Achieving the Best Results
Your Family Will Achieve Best Results If...
As therapists, we will only get the opportunity to meet with your family one hour per week. Because we are not able to be with your family more often, a lot of the work involved in improving your child’s behaviors will be up to you. Simply, you are with your child far more often than we are. The more you practice the skills taught during session at home, the quicker your child’s behaviors will improve.
We often use the example of music lessons to illustrate the importance of practice to promote change. For example, if you receive guitar lessons once a week and never practice playing the guitar outside of the music lesson, how long would it take you to get good at playing the guitar? Would you make slow progress or fast progress? What if you practiced playing the guitar in between lessons for even 5-10 minutes a day? How much better would your guitar playing be than if you never practiced outside of lessons? Of course you would learn to play the guitar much quicker and better if you practiced than if you didn’t practice!
The importance of practice is the same for learning the skills of PCIT. The more effort and practice you put in outside of the actual sessions, the more quickly you will see improvements in your child’s behavior and in your relationship with your child.
We often use the example of music lessons to illustrate the importance of practice to promote change. For example, if you receive guitar lessons once a week and never practice playing the guitar outside of the music lesson, how long would it take you to get good at playing the guitar? Would you make slow progress or fast progress? What if you practiced playing the guitar in between lessons for even 5-10 minutes a day? How much better would your guitar playing be than if you never practiced outside of lessons? Of course you would learn to play the guitar much quicker and better if you practiced than if you didn’t practice!
The importance of practice is the same for learning the skills of PCIT. The more effort and practice you put in outside of the actual sessions, the more quickly you will see improvements in your child’s behavior and in your relationship with your child.
Parent's Point: What Other Parent's Should Know About PCIT
Finally, there are some important general things to remember about PCIT:
We often ask parents to take the “Three CDI Coach Session Challenge.” This challenge, if you accept it, includes your family trying out PCIT for three coach sessions. As a part of this, you must commit to practice the skills as directed. At the end of the challenge, you and your therapist will have the opportunity to discuss any changes that you have observed in your child’s behavior and in your relationship. If at that point you feel like PCIT is not right for your family, your therapist will assist in referring you to other services that might be more helpful to your family. However, it is rare for families to go someplace else after they have committed to the PCIT Challenge!
We understand that many of you will face challenges as you start your PCIT journey. So we wanted you to hear directly from parents about their own challenges during PCIT. Hopefully by watching this video, it will get the wheels turning and help you think of concerns that you can share with your PCIT Therapist.
Sometimes when we don’t see quick enough change or we feel stressed out, we feel like we need to cut out things in our schedule. Sometimes parents choose to stop PCIT before completing treatment. If you are feeling that way, take a moment and listen to what parents who graduated from PCIT had to say about staying motivated and being driven for success.
- Be honest with yourself about how often you are practicing.
- Treat your weekly PCIT appointment as just as important as any of your other appointments in your busy schedule.
- Share any doubts you may have about the program with your PCIT Therapist.
We often ask parents to take the “Three CDI Coach Session Challenge.” This challenge, if you accept it, includes your family trying out PCIT for three coach sessions. As a part of this, you must commit to practice the skills as directed. At the end of the challenge, you and your therapist will have the opportunity to discuss any changes that you have observed in your child’s behavior and in your relationship. If at that point you feel like PCIT is not right for your family, your therapist will assist in referring you to other services that might be more helpful to your family. However, it is rare for families to go someplace else after they have committed to the PCIT Challenge!
We understand that many of you will face challenges as you start your PCIT journey. So we wanted you to hear directly from parents about their own challenges during PCIT. Hopefully by watching this video, it will get the wheels turning and help you think of concerns that you can share with your PCIT Therapist.
Sometimes when we don’t see quick enough change or we feel stressed out, we feel like we need to cut out things in our schedule. Sometimes parents choose to stop PCIT before completing treatment. If you are feeling that way, take a moment and listen to what parents who graduated from PCIT had to say about staying motivated and being driven for success.