Behavioral management services for children and adolescents are important components of mental health service system. Behavioral management is a direct service designed to help develop or maintain pro-social behaviors in the home, school, or community.
Most children have occasional tantrums or meltdowns. Acting out when it’s time to go to bed or stop playing a game is problem off course. However, when children are having tantrums often more frequently, or seem like they can’t control their temper a lot of the time, you may be seeing something more extreme than typical problem behaviour. AWC Dubai specializes in Behaviour Management for Children and Young Adults.
Here are some signs to look out for:
If you are worried about your child’s behavior and are having a hard time managing it on your own, making an appointment with a clinician who has expertise in children’s mental health can be very helpful. At American Wellness Center, our highly qualified psychologists and neuro psychologists are fully trained to perform a comprehensive evaluation to determine whether your child may have an undiagnosed mental health disorder which is contributing to the child’s behavior issues, or recommend specific strategies or treatments that might be helpful.
Below is a list of some mental health disorders and other challenges that may be associated with disruptive behavior:
At American Wellness Center based in Dubai Healthcare City we offer effective family-centered, school-based, and integrated interventions for behavior management of children and adolescent. We have specialized behavioral management therapist who assess and diagnose child or adolescent to develop specific behavioral objectives and interventions to improve specific behaviors. The behavioral management treatment plan may also include safety plan to identify risks that are specific to the individual. Behavioral management professionals work in partnership with family members or teachers to implement a behavioral plan and monitor the child’s behavior and progress.
Our highly skilled therapists offer three basic models of behavioral management interventions.
Our western trained professional child psychologists offer tested and evidence based parent training programs which are specially designed to create the skills parents may need for managing a child’s problem behavior and improve the parent-child relationship.
Parents and children both participate in PCIT sessions, during which a well trained and qualified clinician from American Wellness Center teaches them skills to interact in the best possible, positive, and productive way. It is effective for children between the ages of 2 and 7, and usually requires 14 to 17 weekly sessions.
In PCIT, parents receive live coaching from a therapist who watches from behind a one-way mirror as they and their child perform a series of tasks, and parents practice specific responses to both desired and undesired behavior.
In PMT, which is for children ages 3 to 13, parents are usually seen without the child present, although children will be asked to participate in some sessions. Skills to deal more effectively with challenging behaviors are taught and modeled by experienced and qualified psychologist and then role-played with parents. After each session, parents are expected to practice the skills at home. Families usually participate in at least 10 sessions.
Since PMT is appropriate for all ages, it’s a good choice when children are too old for PCIT. It can also be a good option for families where the parent-child relationship is strong, but children might be struggling with things like anxiety, extreme impulsiveness, or explosive anger.
The rebellious teens program is for parents of teenagers who are 13-18 years old. The first half of this program involves only the parents and focuses on teaching more effective tools for interacting with their teenager, specifically for handling noncompliance or defiant behavior. Since teenagers are more autonomous than younger children and less influenced by their parents’ guidance, the program also includes training for the adolescents to help them become a participant in changing the family dynamic.
In the second stage of the program, parents and teenagers are both trained in problem-solving communication. The aim is to provide family behavioral resources to help each family member develop more effective problem-solving, negotiation and communication skills and to correct any unreasonable beliefs that might be impeding their interactions.
Triple P’s focus is on equipping parents with information and skills to increase confidence and self-sufficiency in managing child behavior. It can be utilized with a wide age range of children from toddlerhood through. adolescence. With Triple P families can participate in different levels of intervention according to their needs. For a best result, our psychologists will meet one-on-one with parents to discuss skills and strategies for few times and then kids will be included and a well-trained child psychologist from AWC will provide combined coaching.
The Incredible Years offers small-group-based training for parents of kids from infants through age 12. The programs are broken into four age groups:
These sessions will range from 12 to 20 sessions weekly.
The program starts with a focus on improving parent-child relationships and positive attachment before moving on to consistent routines, rules and limit-setting. Finally, it covers child management strategies such as ignoring, redirection, logical and natural consequences, time to calm down and problem-solving.
For children from four to eight years old, Incredible Years offers children’s groups that focus on helping them acquire emotion regulation strategies and social skills. Research shows that the kids’ group works well at improving pro-social behavior and decreasing problem behaviors. Parents find that they learn not only from therapists but from other fellow parents in the group.
Parent training and behavior therapy are considered a more efficient and longer lasting way to help children learn to manage their difficult emotions and rein in disruptive behavior. However, medications are sometimes used as an adjunct to behavioral therapy where necessary.
We encourage you to talk with your psychiatrist and therapist about any concerns you may have about your child’s treatment plan, progress or any side effects that you may be seeing or noticing.
For children who struggle with their behavior in the classroom, establishing some school-specific behavior management strategies are important.
The first step is often asking the school to provide a functional behavior assessment. Our psychologists are well trained to assess and diagnose. They start the process by speaking to you, your child’s teachers and your child as part of the assessment, as well as may do some in-class observation to form a strategy and a treatment plan.
Once this information has been gathered and analysed, then our well-trained psychologist, therapists or behavioral specialist can work on creating a behavior intervention plan (or BIP) with ideas for preventing problem behaviors and rewarding positive behavior. This may include different teaching strategies, different consequences for misbehavior or changes to typical routines. Checking in periodically to monitor the effectiveness of these strategies (and update accordingly) is important.
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