Should Parents Be Involved in Their Child's Therapy?

Yes. In my practice, it isn't optional.

Some parents are surprised by that. A lot of families come to us after a different experience: the child went into a room for an hour a week, the parent waited in the lobby, and months went by without anyone telling them much. If that's what you expect therapy to look like, it makes sense to wonder whether being involved is your place.

I'm Hannah Ly, a child therapist in San Jose and Redwood City. Here's what parent involvement in child therapy looks like with us, and why I built it that way.

What parent involvement looks like

Every family at Your Therapy Nook has parent sessions every four weeks, alongside your child's weekly sessions. So it's about once a month. They're with you, without your child, by video, with the therapist who sees your child.

And that's because even though we're your child's therapists, we're also doing family therapy. Children don't grow up in a vacuum. Your child's therapist sees them for fifty minutes a week. You're with them for most of the rest. Whatever happens in the playroom has to have somewhere to land at home.

Why every four weeks

It took some trial and error to land on four weeks. When parent sessions are spread too far apart, they turn into a catch-up of everything that went wrong at home and at school and in the car on the way to piano, and there's no time left to think about any of it. Every four weeks is close enough that we can look at one or two things together: what's coming up in the room, what's happening at home, and what to try next.

It also keeps parent sessions on the calendar as a real appointment, not something that only happens when there's a crisis.

What happens in a parent session

It's a working conversation, not a report card. Most sessions cover some version of this:

• The themes we're seeing in your child's sessions, in plain language. Not word for word, and within what your child is okay with us sharing.
• How things are going at home: what's better, what's harder, what's new.
• Something specific to try, matched to your child right now. Sometimes that's how you say goodbye in the morning, or what happens in the hour before bed, or how you respond when your child says "I hate you."
• What around your child could change to take some pressure off: the schedule, screens, how many activities are on the calendar.

What it isn't: a parenting class, a lecture, or therapy for you. You're not being evaluated. You're the expert on your child, and parent sessions put what you know together with what we're seeing in the room.

What stays between your child and their therapist

Parents worry about this from both directions. "Will I be left out?" and "Will my child still trust the therapist if I'm involved?" Both are fair questions.

• Younger children get a conversation about privacy too, at their level. We share themes with you, not the details of what your child said or played.
• Teens get more say. Before every parent session, the therapist asks your teen what they're comfortable with you hearing. That's what makes it possible for a teen to actually talk.
• Safety is the exception. If there's a safety concern, you'll be told. Your child gets a say in how, with them in the room or without.

Your part between sessions

Being involved doesn't mean becoming your child's therapist. It looks more like this:

• Tell us what you're seeing. The good week, the bad morning, the thing the teacher said at pickup. You notice patterns we'd never see from the playroom.
• Try one thing, not ten. Take one suggestion from the last parent session and give it a real try before the next one.
• Tell us when something didn't work. That's useful information, not a failure.
• Skip the quiz in the car. "What did you talk about?" usually gets "nothing." Try "I'm glad you went," and leave the door open.
• Keep therapy out of consequences. "Wait until I tell your therapist" turns the one place that's theirs into one more place they're in trouble.

If you want one small thing to do every day, start with fifteen minutes of special time.

If you co-parent across two homes, tell me on the first call, and we'll talk through how parent sessions can work for your family. (More on that on our divorce and two homes page.)

Child therapy that includes you, in San Jose and Redwood City

If you've been looking for child therapy where you're actually part of it, book a free 15-minute call with me. I'll ask about your child and about you, and I'll be straight with you about whether we're a fit. Whoever your child ends up seeing (me, Sabrina Yglesias, or Bailey Verhulst), parent sessions work the same way, because I train every therapist here and go over every case with them.

Parent sessions won't make every afternoon calm. What they will do is make sure you're never guessing about what's happening in your child's therapy, and that what happens in the room has somewhere to go at home.

About the Author: Hannah Ly, San Jose Child Therapist

Hannah Ly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #129711) and the founder and clinical director of Your Therapy Nook, a boutique child and teen therapy practice with offices in San Jose and Redwood City, CA. She is a child therapist, play therapist, and teen therapist, trained in Synergetic Play Therapy and Brainspotting, with a long background in adoption and foster care. Hannah does every family's first call herself, and every therapist on the team practices the way she does. Every family gets child-led play therapy or teen therapy plus parent coaching every four weeks.