Why Behavior Therapy is Important for Children with Negative Behavior?

Posted by Psych Connect on November 12th, 2019

Behavior therapy is better known as a program for kids and adults to change the negative behavior that poses a great threat to them and for others including dealing with thoughts and negative feelings. It manages all types of behaviors, from learned ones to those influenced by one’s environment. To do so, behavioral therapists use a combination of techniques often used in the treatment of psychological issues.

Behavior therapy is a kind of treatment that focuses on changing the negative behaviors of an individual who can harm himself as well as on dealing with the thoughts and feelings that lead to self-destructive behavior. 

It is important to figure out whether a child is going through depression or anxiety or not. Trying to understand if their tantrums are typical or unusual is also a difficult task. Children with depression face many difficulties like regular irritability, loss of interest in activities, changes in activities, changes in eating and sleep schedule. The matter becomes worse when children go extreme and think of suicide and death. Such problems can be treated with different two types of therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT). CBT works on managing behaviors associated with anxiety and depression and DBT is designed to work with children who have problems with emotional and behavioral regulations. These types of patients need extra care as they are highly sensitive and even small incident sets them off to the intense state.

Child behavior therapy has its critics who have mentioned in Alfie Kohn’s book called unconditional parenting that rewards, punishments, and time outs have no place in parenting and suggests a whole new approach that does not have practical examples. So, the much better choice here would be the book by Fabef and Mazlish titled “‘how to Talk So Kids Will Listen and listen so kids will talk”.

Some clinics in Singapore are professionals in providing home-based behavior therapy programs for your child where your child will get individual attention and that will bring accelerated learning as well as the rapid development of skills that have come into effect after extensive research to help children develop essential skills in the areas of cognition, academics, social interaction, language, and communication.

 When you start treatment, ensure that therapy sessions are continues until the treatment goals are achieved. These sessions can be frequent and the duration depends on the patient’s needs. These sessions do often come with medication for a child to treat depression and should be taken exactly as prescribed.

You can find behavior therapists online or through a family doctor. Usually, a therapist may begin asking questions about the child and your family. Also, they will use activities to teach about feelings and how to inculcate coping skills in the child. They may have kids draw or play as a way to learn and teach techniques to lower stress and mindfulness. So, be comfortable and talk freely to a therapist.