeling and don't realise they can actually feel more than one emotion at a time.
During this process, you can open it up to your daughter too by asking "have you ever felt that way?" this may encourage her to begin to open up a bit about what is going on. Make sure she knows that it is fine for her to talk about her feelings. When she does tell you something, it may actually clearly be wrong as often children (and people) can think and feel things with no logic behind it.
In that case, say "thank you for telling me. I am pleased that you have opened up to me. I know you are thinking that eg your dad loves his girlfriend more than you but sometimes people don't know how to express their feelings and can't recognise how other people are feeling either. Maybe your dad thinks that what he is doing is fine and you are happy. Do you think we should find a way we can talk to him about this? "

Private message me if you need more information. Sorry it is a lot harder to pass information on the internet without any interaction. I may be able to put together some worksheets for her.

Lisa (Dip child and adolescent psychology, BA applied science psychology, PGDip education guidance and counselling, current BA statistics and educational psychology)