Counseling Techniques for Kindergarten Students

Providing counseling techniques for kindergarten students requires patience and creativity. Young children are typically brought to counseling, or sent by their teacher, without understanding of the purpose. Some children may understand the purpose but are not vested in treatment and do not want to be there, making traditional "talk therapy" challenging. Making counseling sessions fun and taking an indirect approach is beneficial for this age group. There are appropriate strategies for working with kindergarten students that can be applied to a variety of settings and therapeutic goals.

Play Therapy

• The Association for Play Therapists defines play therapy as a therapeutic approach that uses play to prevent or resolve psychosocial issues. Play therapists receive additional post-degree training for licensure. Typical tools used in play therapy include a variety of dolls, doll houses, sand, puppets, art supplies and home play items. Children and therapists use these tools to engage in therapeutic discussions about their emotional disturbance. Children use the toys to "speak" to the counselor when they cannot express themselves effectively through verbal language.

Art Therapy

• Art therapy is a counseling strategy that can be used by all ages but is particularly useful with young children. The American Art Therapy Association describes art therapy as the creative use of art to improve emotional well-being. Art therapists integrate visual art with psychotherapy. They use creative processes such as drawing, painting, sculpting and other artistic modalities to express thoughts and feelings. Art therapy can be used with virtually any type of psychopathology.

Group Therapy

• Children often learn more effectively in groups. Peers are influential in kindergarten. Children learn from watching the behavior of other students in the group and also learn from the mistakes of others. Therapeutic groups for kindergarten students should be smaller than groups for older age groups, ideally three to four students per group. Groups can be organized to address many issues such as self-esteem and social skills.

Other Evocative Techniques

• A myriad of other evocative techniques, which prompt expression, can be used with kindergarten students. Most of these techniques help children express themselves more effectively. Effective evocative techniques for children remove direct pressure to speak and help them express themselves more openly and honestly. Sentence completion tasks, role-play activities, client-as-therapist activities and storytelling are all techniques that evoke therapeutic expression of thoughts and feelings.