Children's Mental Health Counseling Center

The Children's Mental Health Counseling Center is neither a "correction center for troubled children" nor a parent-child paradise for coaxing children to play. It is a professional psychological support hub for children, adolescents and families aged 0-18 years old. From separation anxiety when just entering kindergarten, students' exam pressure, communication conflicts between parents and children, to post-hospital rehabilitation for diagnosed mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, etc., you can find suitable support solutions here.

When I was on duty at the front desk of the center last Wednesday, I met a mother in a jacket half dragging a boy of about 10 years old inside. The boy was holding on to the corner of his school uniform and burying his head. The tips of his exposed ears were bright red. As soon as the mother sat down, she hurriedly said: "Teacher, please help him quickly. Is he suffering from depression?" Last week, I had a fight with my classmates and refused to go to school. I didn't even eat at home with the door closed. ”

Teacher Zhang, who was on duty that day, was not in a hurry to ask the child questions. He first took a small Tyrannosaurus rex ornament from the sandbox and handed it to him and said, "I picked it up when I was packing up toys a few days ago. It is said that its roar can scare away unhappy things. Do you want to try it?" ”I squatted on the ground with the child and played with dinosaurs for ten minutes, without mentioning school or asking about the details of the quarrel. Later, the child said that his deskmate had lost the limited-edition pen, and the class teacher said it was him who took it without checking. He stood in front of the classroom for ten minutes as a penalty, feeling that everyone was watching his joke. It was not that he didn't want to go to school, but he was afraid that he would be called a "thief" as soon as he entered the classroom.

Speaking of which, there are actually quite a lot of divergences in the industry's thinking on children's psychological intervention, and there is no "standard answer." Some centers follow the path of psychoanalysis, most often using sand table, painting, and game therapy. They feel that children cannot express emotions as accurately as adults. Those "problem behaviors" such as nail biting, bedwetting, and losing tempers are essentially signals sent by the subconscious. You must accompany the child slowly to dig out the emotions hidden under the behavior. There is no rush. ； Some CBT has a cognitive behavioral orientation, which is more focused on short, flat and quick results. For example, if a child has test anxiety, just teach him abdominal breathing and tips on dismantling catastrophic thinking. Obvious changes can often be seen after three or four interventions, which is suitable for situations where symptoms need to be relieved quickly. ； Others focus on systemic family therapy. When the child comes, they don’t talk to the child at all. Instead, they invite the parents and even the grandparents who live together to the consultation room. They look at the tone of the family’s conversation, their sitting positions, and who interrupts who. They feel that the child’s problem is never a problem of one person, but the contradiction of the entire family system falls on the child.

Of course, the saying that "children's psychological counseling is an IQ tax" has been repeated in recent years, and this statement is not groundless. I have seen many people who have not even systematically studied child development psychology. They dare to open a studio after taking a three-day training certificate, make dozens of pages of psychological scales for 6-year-old children, label them as "ADHD" or "autism" after just asking a few questions, and then recommend intervention courses worth tens of thousands of dollars to parents. This kind of institution should really be scolded. However, formal centers have a strong sense of boundaries. Our center’s rules for receiving new cases are that the first two times we receive new cases are only assessments without intervention. We must talk to the parents clearly about the child’s developmental history from birth to the present and the family’s parenting model. We must play with the child for at least an hour to observe his behavioral reactions. If necessary, we must first ask the parents to go to the psychiatry or developmental department of a regular hospital for diagnosis. We will never draw conclusions for the child at the first meeting, let alone say “keep it in check”.

There used to be a 5-year-old girl who bit her nails until all ten of her fingers bled. Her mother took her to a consultant who specialized in CBT and made a reward chart. If she didn’t bite her nails for a day, she would put a small red flower on it. If she saved up ten, she would buy a toy. Within half a month, she relapsed and bit more fiercely. Later, when she came to our place and played house with her, every time she played "mom", she would put her hands on her hips and say fiercely to the doll: "If you don't obey me, I won't want you anymore." We learned that her parents were getting divorced at that time. When they quarreled, she would say to her, "If it wasn't for you, I would have died a long time ago." Her nail biting was not a bad habit at all, but she was afraid that she was "not good enough" and her parents would really want her. Later, we brought her parents over for two months of home tutoring. The little girl's nails slowly grew out. When she came for a follow-up visit last time, she even raised her hands to show us, saying that she could now play her favorite "Little Star".

The biggest misunderstanding that many people have about our industry is that "only sick children will come." Last month, a girl in the second grade of junior high school secretly called our consultation hotline three times before she dared to come over wearing a mask and hat. She said that she had been suffering from insomnia recently and could not concentrate in class. She was afraid that her classmates would see her here, and she felt that she was "crazy." In fact, half of the courses in our center are not for children with "problems" at all, such as adjustment groups before school starts, emotional expression groups that teach children how to say "no", and "whisper chat rooms" for adolescent children. Many children come here just to find a place where they can talk quietly for half an hour without worrying about their parents' faces or being called "pretentious" by their teachers.

When I got off work last week, I happened to meet the 10-year-old boy who refused to go to school. He was holding his mother's hand and jumping out. The T-Rex keychain that Teacher Zhang had given him was hanging on his schoolbag. In fact, to put it bluntly, there is no magic in our place. It is just a small warehouse for children to store their emotions. The grievances that cannot be told to parents, the small thoughts that are not dared to talk to classmates, and the overwhelming pressure can all be put here temporarily. We can help sort them out, dust them off, and the children can move forward lightly.