Therapy
Meeting a new adult and being asked about the hardest things at once is a lot to carry. The pictures below let the child get familiar with the therapy visit before it actually happens.
♂Child and adult playing
An adult and a child sit on the floor playing with building blocks. A thought bubble with an upward arrow and a sun appears above them.
♂Child meditating
A child sits cross-legged with palms facing up. Above the child's head are icons representing a brain and a heart, along with thought bubbles.
♂Therapy puzzle
A man and a child are sitting at a table doing a jigsaw puzzle.
About this visual support
A first therapy session often piles unfamiliar things on top of each other: new adult, new room, and questions about the very thing the child would rather avoid thinking about. Expecting them to open up on cue is unrealistic, which is exactly why it helps to move as much of the external frame as possible into pictures before you go.
Walk through the images at home in a calm tempo. Show what happens first, what may come next, and where you go when it is over. The child does not have to say anything about the content of the conversation, only recognise the frame. Less energy goes to the format of the visit, and more capacity is left for what is actually hard. A tip that often works: agree in advance on a word or gesture that means pause now, so the child owns some of the pace even when someone else is asking the questions.
In Routined you can save this sequence as a recurring routine before each visit, so the preparation looks the same every time.