Behavioral Therapy

Behavioral Therapy involves minimizing anxiety, learning alternative ideas and learning that feelings and moods alter behavior. The connections between our thoughts and our actions are powerful.

Behavioral therapies for children and adolescents primarily focus on how some problematic thoughts or negative behaviors may unknowingly or unintentionally get reinforced within a young person’s environment. These undesirable thoughts and behaviors often increase due to the contribution of the reinforcement. Through Behavioral therapy, children and adolescents are encouraged to try new behaviors, reward desired behaviors, and to allow unwanted behaviors to be ignored.

Like most therapy programs at SOL PPEC,  we look to extend the knowledge to the child’s home. That is why a key focus is to develop and teach parents how to reinforce desirable behaviors in their children, discourage unwanted behaviors, and improve parent-child interactions. In this form of therapy, the parents play a significant role in treating their children’s behavior problems. During the therapy sessions, parents learn how to carefully observe their children’s behaviors at home and are taught skills to reward their children’s positive behaviors by using praise, positive attention, and rewards. They are also taught to use rule-setting, time-out, and ignoring to discourage bad behaviors.