Practice Makes Perfect Progress
By Kim Pine Dougharty, MA, LCAT-LP Creative Arts Therapy Counseling
There’s the old joke: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? … Practice, practice, practice!” There’s wisdom in that joke, we all benefit from practice. It gets us somewhere.
Anything worth mastering takes practice, and practice requires routine. Practiced skills can be academic, extracurricular, social, and emotional. Development relies on the continued practice of various skills until mastery is achieved and new skills become habit. It’s what therapists do in session: discuss challenges and strengths, strategize and introduce new skills, and help make goals habit. Through new insights and abilities, positive change is made that makes life more rewarding.
Therapeutic progress also relies on a less tangible practice. Meaningful rapport is vital for therapeutic progress, and this connection takes consistency and practice. When trusted rapport is established, kids feel safe, comfortable, and more apt to open up and tackle hard subjects with their therapist. Like many intentional personal connections, rapport is part skill and part kismet. It's important that once this connection is established it’s warm, consistent, dependable, and practiced. When sessions are inconsistent, valuable session time is spent re-establishing connection rather than working toward goals.
In our practice we focus on emotional and social needs of children and adolescents with an emphasis on resilience. Using insight, empathy, and encouragement shaped by theory and experience, we help them gain insight and learn about their gifts and challenges. We encourage them to practice new behaviors and apply them to their unique experiences. Practicing these new emotional and social skills helps make life more navigable, manageable, and successful. This takes practice, and practice requires consistency.
As a team we’ve recognized a cyclical nature in our work year which closely follows the school year. As school starts each Fall, kids are transitioning into new classrooms, schools, and social dynamics. Parents feel hopeful that maybe this will be the year things click. September and early October tend to pass without much worry. Come the middle of the Fall semester though, and we begin to see kids experiencing challenges at school and home. Assignments become challenging and plentiful, and schedules fill up with extracurriculars. Social dynamics also amp up and friendships can become challenging. Trying to balance these things can stretch a kid’s resolve. Our schedules fill up around this time too. A therapist your child may have worked with successfully last year may not have available appointments when they may need them most.
The opposite seems to happen in May. Summer approaches and things wind down at school. Summer brings more freedom as activities, camps, and vacations provide fun escapes. July is typically quiet in our practice, giving families and practitioners alike a chance to regroup. Along comes August and with it the anticipation of the transition back to school. This is the time we encourage families to remember the concept of practice regarding therapy. The skills your child has learned and the insights they’ve made with their therapist so far need nurturing. Gains made throughout the year will carry them into Fall if practiced and reinforced before things become challenging again.
We recommend scheduling appointments in August a week or so before the start of the new school year. This allows children to talk about anticipatory anxiety, re-identify their strengths and the toolbox they’ve been building and to move ahead with confidence as we remind and reinforce learned skills. Being pre-emptive also means strategies can be tailored to the challenges of the coming year before those challenges become problems. Planning like this also assures appointment availability and continuity of care.
We love working with your children, it’s both challenging and rewarding. To do our best work with your family, we rely on your commitment to the practice of the therapeutic process. You and your child’s therapist can work together to find the schedule that best fits your unique child’s needs. Your care and love is evident: you’ve invested in finding your child the support they need to grow and flourish– and as with any new outlook or skill, practice and consistency is key.