Thank you for scheduling a consultation! We know choosing a therapist for your child is an important decision. This guide answers many of the questions parents commonly have so that we can spend your consultation learning about your child and determining whether we’re the right fit.
Please read through all of the information on this page to learn about how our team approaches child therapy and what you can expect during your consultation call, as well as throughout your time working with us.
We will have 15 minutes together. This call is meant to be a quick call to make sure you and the therapist feel that working together will be the right fit. The therapist will ask the following or something similar:
If we determine that we’re a good fit, we’ll schedule a 60-minute intake appointment where we’ll discuss your child’s history, current concerns, strengths, family dynamics, and goals in much greater detail.
Parent involvement looks different for every child and depends on their age, developmental level, and treatment goals. Parent involvement may include:
Your therapist will discuss the level of parent involvement that will best support your child’s growth during the intake session or as therapy progresses.
We value collaboration with parents.
If there are important updates about your child’s behavior, emotions, or experiences, please share them with your therapist. Whenever possible, these conversations are best had when your child is not present so they can avoid feeling embarrassed or ashamed by what is being discussed.
Children process emotions differently than adults.
Rather than relying only on conversation, therapy may include:
Children often communicate through play before they are able to put their experiences into words. Through these activities, your therapist helps your child develop emotional awareness, learn healthy coping skills, regulate emotions, and gradually build the ability to express what they are experiencing.
Progress in therapy is often gradual. Sometimes the changes are subtle at first, but over time those small changes can build into meaningful growth. When there are strategies that may be helpful at home, your therapist will discuss them with you or invite you in briefly after a session.
“We Just Played Uno!”
It’s common for parents to ask their child what they did in therapy and hear, “We just played Uno,” “We colored,” or “We just played games.”
That doesn’t mean therapy wasn’t productive.
Children often communicate, process emotions, and practice new skills through play rather than through direct conversation. While it may look like “just playing,” your therapist is intentionally helping your child build trust, practice emotional regulation, strengthen problem-solving skills, increase frustration tolerance, improve communication, and process difficult experiences in developmentally appropriate ways.
It’s also important to remember that your child may simply not recognize all the therapeutic work that was happening, or they may choose to keep parts of their session private. Having a space that feels safe and is truly theirs is an important part of the therapeutic process.
You can trust that even when therapy looks like play, meaningful work is happening beneath the surface.
Children heal best when they feel emotionally safe.
When children feel emotionally safe rather than pressured, they are more likely to engage meaningfully in therapy and experience lasting growth.
Creating a safe, trusting relationship is one of the most important parts of therapy.
Therapists are legally required to protect the safety of their clients and others.
In Colorado, therapists are mandatory reporters and are required to report:
Therapists may also need to break confidentiality if there are concerns about:
Whenever appropriate, we will discuss these situations with you and your child before taking action unless doing so would increase the risk of harm.
Each therapist is in-network with different insurance plans.
Thank you for reading through this information! We are looking forward to the consultation call with you!