Child Therapy
For parents of children ten and up
Your Child Is Carrying Something Too Heavy for Words
Something is wrong. You have known it for a while now. The meltdowns that feel out of character. The pulling away.
The worry that keeps them up long after the house has gone still.
Love Alone Can’t Always Reach Them
There might be an obvious event that precipitated the shift.
A divorce. A loss. A move.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can point to, just an instinct that your child is holding something they should not have to hold alone.
You’ve talked to their teacher. You’ve adjusted the routines. You’ve read the books. And you love them fiercely.
Love alone cannot always reach the place where their hurt lives. That is the honest limit of what any parent can do by themselves.
We Meet Your Child Where They Are
Reaching a child takes patience. It takes trust, built slowly and at their pace.
At Prepare to Change, we are trained to hear what your child is saying underneath the acting out, the shutting down, the anxiety, the anger.
We work in ways that allow children to open up, through creativity, through activity, and through the relationship itself.
For a child, the relationship with their therapist is the therapy. To feel safe, seen, and unjudged by a trusted adult outside the family, someone entirely in their corner, can change everything for a child.
Our clinical work is relational and depth-oriented, drawing on attachment-based and psychodynamic therapy and CBT, with trauma-informed care shaping the pace of all of it.
Your Child Starts to Find Solid Ground Again
Most parents notice the changes before their child can name them.
The meltdowns start to soften. Sleep gets easier. They are more willing to talk, quicker to bounce back after something hard.
There is a settledness that was missing before, like something inside them found a little more ground to stand on.
And something shifts for you, too. You start to understand what sits underneath the behavior, what your child needs, and how to reach them. The relationship opens up in ways that feel like relief.
Where This Work Happens
Prepare to Change is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit counseling center, and that structure is the reason a family can get their child real help here without cost deciding it.
Our team spans three license tiers: licensed therapists, associates working toward licensure, and master’s-level trainees. Every pre-licensed clinician carries their caseload under close, ongoing supervision. That structure is our quality commitment, and it means your child has more than one clinical mind on their care.
We see clients from age ten through adulthood, individually and as whole families, at our Tustin and Newport Beach offices and online anywhere in California.
Trust Your Gut
If you are wondering whether your child would benefit from talking to someone, that wondering is worth paying attention to.
The first conversation runs 20 minutes and costs nothing.
We will help you figure out whether this is the right fit and what next steps make sense for your family.
Start With a Conversation
Twenty minutes, free, no obligation. Tell us what is going on, and we will tell you honestly whether this is the right place for you. If it turns out we are not, we will point you toward somewhere that is.
Two offices, Tustin and Newport Beach, plus online sessions anywhere in California.