Children’s Counselors in Midland, MI

Heal & Restore Connection

As parents, you want nothing more than to see your child happy, thriving, and full of life.

When your child has experienced trauma or is having difficulty processing through emotions, that joy can seem distant. You might notice changes that leave you feeling worried and unsure.

Watching your child struggle with feelings they cannot explain and wounds they cannot express is one of the hardest things a parent can face. It can leave you feeling helpless. But you don’t have to navigate this alone.

We are here to walk this journey with you.

We begin by taking the time to truly understand your child’s experiences through an initial assessment. This process allows us to gain insight into their unique challenges, emotions, and needs, creating a foundation of understanding and trust.

From there, we work collaboratively to set goals tailored to your child’s specific situation. These goals are designed to foster emotional healing, rebuild confidence, and help them feel safe and supported.

With those goals in mind, we partner with you to develop a plan that guides your child’s journey toward healing and growth. Through proven approaches, we create a space where they can feel understood, regain trust, and rebuild their emotional well-being.

We also believe in supporting you as parents. You’ll gain tools to help your child heal and restore the connection you both need.

Together, we will help your child find their way back to feeling safe, confident, and full of joy again.

Childrens Therapy

As parents, we often wish we could protect our children from anything traumatic. The unfortunate reality is that we live in a world where children are often exposed to loss, hardship, abuse, and sadness. How do we help them to cope when life feels overwhelming?

Many children cope with emotional pain through behaviors such as tantrums, defiance, and/or withdrawal and isolation. Helping children heal involves time and patience on the part of both the parent and the therapist, and children’s therapy can look very different from adult therapy.

It often takes a therapist numerous sessions to simply gain the trust of a child. While it may seem to the outside eye that no “work” has been done, trust building is a huge part of the therapy process. If the therapeutic environment does not feel safe to a child, no real gains can be made.

In addition, the therapist often spends time working with parents, helping them to incorporate skills to build closer relationships with their children.

Play Therapy

Mental health treatment also involves understanding the developmental differences between children and adults. While adults generally organize their experiences through words, children tend to process their experiences through play. This is why play therapy is a mainstay for effective counseling. The therapist helps the child to build connection, work out problems, and build a sense of safety through play.

EMDR

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a therapy often utilized to treat adults with PTSD and anxiety. However, with adjustments for developmental differences, EMDR can be an effective tool for children. EMDR utilizes bilateral stimulation in the form of eye movement, tapping, or music to help the brain to process traumatic events (See the video under EMDR therapy on this website). EMDR helps the brain to release trauma and bring understanding and closure to the experience.