Psychological Support For Kids + Teens
At Think Clinical Psychologists our child and adolescent psychologists in Cremorne and North Sydney provide evidence-based therapy for children, teenagers and families experiencing a range of emotional, behavioural and mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, school stress, friendship problems, self-harm, eating difficulties and family changes.
Child Anxiety
Some worry is a normal part of childhood. Children may feel nervous about separating from parents, starting school, making friends, trying new activities, sleeping alone, or getting things wrong. In many cases, these worries come and go. But when anxiety starts showing up often, feels hard to reassure, or gets in the way of everyday life, it may be a sign your child needs extra support.
Child anxiety can look different from one child to the next. Some children ask lots of “what if” questions, seek repeated reassurance, avoid unfamiliar situations, or become upset before school, social events or bedtime. Others show anxiety through irritability, clinginess, perfectionism, trouble sleeping, stomach aches, headaches, or a reluctance to try things they’re not sure they can do.
A child psychologist can help you understand what’s sitting underneath your child’s anxiety and what’s keeping it going. Therapy can support children to build confidence, manage worries more effectively, and gradually face situations that feel difficult, while also helping parents respond in ways that are calm, supportive and practical.
Depression and Low Mood
Children and teenagers don’t always show depression in the same way adults do. While some children and teens may seem sad, flat or withdrawn, others may become more irritable, tearful, sensitive, angry or difficult to motivate. They might lose interest in things they usually enjoy, avoid friends or activities, complain of feeling tired or unwell, have changes in sleep or appetite, struggle to concentrate, or become more self-critical.
Because children don’t always have the words to explain how they’re feeling, depression can sometimes be mistaken for laziness, attitude, behaviour problems or “just a phase”. But if your child’s mood, motivation, confidence or enjoyment of life has changed and those changes are persisting, it’s worth paying attention.
A child psychologist can help clarify what’s going on and support your child to better understand and manage their emotions. Therapy can also help build coping skills, improve mood and confidence, and give parents practical guidance on how to support their child at home, at school and in everyday life.
OCD in Children and Teens
OCD in children and teenagers can be difficult to recognise, because it doesn’t always look the way people expect. Some children do have fears about germs, checking or things needing to be arranged a certain way, but OCD can also show up as repeated questions, distress about making mistakes, needing routines done “exactly right”, avoiding certain words or numbers, getting stuck on worries, or becoming very upset if they can’t complete a particular action.
For parents, it can sometimes feel like your child’s being rigid, difficult or unreasonable - especially when the whole family starts having to work around certain rules, rituals or reassurance-seeking. But for a child with OCD, behaviours like this are usually an attempt to cope with anxiety, discomfort or a strong feeling that something isn’t safe, certain or “right”.
Support from a child and adolescent psychologist can help your child understand what’s happening, reduce the pull of rituals and reassurance, and build confidence doing things even when OCD feels loud. Therapy can also help parents know how to respond in a way that’s supportive, without accidentally making the OCD cycle stronger.
Behaviour and Big Emotions
Big emotions and challenging behaviours can be stressful for children, teenagers and the people supporting them. Some young people may struggle with anger, emotional outbursts, defiance, impulsivity, meltdowns, withdrawal, or find it hard to cope when things don’t go their way. Emotional and behavioural challenges can also present as overwhelm, a low tolerance for frustration, high emotional sensitivity, or a quick shut down response.
Our clinical psychologists help children and teenagers better understand their emotions, develop more effective coping skills, and learn different ways to express what they need. We also work with parents to understand what might be driving the behaviour, strengthen communication, respond more effectively in difficult moments, and create more consistent patterns at home.
Support is tailored to the age, needs and temperament of the child or teenager, with a focus on helping families feel more confident, connected and better equipped to manage challenging moments.
Self-Harm in Children and Teens
Self-harm in teenagers can be deeply frightening for parents, and it’s understandable to feel shocked, worried or unsure what to do next. For many teens, self-harm is a way of trying to cope with emotions that feel too intense, confusing or overwhelming. It may provide a short-term sense of relief, distraction or control, even though it can quickly become a risky and unhelpful coping pattern.
Self-harm can include cutting, scratching, burning, hitting, interfering with wound healing, misusing medication or substances, or using food and eating behaviours in a harmful way. It can occur alongside anxiety, depression, trauma, low self-esteem, friendship difficulties, school stress or family conflict, but sometimes the reasons aren’t immediately clear.
If you discover your teen’s been self-harming, it’s important to take it seriously, but also to stay as calm and connected as possible. A child and adolescent psychologist can help assess risk, develop a safety plan, understand what’s driving the self-harm, and support your teen to build safer, healthier ways of managing distress. Therapy can also help parents know how to respond supportively while keeping safety at the centre.
If your child is at immediate risk of harm, call 000 or attend your nearest hospital emergency department.
ADHD in Children and Teens
ADHD in children and teenagers isn’t just about being energetic, distracted or “badly behaved”. ADHD can affect attention, impulse control, emotional regulation, organisation, planning and follow-through, which means it can show up in lots of different ways. Some children are constantly on the go, interrupt often, act before thinking, or struggle to sit still. Others are quieter but seem forgetful, disorganised, easily distracted, slow to get started, or overwhelmed by tasks that require sustained effort.
For parents, ADHD can sometimes look like not listening, not trying, or not caring - especially when the same reminders, routines and consequences don’t seem to stick. But for many young people with ADHD, the issue isn’t a lack of motivation; it’s difficulty regulating attention, emotions and behaviour consistently across different situations.
Support from a child and adolescent psychologist can help you better understand your child’s strengths and challenges, develop practical strategies for home and school, and support skills such as emotional regulation, organisation, planning, independence and confidence. Therapy can also help parents respond in ways that reduce conflict and make daily life feel more manageable.
School Refusal
When a child or teenager is struggling to attend school, mornings can quickly become stressful, emotional and exhausting for the whole family. School refusal may involve tearfulness, panic, physical symptoms, difficulty separating from parents, avoidance of particular classes or social situations, or refusing to attend school altogether.
School refusal is rarely about a child simply “not wanting” to go to school. It can be linked to anxiety, low mood, friendship difficulties, bullying, learning challenges, neurodiversity, family stress, or feeling unable to cope with the demands of the school environment.
Our clinical psychologists help children and teenagers better understand what may be contributing to school refusal and develop practical strategies to gradually rebuild confidence, coping skills and school attendance. We also work closely with parents to support more effective responses at home and, where helpful, can liaise with schools and other professionals to support a coordinated plan.
Low Confidence and Self-Esteem
Some children and teenagers seem to move through the world assuming they can give things a go, make mistakes, and still be okay. Others find this much harder. Low confidence and low self-esteem can show up as self-criticism, perfectionism, avoidance, sensitivity to feedback, reluctance to try new things, or a belief that they’re not as capable, likeable or successful as other people.
For some young people, low confidence is linked to anxiety, friendship difficulties, bullying, learning challenges, academic pressure, body image concerns or repeated experiences of feeling left out, criticised or unsuccessful. Over time, these experiences can start to shape how a child sees themselves, and may affect their friendships, school participation, independence and willingness to take on new challenges.
Therapy can help children and teens develop a more balanced and compassionate view of themselves, build resilience, and learn practical strategies for managing setbacks, comparison and self-doubt. It can also help parents understand how to support confidence in a way that feels encouraging, rather than pressured.
Separation, Divorce and Family Changes
Separation and divorce can be a major adjustment for children and teenagers, even when the decision is the right one for the family. Some young people cope well with the change, while others may feel sad, angry, anxious, confused, guilty, or caught in the middle. Their reactions can also look different depending on their age - younger children may become more clingy or unsettled, while older children and teens may withdraw, act out, worry about each parent, or struggle with changes to routines, homes and family time.
Support can help children and teens make sense of what’s happening, express feelings they may not want to share directly with their parents, and develop coping strategies for managing change. Therapy can also help parents understand how to talk with their child about separation, reduce the impact of conflict, support healthy adjustment across two households, and keep their child’s emotional wellbeing at the centre.
Friendships and Social Skills
Friendships can be one of the most important parts of childhood and adolescence, but they can also be a major source of stress. Some children and teens find it hard to make friends, join groups, read social cues, manage conflict, or know what to do when friendships become complicated. Others may be dealing with exclusion, bullying, friendship “drama”, social anxiety, or the pain of feeling left out.
Social difficulties can affect more than just a child’s social life. Over time, friendship problems can impact confidence, mood, school engagement, behaviour and family life - especially if your child starts avoiding school, withdrawing from activities, or believing there’s something wrong with them.
Therapy can help children and teens better understand social situations, build confidence, develop practical friendship skills, and learn how to manage conflict, rejection and tricky peer dynamics. It can also help parents know when to step in, when to step back, and how to support their child without accidentally making social worries feel bigger.
Study and Exam
Stress
Study and exam stress can affect children and teenagers in many different ways. For some young people, the biggest issue is feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork, exams, assignments or expectations, while for others, bigger issues are procrastination, perfectionism, avoidance, low motivation, difficulty concentrating, or anxiety about making mistakes.
Our clinical psychologists help children and teenagers better understand what’s contributing to their study stress and develop practical strategies to manage pressure more effectively. Therapy can support young people to build coping skills, reduce avoidance, improve confidence, manage unhelpful thinking patterns, and approach schoolwork and exams in a more balanced and sustainable way.
Where helpful, we also work with parents to understand how to support their child or teenager at home without increasing pressure, conflict or stress around schoolwork.
Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation refers to a child or teenager’s ability to understand, manage and recover from big feelings. When this is hard, young people may become overwhelmed quickly, have intense reactions, shut down, lash out, struggle to calm down, or find it difficult to cope with disappointment, frustration, worry or change.
Our clinical psychologists help children and teenagers build a better understanding of their emotions and the situations that trigger them. Therapy can support young people to develop practical strategies for managing strong feelings, communicating what they need, tolerating distress, and responding more flexibly when things feel difficult.
We also work with parents to understand what may be contributing to emotion regulation difficulties and how to respond in ways that support connection, consistency and skill-building at home.
Bullying and Peer Conflict
Bullying can have a significant impact on a child or teenager’s confidence, mood, anxiety, friendships and sense of safety at school. It may involve teasing, exclusion, rumours, intimidation, online bullying, friendship conflict, or repeated experiences of being targeted by peers. For some young people, bullying can lead to school avoidance, social withdrawal, emotional outbursts, low self-esteem, or feeling constantly on edge.
Our clinical psychologists support children and teenagers to make sense of what has happened, build coping strategies, strengthen confidence, and develop safe, practical ways to seek support. We also work with parents to understand how to respond at home and, where appropriate, can liaise with schools to help develop a coordinated plan that supports the child or teenager’s safety, wellbeing and confidence at school.
Eating Disorders, Eating Difficulties, and Body Image
Eating disorders, eating difficulties and body image concerns can affect people in many different ways. Some children and teenagers may be struggling with restrictive eating, binge eating, purging, fear of weight gain, distress about their body, or anxiety around food and mealtimes. Others may not meet criteria for an eating disorder but still experience patterns of eating, exercise, body checking, comparison or self-criticism that are affecting their wellbeing.
Our clinical psychologists provide evidence-based support for children and teenagers experiencing eating disorders, disordered eating and body image concerns. Therapy can help young people better understand the thoughts, emotions and behaviours maintaining the difficulty, build healthier coping strategies, and work towards a more balanced relationship with food, exercise and their body.
We also support parents to understand what may be contributing to their child or teenager’s eating difficulties, how to respond helpfully at home, and how to support more regular, balanced and less stressful patterns around food and mealtimes.
Where needed, we also work collaboratively with parents, GPs, dietitians and other health professionals to support safe, coordinated care.
The clinical team at Think Clinical Psychologists share similar values in terms of the treatment quality they aim to provide, but each team member is an independent practitioner conducting their practice from Think Clinical Psychologists.