My child works with a school counselor, why would they need a therapist too?

Have you ever had that moment where you’re trying to do the laundry, clean the house, coordinate sports practice pickups, and cook dinner?  And sometimes it all gets done, and other times dinner turns into take out, clean laundry sits in the dryer, and the house is always dirty?

We’ve all been Spongebob and had Spongebob’s facial expressions too!
The same conundrum happens inside your child’s brain too, just maybe not with cooking dinner, cleaning the house, coordinating carpool, or doing laundry - though that would be nice!  

Children have so many supports and resources in their lives that are designed to help them manage ALL the things. 

These supports include:

1. Family (Parents, Grandparents, Siblings, Aunts, Uncles, etc)

2. School Counselors

3. Coaches

4. Best Friends

5. Mentors

6. Case Managers / SLPs / OTs / School Psychologists

7. Other medical providers (i.e. primary care doctor)

8. Self Help Books, Mindfulness, Yoga

But how do you know which support helps in what areas?  How do you know when these supports just simply are not helping your child with time management, academic or athletic pressure, or simply just functioning in day to day life?  We are going to break down every support your child currently might have and help you understand when mental health counseling makes sense to explore!

Our first group has a special place in my heart because in addition to being a therapist, I am also a school counselor!  I have first hand experience that shows the differences between school counseling and therapy!  School counselors are incredible and have such an impact on students in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country!  

Most professional school counselors are running around helping with crisis after crisis, teaching lessons on skills needed to be successful (whether academically, socially, emotionally, or even with sports pressures), running small skill based groups, and still finding time to meet with kids that are struggling or having a rough day individually.  

I know as an elementary school counselor, I teach lessons that help kids with so many things like growth mindset, coping strategies, and even careers.  I also help a kid that is crying because they might miss mom or dad, lost the basketball game at recess or this past weekend at a tournament, have conflict with a friend, or didn’t score as well as they wanted on their test.  

The door is honestly constantly opening to my office from the moment kids arrive to the moment the last bell rings!

School counselors can be an incredible resource for your kid no matter what age they are.  

As awesome as every school counselor is, sometimes your kid may need more though.  They could need additional help with time management, managing stress or anxiety, athletic pressures/stress or performance, or managing emotions.  

There are many times when it makes sense to take the next step to seek mental health counseling outside of the school to support your kid.  

Why should you seek mental health counseling in addition to a school counselor?

Simply put, school counselors are TOO BUSY and overworked to provide long term support to your child.  Every counselor would give your child the world if they could, but there are so many factors that make that nearly impossible unfortunately.

1. The American School Counselor Association says that for every 250 kids in a school there should be ONE school counselor.  Which is INSANE - that is not even close to enough counselors to support the needs in schools! That ratio makes it seem as if there isn’t even enough time.  In Virginia, specifically Loudoun County, it is even worse!!  The ratio is about 350/400 students to one school counselor.  So it is even more lopsided and school counselors have even less time to help each student!

2. School counselors are unable to pull your child for lengthy increments.  It is often 5-10 minutes to quickly problem solve what is happening.  

3. School counselors provide solution focused brief therapy.  In other words, they solve the problem at hand and very quickly (see number 2 above - in 5-10 minutes usually ).  There is often no big picture planning, getting to the root of anything, or working towards long term goals.  

So what can a therapist do that a school counselor cannot?

1. Provide long-term consistent therapy (weekly or biweekly).

2. Provide dedicated 50-minute sessions to help your child work on any goals that they might have.  Some examples:

   • Managing emotions

   • Coping Strategies

   • Time management (we know that playing travel ball, having a social life, AND being a full-time student is HARD)

   • Decision making

   • Managing academic and athletic pressure

   • Reaching goals (career, academic, social, athletic, etc).

3. Advocate and provide evidence for accommodations on 504 plan or specialized education through an IEP.  Collaborate and coordinate with school professionals.

4. Diagnose and treat mental health disorders.

So maybe your kid is already working with a school counselor, but still isn’t quite getting where they want to be!  A mental health professional can provide additional support in collaboration and partnership with the school counselor to work on ALL the things.  Through therapy, your child can overcome so many things and develop so many new tools!  

Maybe they’ll even be able to eventually do the laundry, cook dinner, coordinate carpool, AND clean the house - we can all keep dreaming about that 🙂

Connect with us for 15 minutes to determine if it makes sense for us to support your child in addition to their school counselor!

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