Adolescent and Child Impulsivity Treatment in Atlanta
Treating Teen Impulsivity and Helping Your Child Struggling with Impulsive Behaviors
It's normal for kids and teenagers to act a bit impulsively. When this behavior disrupts your daily home life or impacts your child's ability to make sound decisions and feel completely out of control, it could be a concern.
Hillside® offers specialized impulsivity treatment programs for children and adolescents to help your child recognize their feelings and manage their behaviors. Our personalized plans empower kids and their families to find effective coping strategies. These solutions foster positive change and help bring peace to the home environment, paving the way to a brighter future.
Understanding Impulsivity
Every child and adult acts without thinking from time to time. Yet, impulsivity is more than blurting something out or running across the street without looking. Chronic impulsivity refers to difficulty controlling immediate urges or behaviors, leading to a tendency to act without thinking through the consequences.
During childhood and adolescence, the part of the brain responsible for planning and decision-making is still developing. So, kids and teens are already more prone to acting impulsively. Impulsive behaviors may also be a feature of different diagnoses, including:
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Anxiety
- Autism spectrum disorder
- Mood disorders, like depression
The Importance of Treating Child and Teen Impulsivity
Every young person goes through difficult stages in their development and may exhibit impulsive behaviors for a short time. Chronic lack of impulse control is different. If your child's behavior is consistently impulsive, it may be time to seek help. There could be an underlying behavioral and mental health challenge that needs to be addressed.
Signs that your child's impulsive behaviors may require professional help include:
- Consistently acting inappropriately for attention
- Difficulty following rules at home and school
- Uncontrollable emotional reactions, such as having outbursts or making threats
- Aggressive behaviors that can be verbal or physical
- Destroying things
- Breaking the law
- Inappropriate, unkind or sexual remarks
- Restlessness that disrupts their sleep
If you notice that these behaviors have formed a regular pattern, disrupt daily activities and relationships, or become more frequent or intense, Hillside® can help. We work with children and families when impulsivity is impacting relationships, academic performance and the ability to achieve their personal best.
Child and Adolescent Treatment for Impulsivity
Hillside® offers hope and healing for families overwhelmed by the impact of impulsive behaviors. Through our various levels of care and programs, we offer a variety of interventions designed for young people ages 6 to 24. Once impulsivity is identified and the underlying cause is diagnosed, we go to work, collaborating with families and providing treatment services designed to help your child thrive.
Each program utilizes individual therapy. Your child will meet with a therapist who will work with them to gain insight into their emotions and impulsive urges. Our programs also employ family therapy, allowing families to learn and develop tools for better communication and problem-solving as a loving unit. Our team of behavioral and mental health professionals may also discuss how, in addition to therapy, medication can be beneficial to help your child manage their impulsivity.
Effective Therapeutic Approaches for Childhood Impulsivity
Each child and teen we treat is a unique individual. That's why we take a personalized approach to therapy, assessing the needs of each child to develop a tailored treatment plan, which may include the following therapeutic approaches:
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): All Hillside® therapists are intensively trained in DBT. This unique form of therapy combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with mindfulness practices to help young people reduce their reactivity and improve emotional regulation. The goal is to help your child gain better insight into their emotions, thoughts and behaviors without resorting to impulsive actions. Our full DBT protocol is more developmentally appropriate for adolescents, yet we can employ some of the techniques of this approach for younger children.
- Experiential therapies: Our experiential therapies, like Theraplay® and horticulture therapy, provide structured, predictable activities with challenging elements that allow teens and children to develop essential self-regulation skills. As they engage in treatments, our clients cope with and work through difficult emotions, optimizing the effectiveness of our evidence-based therapies.
Our Impulsivity Treatment Programs
At Hillside®, we understand that impulsivity in kids and teens can manifest in different ways and require varied levels of support. We carefully structure our outpatient and residential treatment programs, ensuring our clients receive the right level of care for their individual needs and therapeutic goals.
- Virtual Intensive Outpatient Therapy (VIOP): Providing a comprehensive DBT treatment through Zoom, this six-week treatment program teaches DBT Skills and offer Behavior Chain Analysis in individual session to help teens ages 12-17 gain insight into their impulsive urges and have a way to manage them. We are effective in helping teens utilize the tools and coping mechanisms in real life to manage their impulsivity and learn healthier ways to function at school, home, and in their personal relationships.
- Day Treatment: Our Experience DBT Day Treatment program offers adherent protocol DBT and Social Emotional Ethical Learning (SEE Learning). Using a combination of classroom learning and experiential activities, we help our clients, ages 13-17, as they apply their newly acquired skills in emotion management and empathy for self and others.
- Intensive In-Home Therapy: This family-focused program highlights practical strategies and skills for managing impulsive behaviors within the home while enhancing the emotional connection between parents and children.
- Residential Treatment Program: Residential treatment at our beautiful campus Atlanta provides a structured, supervised environment for girls ages 11-17 and boys ages 13-17 who need a higher level of care. Our clients participate in targeted therapeutic strategies that help them better understand themselves, manage their impulses and build healthier behavioral responses.
Contact Our Child and Adolescent Impulsivity Treatment Center in Georgia
Children and adolescents can learn to manage their impulses more effectively and lead joyful, fulfilling lives. Hillside® can help. We empower children and families with effective impulsivity interventions and support, helping you and your child navigate the road ahead. Contact admissions today to get started.
