Behaviors of Concern in the Child
The child in context has emotional communication which is anger-driven. He is constantly isolating himself among other peers, even in academic activities. At home, he has become aggressive towards his siblings and has exhibited non-compliance behavior to the parents when asked to commit to specific chores. When he angrily admits to do the assigned work, he does it repetitively in a rough and disorderly manner. The parent complains that the child has become different socially exhibited by reduced friendships and social interactions both at home and at school.
The adolescent in context shows signs of depression with more integration into peer pressure activities such as drugs and substances. Also, the adolescent has different sexual and social patterns. Class performance has greatly reduced, due to absenteeism and school suspensions. Teachers have complained of attention deficit and emotional communication and attitude being displayed by the student. She has exhibited a more solitary behavior with issues related to lowered self-esteem and sleep deprivation.
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Techniques Used on the Child
Family therapy. The counselor incorporated the parent into the scheme of counseling. Due to his age and the fact that the child spends more time with the mother, the counselor issued instructions (including videos) and guidelines on how to positively change the child’s behavior. The instructions were: properly guide and explain the relevance of the chores and tasks to the child, reward or give prizes when in positive behavior, teach on negatives of bad behavior and set the rules by being an example.
Play therapy. The counselor incorporated game plays to enable the child to learn the proper anger management techniques while improving communication.
These techniques were used as the child is in his early developmental stage where instructions can be easily followed and the child can be easily and cognitively tuned by games, entertaining videos and plays ( Shechtman, 2017) .
Techniques on the Adolescent
Adolescents may choose and decide not to respond to instructors, may give false information and may need more independence (non-invasive approaches) to effect good behavior ( Thompson, 2015) . Therefore, the counselor used the following techniques:
Negative self-talk replacement. The adolescent is given time to think and write down what she thought about her life and social status. Later, the counselor would replace all the negative quotes and ideas the adolescent had in her mid through cognitive behavioral therapy guidelines in session training.
In relation to substance abuse, the counselor placed the adolescent in a group support (therapy). There, she learned through peers, modeling and group counseling which are effective in raising self-esteem and enhancing social interaction.
According to the family systems theory, understanding a behavior is collective rather than individual ( Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016) . Since the family is a single emotional entity, systems and members are clearly interconnected therefore raising different concerns. However, there are two major concerns in clinical interventions in family contexts: consent and confidentiality. The two arise based on different individual needs and interests in relation to the therapy and family matters. Some issues such as an adolescent’s sexual behavior and other information shared in private may greatly affect the choice and course of family interventions. This can be managed by integrating personal ethics and upholding confidentiality while developing a broad-based intervention. Clinicians, also face informed consent issues which can result to more family issues. Therefore, each member should be well integrated with proper consent in an intervention process.
References
Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. D. (2016). Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions . John Wiley & Sons.
Shechtman, Z. (2017). Group counseling and psychotherapy with children and adolescents: Theory, research, and practice . Routledge.
Thompson, R. A. (2015). Counseling techniques: Improving relationships with others, ourselves, our families, and our environment . Routledge.
