Younger children typically communicate more through showing and doing rather than by talking and so therapy will involve playing or drawing alongside your child. With primary aged children, Kathryn can help with a school homework as a ‘way in’ to building the trust needed for more open and fluent communication. It may make more sense to a child that they are going to work with someone on an aspect of learning, for example to learn their times tables.

Once tuition is underway, Kathryn starts to access a child’s emotional or social difficulties and begins to work with these at the same time. The obvious advantage is that your child will do some useful academic learning too!

For those children who especially lack confidence with schoolwork and are therefore reluctant to have this focus, Kathryn has had success using her African drums. She can teach your child some African drumming to build rapport and energise the session with feelings of enjoyment. If a lack of self-confidence is the main concern, Kathryn can then move forward to address this, perhaps with the introduction of schoolwork if this is one area where your child lacks self-confidence. The priority is to connect in the way which best suits your child and his or her unique preferences and needs.

Often a physical complaint which seems to have no medical basis treatable by your GP, can be rooted in social and emotional difficulties or trauma. Children can often name an emotion as a physical pain or sickness. For example, what is described as the tummy ache after breakfast can in fact be anxiety about how to cope with aspects of the school day. Together with you, Kathryn can gently unpick symptoms to find and treat the root cause.

Before working with your child, Kathryn will invite you to meet or have a phone conversation with her first. This will be helpful in ‘setting the scene’ for Kathryn and for you to have confidence in how she will work with your child.

As younger children become teenagers, they are increasingly vulnerable to the negative behaviours of their peers. Social media puts pressures on young people in a way which older adults did not experience for themselves. Anxieties and loss of control commonly can be played out in terms of developing a negative body image or an unhealthy relationship with food.

Physical self-harming can be an expression of overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, or of any other negative emotion which simply won’t seem to go away.

Your child’s teens are a time of rapid change which can be as confounding for you as they are frightening for your child.

As your teenager struggles to come to terms with their sexuality, self-identity and growing independence and responsibilities, you are likely to find yourself on the ‘sharp end’ of it all, feeling sometimes bewildered by the strength of his or her negative emotions.

Kathryn will ‘get alongside’ your teenager first to understand, then to heal and finally to empower them with the tools required to move forward positively. Using a range of psychotherapeutic techniques, she will work to develop his or her self-understanding, self-confidence and compassion, whilst equipping them with ways of thinking and behaving which will help them to navigate their way through difficulties.

As with younger children, if working together for example on a piece of English homework, might serve as a useful springboard to creating trust and rapport, then Kathryn will start with this. It’s entirely up to you and can be decided through a phone conversation with Kathryn before meeting.