It is essential to help kids understand how emotions and behavior relate. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help children reframe how they view and understand things and interpret how they react to negative situations. Helping them understand that they have control over their behavior and emotions helps them gain self-control, control their emotions and gain coping skills. This article will take you through issues that can be addressed with CBT and its efficacy with kids and teens.
Childhood Issues that CBT Can Address
Cognitive behavioral therapy is used by a psychotherapist London to replace maladaptive thinking patterns with realistic ones and strategic coping mechanisms. This change of thoughts helps adjust specific issues linked to childhood and teenage. Such issues include;
- Eating Disorder
Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are psychological and common in adolescence. Most kids around six to twelve years are concerned about their weight and may develop an eating disorder later in life. So, CBT is used to address negative thoughts about weight and appearance.
- Bedwetting
Bedwetting is another common issue with kids and adolescents, usually associated with behavioral and emotional disorders. Teenagers who are bed wet have low self-esteem. CBT helps a child understand that there is nothing wrong with them and that overcoming it is possible. It also assists in removing symptoms linked to this issue, like low self-esteem, embarrassment, and anxiety. When combined with other remedies, children who go through CBT therapy are less likely to relapse.
- Self-Harm
Deliberate self-harm mostly happens in teens and is often accompanied by suicide. It can involve violent head banging among younger kids and self-cutting and poisoning in older kids. CBT teaches kids with deliberate self-harm behavior to control emotions, practice mindfulness and tolerate distress.
- Substance Use
Adolescents between the age of 12 to 17 are more likely to start substance use. Many at this age begin using drugs because of peer pressure or to cope with the psychological and physical changes they experience between these ages. CBT has proved its effectiveness in addressing substance use issues. Combined with motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy effectively motivates teenagers to change their behavior.
- Low Self-Esteem
Other mental health issues like depression, eating disorders, substance use, and self-harm among adolescents accompany low self-esteem. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in improving self-esteem among teens.
- Bullying
Bullying is a common issue among children and adolescents. It is usually characterized by intentional harm to others, power imbalance, and aggressive behavior. Bullying victims typically have self-esteem issues, sleep problems, anxiety, and self-harm. Intervention through CBT helps the victims learn how to cope and control emotions.
- Disruptive Behaviors
Disruptive behaviors like anger outbursts are common in children. A child may also have oppositional defiant disorder, which entails repetitive defiant and hostile behavior towards older people or authoritative figures. A child with ODD may depict behavior like hostility, resentment, aggression, or destructiveness toward peers, parents, teachers, and others who seem authoritative. CBT helps a child to know how to control their feelings and communicate with others in a controlled manner.
Takeaways
Cognitive behavioral therapy helps children change their perspective toward negative situations by forming positive thinking patterns. It doesn’t teach about eliminating negative emotions but about understanding.
