How child counselling works when you are the parent
By Garima Agarwal, Counsellor, Diploma in Counselling Psychology 4 min read
A parent or guardian arranges child counselling and gives consent. Your child needs enough privacy to speak freely, so you will hear the themes being worked on rather than a transcript, but anything that raises a concern about your child's safety is always shared with you.
If you are thinking about counselling for your child, most of your questions are probably about you rather than about them. Who arranges it, what you will be told, whether you will be in the room, and what happens if your child does not want to talk. Those are fair questions, and they deserve straight answers before anything is booked.
Who arranges it
A parent or legal guardian arranges the sessions and gives consent for them. That is the starting point for any counselling with a child. In practice it usually begins with a message on WhatsApp and a short conversation about what has been happening at home or at school.
The free 15-minute introductory call is a good place for that conversation. You can describe what you have noticed, ask how sessions with a child work, and decide whether it feels right. Booking afterwards is not expected.
What happens in a session
Sessions are 50 minutes, online, on Google Meet, in Hindi, English or both. They move at your child's pace. Children rarely arrive with a tidy explanation of what is wrong, and they are not expected to. Worries, school pressure, trouble with friends, changes at home, or simply growing quiet: any of these is enough reason to start.
What you will be told, and what stays private
This is the part parents most often ask about, and it works a little differently from counselling with an adult.
Your child needs enough privacy to speak freely. If they believe every sentence will be repeated at the dinner table, they will choose their words for you rather than for themselves. So you will not get a transcript. What you will get is a sense of the themes being worked on and how things are progressing.
There is one firm exception. Anything that raises a concern about your child's safety is always shared with you. That is said to your child as well, plainly, at the start, so nobody is surprised by it later.
Will you be in the session?
Sometimes. Depending on your child's age and what is going on, some sessions may include you. That is decided together, not assumed. Some children talk more easily with a parent nearby, and some talk more easily without one.
What helps at home between sessions
Very little needs to change. It usually helps not to ask what was said, and to ask instead how it went, or nothing at all. A child who is not questioned afterwards often finds it easier to keep talking in the next session.
If you are finding things hard yourself, that matters too. Parent–child connection sessions are a space for you, separate from your child's.
When it needs more than counselling
Counselling is not medical care and it is not emergency care. If you are worried about your child's safety, or about changes in eating, sleep or health that have lasted a while, please speak to a paediatrician or a psychiatrist as well. If your child talks about harming themselves, treat it as urgent: call 112, or Tele MANAS on 14416, free, and do not leave them alone with it.
If you want to talk it through
A short message is enough to start, and you do not need to have worked out what the problem is. The introductory call is free and lasts 15 minutes. Sessions are on Google Meet, in Hindi or English, between 10 AM and 6 PM, seven days a week, by appointment.
If this is what you are living with, read more about Child Counselling at A Safe Place.