Stepping
Stones:
A Social Skills Group Therapy
Program for Children
Positive peer
relationships offer a critical buffer against stress
and psychological difficulties. Rejection by peers is
devastating to children and can be associated with
such long term problems as low self esteem, poor
academic performance, feelings of aloneness and
loneliness, and even juvenile delinquency.
Stepping Stones
encourages the prosocial skills necessary for the
socially rejected child to make and maintain friends
as well as to increase the child's sensitivity to the
impact his or her behavior has on other children.
Difficulties range from poor listening skills to low
frustration tolerance, from shyness to misreading of
social cues, from moodiness to body space issues,
from dealing with teasing to anger management.
The program works in
three to five week phases, with each unit building on
the next. The phases are:
- social
entry and making a good first impression
- communication
and conversation skills
- reading
social cues
- self
esteem
- dealing
with teasing
- problem
solving
- conflict
resolution
- stress
management
- anger
control
Skill building takes
place through group activities, exercises, and
psychodramatic techniques as well as practice
assignments and peer feedback.
Generalization of
skills to the school and home environments are
heavily stressed with simultaneous parents' sessions
which address:
- cognitive
behavioral techniques which can be used at
home to develop social and emotional
development in children
- behavior
management strategies
- the
lessening of family stresses
Parental involvement
in reinforcing at home those skills learned in group
is instrumental in effecting change and making new
social skills "stick."
We emphasize a strong
team approach by maintaining consistent contact with
all professionals (school personnel, physicians,
mental health professionals) as appropriate.
The groups meet once
weekly for 60 minutes in the late afternoon/evening
and are divided into single-sex age appropriate
groups.
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Stepping Stones:
The Early Childhood
Program
The early childhood
program is designed to help children who are
generally socially appropriate but have lapses in
their social behavior. They may be socially withdrawn or
impulsive.The group works on:
- eye contact
- listening skills
- communication skills
- sharing
- joining in
- recognizing feelings in self and
others
- solving problems
- dealing with feeling mad
- good sportsmanship
- body space issues
The skills are learned through:
- role playing
- psycho-educational exercises
- verbal mediation
- modeling
- peer feedback
- creative and expressive
therapies
The skills transfer from group to
home and school through:
- parent group involvement
- practice assignments
- group social reinforcement
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The Anxious Child
group is an 18-20 week cognitive-behavioral program for the
treatment of anxiety disorders in children who engage in negative
thinking, avoidant behavior, or whose anxiety interferes with their
general functioning. Some of the more common problems that previous
group members have conquered are: fear of sleeping alone, fear of
being alone in a room, fear of germs, fear of new social situations,
fear of being late.
The therapy integrates elements of a behavioral
approach (e.g. exposure to anxiety producing
situations, relaxation training, and role plays) with
a cognitive one (e.g. cognitive restructuring,
positive self talk, and problem solving). The goal of
the treatment is to provide children with the skills
to cope in a variety of anxiety provoking situations.
The program puts great emphasis on:
- awareness of
bodily reactions when anxious
- identification
and modification of anxious self talk
- relaxation
training
- coping skills
- practice assignments
A parent group runs
concurrent to the child group so parents will learn
the same skills as the children so they will be
better able to help their child practice the skills
throughout the week.
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