When you visit a child psychologist in Littleton for your first intake appointment, you can plan to do a lot of talking. In fact, when adults think about therapy, talking is usually the first thing on their mind. But, while clients talk, the psychologist is doing the work of listening, understanding, and validating feelings. Listening sounds like an easy task, but there’s a reason adults and kids come to see mental health specialists to listen to them. Keep reading to see how you can listen, engage, and validate like the professionals!

These Active Listening Skills Help You Hear What’s Really Being Said

Your child communicates with you all day—when they’re talking, screaming, or even just sitting there quietly. The question is, are you listening to that communication? We can expect to be “listening” when someone speaks, but what about other ways that kids communicate? Your child is not only using his words, but his tone of voice, volume level, and body language to communicate with you. Show that you are listening in the same way: match your tone and volume (or direct it to an appropriate level), maintain appropriate eye contact, and turn your body toward your child. You don’t need to “mimic” motions, but moving or sitting similarly as your child can help you connect—and yes, that may mean taking a seat on the floor. Listen closely—this is not the time to be checking a phone or finishing up some household chores.

Child Psychologists Communicate Understanding Through Feelings Validation

People of all ages want to be heard and understood. When we feel like we are not being heard, we “turn it up.” That could be a louder or more stern tone or could include other actions such as moving our bodies, making threats or demands, or expressing different feelings. If you’ve ever felt so angry that you cried, ever gotten so frustrated that you yelled, or ever resorted to statements like “If you do that one more time, I’ll…” you know how it feels to have to “turn up” the feelings louder. Therapists in Littleton recognize that nobody likes to have uncomfortable feelings, but they are a part of everyone’s life. You can’t “get rid of” a feeling, and if you or your child is trying to accomplish this goal, you may just end up feeling worse. When you work with a therapist, those feelings are accepted and validated. We help adults and children learn to tolerate these unpleasant feelings, understand their role in helping us recognize when something is causing a problem, and explore tools to solve the problem.

Try These Tools to Validate Feelings with Your Child

How can you validate feelings with your child at home? First off, start by listening actively and attentively. You don’t need to agree, but you need to truly understand what your child needs to say. Then, reflect it back to them—if you’re wrong, they’ll let you know. Stating a problem in a simple, neutral, and non-judgmental manner is a great place to start. “You’re really sad that you can’t play with your friend today” sends a very different message than “What are you crying for? Your friend can play another day!” Trying to quash those feelings just makes them worse—because with everything else a child can’t control, it’s frustrating to not even be able to “control” emotions. During the big feelings, don’t move to a solution immediately—just let the feelings happen. Once your child is calmer, then you can tackle the solution—“Now that you’ve cried out all that sadness, your eyes aren’t so full of tears and you can see the calendar. Let’s find the next time when you can play with your friend.” Even when problems seem “tiny” to you, remember: you’re a big, strong, capable adult who has lived through decades of challenges. That “tiny” problem may seem “GIGANTIC” in the moment. When you help them conquer these problems, you are setting them up for success in the future.

Listening to and validating feelings is a challenge for anyone—that’s why the best child psychologists in Littleton spend years learning and practicing our trade. For professional help with active listening, emotional validation, and coping with big feelings, find a psychologist in Littleton.

Child psychologists in Highlands Ranch hear the same complaint every day: your child can’t seem to focus on his homework or chores for more than 5 minutes, but can spend endless time working toward the next level on his video game! How are video games so motivating, and what can parents, educators, and counselors learn from them?

Video Games Don’t Punish—And Neither Should You

Bad news from science: punishment doesn’t work. It doesn’t help a person learn how to do a task, doesn’t meaningfully reduce unwanted behaviors, and increases the risk of the person disengaging or becoming rebellious. If a video game punished a player for losing, more players would “rage quit” than continue to play. So what do game designers do instead? Video games today usually use the term “respawn” or “go back to a previous checkpoint.” In real life, this looks a lot like “try again.” Your child may be frustrated to hear that her character has perished and must now “respawn at the last checkpoint,” but she’s still motivated to keep trying—all day and night! You can use some of the same principles to shape behavior.

Child Psychologists Explain Intermittent Reinforcement

If you’ve played any ad-supported phone games lately, you’ve probably noticed the trend to have a “prize of the day” or “lucky wheel” to spin for a free prize. Usually, these prizes are “worth” almost nothing, but there are a few amazing prizes mixed in, like lots of game currency or special abilities. What keeps kids (and adults!) coming back to click these low-reward boxes so often? The principle of intermittent reinforcement. Much like slot machines at a casino, or winnings on lottery tickets, there is a very low barrier to entry and the chance of a very high reward. When that reward does arrive, it’s so big and exciting that it floods the brain with reward chemicals—driving the person to come back again and again. Intermittent reinforcement makes behavior more likely—so make sure you use it to reward good behaviors, not to give in to temper tantrums.

Video Games Borrow Tools From Children’s Play Therapy

When you bring a child to see a play therapist in Highlands Ranch, you can expect the therapist to start out by making each visit as fun and easy as possible. Just like the first few levels of a video game, where “leveling up” is easy and rewards are frequent, your child’s first few play sessions are geared to increase engagement and build positive associations. As play therapy progresses, you may notice that your child’s therapist offers choices and lets your child take the lead—turns out, video game designers took notice of this as well! If you get a chance, observe your child when he first starts playing a video game. Does he go to the battle or race immediately, or check out the boosters? Does he work toward daily goals, or have his own plan? No matter what he chooses, he will see progress in the video game—and he’ll feel pride and ownership because he chose his own course. Any external goals are clearly defined and come with clearly-defined rewards and prizes, so your child can choose what is most important.

Gamification (making things seem more like games) is a tool that has shown good results in the workplace, school settings, business, and marketing—any place where “hard work” can be transformed into “good fun.” Next time you’re struggling to motivate your child, ask yourself how a video game might do it. For more tips and personalized help, call a child psychologist in Highlands Ranch.

Paying attention is hard—especially for kids! Child psychologists in Littleton know just how short little attention spans can be, and how challenging other tasks of executive functioning, such as planning ahead, paying attention to detail, and multitasking can be. Whether your child has been diagnosed with ADHD or not, try these fun activities at home to help build up these important skills.

Cook and Bake To Help Kids Practice Following Directions

Do you have memories of baking cookies with grandma, or helping your parents prepare dinner when you were a child? You probably didn’t realize it at the time, but they were helping you to learn valuable life skills! Baking in particular requires careful, accurate measurements, and attention to time. Just an extra teaspoon or a few extra minutes will turn tasty cookies into a hard, burnt mess, and these natural consequences can help children realize how important it is to stay focused on the task at hand. A tip from Highlands Ranch play therapists is to “reserve” some of the materials just in case. Ending on a successful note makes everyone happier!

Explore Natural Consequences and Reactions with Science Experiments

Is your child always asking “what would happen if…?” Indulge some of those curiosities and explore cause-and-effect when you invite your child to perform some science experiments! This could be as simple as mixing slime or homemade dough, as spontaneous as mixing leftover kitchen ingredients, or as complicated as your older child would like it to be. Whether you are performing advanced chemistry or just trying to see “will more soap make even more bubbles?” make sure to invite your child to think about and predict the reactions, then to interpret the consequences. Child behavior psychologists use similar in-vivo activities to help children understand that their actions have consequences (good and bad, sometimes explosive!) and to plan for the future.

Try “Racing” To Build Time Awareness

If your child is always running late, taking too long, or feeling rushed, it can help to improve her awareness and sense of time. Turn it into a game and you’ll be amazed at the results! Proposing a “race” (either against a parent, or against your child’s best time), can be a good way to shift the focus to speed without rushing or pressure. For example, time your child’s bedtime routine to see how fast she really can get teeth brushed and pajamas on, or measure how long it actually takes to complete homework. With repeated practice, this can help your child “sense” how long blocks of time (a minute, 5 minutes, an hour) may actually be. Since little brains are still developing, your child therapist reminds you that this can take years of practice to perfect!

Some of the games, routines, and rituals that parents have practiced with children since the dawn of time can teach valuable life lessons. If everyday interventions and tips are not enough to help your child manage life at home and at school successfully, you’re not alone. Consider working with a child psychologist in Littleton for ADHD evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment.