When a family wants to get counseling services about their child, they usually apply specifically about the difficulties they are experiencing about a subject. Some families, on the other hand, do not experience any obvious problems and just want to move forward by getting support for themselves and their child for follow-up purposes.
As psychologists, we first care about the needs of families and then try to act within the process as much as the ethical line allows. Since we have learned that our top priority principle is "doing no harm", we try to protect our families and ourselves both materially and spiritually.
Well, if we talk a little about the way I work with families and their children who request consultancy on the difficulties they experience! We can start from the issues of "separation anxiety", "not being able to get used to school" and "not wanting to go to school", which we often see especially since it is the beginning of the year. In the 3-6 age group, the most common issue we encounter in September and October and for which support is sought is the school adaptation process. What the family said: "I don't want him to develop a school phobia in any way, how can we help him adapt to school?"
During the first interview with the family, I try to take as detailed an anamnesis (life history) as possible. In a period of approximately sixty minutes, I try to learn the story of a family, their lifestyle, social structure, attitudes, and family ties. I think that all these factors had an impact in some way on the difficulties experienced.
If you have a child in the preschool period, I would say that you can think of this process as the wagons of a train. The locomotive of this train is your child. If you are having a problem with school, this represents just one of the train cars. And at this point it is necessary to move on to the existing relationship with other wagons. Relationships ranging from the child's sleep, eating and toilet routine to the behavior of family members are examined. So a problem is not just a problem. There are definitely reasons why it is related. At this point, how the family will handle the process as a whole comes into play.
Because psychologists try to organize experiences in the child's life that are not appropriate for the development level and to solve the problems that develop in relation to this, in cooperation with the family. aims to solve by doing. While we want to provide holistic support to a process that is feared to cause school phobia, families must truly believe in the necessity of this. In this process, we act with cooperation and patience.
In summary; It is very important to pay attention to another factor that each problem touches. You can't think of a problem as just a problem. A very valuable teacher of mine said the following about the treatment of anxiety: “When a person comes to you for advice with his fear of elevators, you cannot say, 'Okay, let's treat your fear of elevators.' Because anxiety is like a virus. While you think you have treated it from one point, it emerges as another anxiety from another point. Therefore, first of all, you need to make the person understand the logic of anxiety, and this is, in a way, getting to the root of the problem.”
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