QUESTION: How Can Animal Assisted Therapy Help My Child Who Finds Counseling Very Stressful?

Описание: Most often you hear about Animal Assisted Therapy or AAT associated with dogs visiting people in hospitals, or doing Reading with Rover programs. These are incredibly beneficial services today about animals in AAT in counseling has two basic requirements, a mental health professional and a certified therapy animal.

AAT can be a non traditional way help kids and teens get the benefits of therapy by lowering the anxiety and stress around coming to "therapy" or "counseling." First and foremost, research has shown that petting a dog increases happy bonding hormones in both dogs and humans! So when there's a dog in the room, your child is likely to become more relaxed just by sitting down and petting the dog. You can imagine how helpful this can be when a kid has to talk about something that really makes them nervous -- just pet the dog and you have an automatic stress reducer; that way we can talk about the difficult things sooner and with more honesty. Often having a dog or horse present is a great way to break the ice, for kids that are on the shy side, talking about the dog is a great way to start building a trusting relationship.