Therapy for Behavioral Disorders

Connect with a Child Therapist Specializing in Behavioral Disorders

Behavioral disorders can turn the fulfilling journey of parenting into a demanding ordeal and create a challenging world for your child or teenager. If you find your child frequently wrestling with behavioral or emotional issues, it could be a sign of a clinical behavioral disorder. Collaborate with a therapist to help unravel and rectify your child’s challenging behaviors.

Is Your Child Experiencing a Behavioral Disorder?

All children have instances of challenging and defiant behavior or explosive emotions. It's part of their learning process, as they need to be born with an understanding of how to manage intense, often confusing emotions. Tantrums, whining, yelling, defiance, and aggression are ways they communicate their feelings and attempt to gain some control.

So, how do you distinguish between typical (though problematic) behavior and potential signs of a behavioral disorder? For example, diagnosing a child with a behavioral disorder involves looking for behaviors that deviate from the norm for the child’s developmental stage, occur frequently, and cause significant issues for the child and others. If these criteria persist for at least six months, the child may have one of the following behavioral disorders:

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• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): the child grapples with hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, and difficulties focusing

• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD): the child frequently exhibits anger, irritability, argumentativeness, defiance, and vengefulness

• Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED): the child often has emotional outbursts, lacks anger control, and may exhibit violent tendencies

• Conduct Disorder (CD): the child may consistently break the rules or laws, show disrespect or harm towards others, destroy or steal property, lie, or engage in bullying