Child Psychologists and Child Therapists in Carteret, NJ.

Children are our future and we want to make sure we can do everything to help them to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted individuals. At Mars and Venus Counseling Center, we see children and their parents as young as one year old. Our services include: effective parenting techniques for your child’s unique personality, anger management, behavior modification, divorce support, anxiety, depression, overcoming fears, social development, and issues at school. Depending on the age of the child, we often incorporate play therapy to communicate with children in their own language. We use puppets, dolls, clay, drawing, as well as a variety of therapy games to help children identify what is upsetting

We have four clinicians who specialize in children and adolescents. Anger, anxiety, school refusal, trauma, OCD, performance anxiety, social anxiety, separation anxiety, defiance, eating disorders, and even depression and self-injury are all areas of focus in our work with children. Our clinicians are well trained and understand how critical effective intervention as early as possible is, since children are forming behavioral patterns, relationships, and personality traits. We also understand how important the role of the parents and the entire family can be in supporting a child to change. Likewise, we recognize how much the entire family can benefit from experiencing the child's growth.

Unwittingly, young children often become the center of conflict by appropriating the burdens of each family member and acting out the family issues. This leads to significantly disruptive behavior at school and home. The solution is to approach families, home life and school life as connected systems. Together, we can uncover and unpack the interwoven pressures and forces that shape our children in unhealthy ways to find positive alternatives to create peaceful and productive growth for everyone.

When children have problems, those problems are directly related to their relationship with their parents. Hence, my approach to working with children is to work with the whole family. If a child is acting up at school, he generally has parents who are, often unintentionally, not giving him what he needs at home. All parents want to believe that they are good parents, and it is hard for them to accept that they may be doing things that are causing their children to have problems. My job is to gently and patiently create a constructive atmosphere and honest communication between parents and children, which help the children resolve their problems and learn to thrive.

Young children are not little adults but yet they are whole people. Children process things differently but also exhibit good resilience in many situations. In working with young children, it is especially important to work with them where they are at and in ways that allow them to relate tot he journey that is being made. When this is successful, the child not only is able to find wholeness and peace in the present but have a firm foundation for finding this in the future. A dimension of working with a child is working with the adults that are significant in that child's life. Christopher looks forward to this journety together with you.

Your child or children may be suffering for reasons that are unclear. Are your children constantly angry and oppositional? Are they often hyper? Are your children doing poorly in school? As parents, do you fear you won't be able to help your child with his or her "anger management." Using empathy and sensitivity, our professionals work individually with both children, adolescents and with parents with the goal to ending the problem behavior or lowering a child's anxieties.

I help with children as young as nine years old learn how to feel their feelings and take personal responsibility for them rather than make others responsible for how they feel. And then how to manage, communicate and release their feelings appropriately. I also help children build higher self worth, be more compassionate with themselves and learn how to make better choices.

I am a family therapist. I work with young children, but when I do, I work with the whole family. My experience is both that when young children are having problems it is often related to family issues, and that with young children it is important for their parents to be the people who are learning to help them with their issues on an ongoing basis. As a family therapist I would say that there are some sorts of issues where individual therapy makes sense for a 14 year old, but I don't think that individual therapy makes sense for a 5 year old or a 7 year old.

I am knowledgeable about young children, as I have a doctorate in child psychology. I am happy to advise or help parents with young children, who are taking a little longer to potty train, having a lot of tantrums, bedwetting, falling behind in school, may have a learning disability. I work closely with the parents, and in many cases would not treat the child directly. I usually focus on and get to know the parent, how I can best support them as a parent, as a spouse, and as a person in the world.

Our music therapists specialize in reaching young children, including those with autism, ADHD, trauma, William's Syndrome, Down's syndrome, and much more. Our therapists are highly trained and can tailor functional goals to any child. Our individualized music exercises can address attention, self expression, coping strategies, social skills, functional speech, and more!

I love working with young children because I truly believe in the importance of early intervention. The earlier we address concerns, the more fully our children can blossom. I integrate a wide variety of techniques so that I can help children on numerous different levels. I believe in a comprehensive approach, and will teach you- the parent- how to better interact with your child as well. As a mother myself, I know how much each of us wants to "get it right"... but sometimes it can be hard to know what "right" is. I can help you match your parenting technique to your child's style, so that you can reduce household conflict and encourage positive coping skills and healthy self-confidence.

Many times, child therapists overdo the family system in their quest to seek effective solutions for emotional, learning or behavioral concerns with young children. And many times doctors overpathologize issues that shouldn’t be medicated necessarily. This leaves parents wondering what is the best route for their child? Introducing brainwave optimization technology. A fast, effective, natural, and less expensive way to allow your child's brain to make the optimizing changes it desires to make---on its own! Without any external force, opinion, medication, diagnostic, etc. Contact kevin@kevinflemingphd.com or 877-606-6161.

Through my parent coaching business, which you can find more information about on my website I work collaboratively with a pediatrician to offer guidance and support to parents and families around struggles they are facing with their children. Please visit my website so that you can learn more about our unique approach to parent coaching that can help you with guidance for your young children.