PARENT CHILD INTERVENTION THERAPY IN FRANKLIN 

Increase feelings of attachment, self-esteem, & confidence with the kids in your life

Your child’s behavior keeps escalating, and you have the feeling it’s time to get help.

You feel the pressure turning up almost on a daily basis, and you feel like you’re starting to lose control of your home and lose control of your relationship with your child. You told yourself this was just a developmental phase, but things haven’t gotten better, and now you’re facing a constant battle with your child. Maybe you notice your own anger and frustration growing; maybe you’re experiencing shame about others noticing the behavior, too.

When things get too heated, too fast, too often, it’s time to seek out help.

  • PCIT stands for Parent-Child Intervention Therapy. PCIT is an evidence-based, short-term (12-20 weeks) treatment designed to help young children with highly disruptive behavior learn to control their frustration. PCIT is a positive and intensive treatment program designed to help both parents and children.

    The program works with both parents and child together in session to improve the quality of the parent-child relationship. PCIT also teaches parents the necessary skills for managing children’s behavioral problems and instills confidence in the parents.

    In a PCIT session, parents are taught and “coached” in real-time on the elements of effective discipline and child management skills.

  • PCIT is an effective intervention for treating child behavior problems such as disruptive, hyperactive, negative, and externalizing problems. It is supported by 40 years of experimental and clinical studies.

    A 2017 meta analysis concluded that PCIT has robust positive outcomes across multiple parent-reported and observed parent-child interaction measures. Read the full study here.

  • PCIT is a two-phase treatment. The first phase is called Child-Directed Interaction (CDI), which is intended to help parents become incredibly good reinforcers – learning the best ways to pay attention to desired behaviors to reinforce good behaviors when they happen. I also teach the appropriate times and ways to ignore mild disruptive or inappropriate behaviors. After mastering these skills, we move on to the discipline phase.

    The Parent Directed Interaction (PDI) phase builds on, or scaffolds, the skills you learn in the CDI phase and teaches your child how to obey more and behave better. The treatment is so well designed that we start with practicing obeying and good frustration tolerance just in the session before carefully rolling out the gains to your home setting. I will be with you every step of the way with live coaching in the session so that every session is guaranteed success. This is called errorless learning.

    Parents are given homework weekly, lasting at most 10 minutes per day. Progress is measured weekly using a standardized scale so that you can see the changes occurring on a weekly basis!

With PCIT, you can expect to see:

  • Decreased frequency, severity, and/or duration of tantrums & aggressive play

  • Decreased negative attention-seeking behaviors (such as whining)

  • Decreased parental frustration

  • Increased feelings of security and attachment to the primary caregiver

  • Increased attention span, self-esteem

  • Increased pro-social behaviors (such as sharing and taking turns)

  • Increased respect for rules and public behavior

  • Increased parental calmness and confidence during discipline

Find freedom & a renewed connection with your child.

faqs

Common questions about PCIT therapy:

  • PCIT is an evidenced-based protocol where both caregiver (s) and child attend therapy. A full intake will determine the best approach. PCIT is typically best for kids with aggressive behaviors (physical or verbal), or a child going through difficult transitions outside the typical developmental stage and between the ages of 2-7 years old. The best first step is to schedule a free consultation to discuss the protocol and see if it’s right for you.

  • I know your time is valuable. This is what you can expect: daily homework for 5-10 minutes & attending sessions weekly for 12-20 weeks. The homework is fun, though! It’s about playing intentionally with the child each day. I’ll walk you through the key things to do, but the goal is to establish attachment with the child in a way that the child understands. The estimated range of sessions is broad because every kid is different. When your family reaches the metrics needed, and you feel like you’ve achieved your goals, then we’ve accomplished what we needed, and we’re done!

  • It’s so frustrating to spend the time and money and NOT see changes in your kiddo’s behavior. Play therapy is different from PCIT. PCIT actively involves the caregiver, and the daily homework promotes ongoing progress outside of the sessions. As the caregiver, you’ll be in the driver's seat, with constant support. We’ll focus on in-session parent practice of skills, live coaching and feedback related to the skills and a plan on how to master the skills at home in between sessions.

  • PCIT is used for children 2 - 10 years old.

  • The 50-minute session fee is $150. With PCIT it’s important to meet consistently, each week.

    Payment can be made via cash, check, or card (including HSA). While I do not accept insurance, I can provide a superbill (receipt), which you can submit to your insurance for potential reimbursement if you’d like.