Developmental Transitions
Counseling for Life Changes
Throughout life, your family will experience a wide variety of milestones, life changes, and developmental transitions. Some of these may be difficult for your children to cope with or accept. If you suspect your child is struggling, Wellington Counseling Group specializes in working with families who are going through life changes.
Understanding Developmental Transitions for Children
Throughout a child’s life, they are going to experience many transitions. From moving houses and changing schools to divorce and the addition of a new sibling, countless changes will occur. Some are easier to cope with than others. Much of a child’s ability to handle these life changes and cope in a healthy way through them can be tied back to the emotional support they have in place.
Any major life changes—even the positive ones—can come with a heavy emotional toll for children, especially those who are sensitive to signals of instability and things outside of their control. In some cases, especially when change occurs during early childhood, the lack of understanding of their complicated word can result in increased levels of stress and anxiety. Counseling can be a great resource to support and aid your family through any major developmental transition or life change.
Counseling for Life Changes
Life changes, big and small, can have a major impact on children. When your family works with a counselor who specializes in developmental transitions, you can navigate the path of a lifestyle change and successfully cope with the emotions associated with a transition.
There are countless events that might bring a family to seek counseling for a major transition. These could include developmental milestones, such as:
- Early childhood entrance into preschool
- Entrance into middle school
- Entrance into high school
- College prep
It could also include a number of familial milestones, such as:
- Marriage and re-marriage of parents
- Birth of a sibling
- Parent career changes
- Moving house and moving away
Counseling for developmental transitions can also be beneficial when a child is moving out of adolescence and into post-high school or collegiate life. Parents can also benefit from therapy during these major milestones.
What Counseling for Developmental Transitions Looks Like at WCG
While life changes and developmental transitions are pretty straightforward on the surface, the emotions that go along with these changes are not. When a family comes to Wellington Counseling Group for therapy during or after a shift or a milestone event, we start with the same initial process as we would with any other condition.
After an initial consultation with the family to identify what everyone is experiencing, we’ll identify a therapeutic path that will support everyone involved. This may include group and individual counseling to provide the support and guidance needed to work through new milestones in a positive and constructive way.
When counselors from WCG work with patients experiencing life change, we collaborate with the family members to identify goals the family wants to achieve as they work through the changes. This helps us ensure that everyone is on the same page as we make progress forward.
