We do. Children report the single best thing that they did during the divorce process was see a counselor. If you know of any divorce situation where children are impacted, please contact us. Our goal is to empower families during this life transition. Our model is proactive, we believe that every child benefits from talking to a third party during this process irregardless of the level of conflict around the divorce.

Vision:
To create with each child a safe place of love and acceptance to assist children in processing the life events impacting their family.

Mission:
Providing listening, love, support, understanding and growth for children and their families in transition.

Purpose:
Help children express and understand their feelings in a constructive and healthy manner.

Goals for Kids:

• Increase/maintain self-confidence
• Increase/maintain trust
• Develop/maintain self identity
• Increase emotional expression
• Increase/maintain physical and emotional health
• Foster strong and positive relationship with parents
• Ensure that children understand that this is a parent's choice, with no fault of theirs
• Assist kids in moving successfully across the bridge of life events (divorce)

Goals for Adults:

• Assist parents in understanding their impact on their children
• Create strategies for effectively working with their children through this transition
• Work with adults to allow them to have peace that their children will be ok – love is most important
• Help adults understand that it is necessary to put their children first during this process

Goals for the Family:

• Provide family with strategies to best support the children during these life event.
• Bridging families through life events
• We all have to walk from one side of the water to the other, we may as well take the same bridge.

Strategies for Working with Children:

• Explore their current belief system
• Allow them to be aware of other options or alternatives (i.e. they think they are the cause of the divorce or they did something bad)
• Listen, love, learn, grow
• Allow kids to be kids during a major transition in their life
• Ensure that children realize this is not their fault
• Explore divorce and what that will mean for them; how it may impact them
• Allow children to share their fears (in a safe place)
• Assist children in processing this life transition
• Provide support to children to let them know that they are not alone and that someone understands

Play Therapy

LifeThreads uses play therapy with the children we work with. However, LifeThreads believes that play is very important for everyone ages 1-100. Play is used with children as a method to allow them to express themselves in a very familiar manner. Play is very effective for children due to the fact that they have not yet developed the verbal and cognitive ability to express themselves as adults can. Play is a child's natural language. Toys, games and activities are used like words. Children are provided therapeutic toys to enable them to say with the toys what they have difficulty saying with words... dolls, puppets, paints or other toys are used to say what they think or how they feel.

Play therapy allows children the opportunity to work through, heal, and move past the difficult times in their lives. It does all this in the most efficient, effective, and child-focused manner available. So for most childhood problems play therapy is the most affordable way to help your child resolve their issues and best of all, not only does it work wonderfully, children love it!

Through Play Therapy children learn about themselves and their surroundings, their capabilities, their limitations, they learn new skills, learn how to handle anger and frustration, heal, work through difficult times, and increase their self-esteem and ability to communicate. Extensive research strongly supports the effectiveness of play therapy on most social, emotional, behavioral and educational problems. Some of these problems include depression, anger, ADHD, anxiety/fears, conduct disorders, abuse issues, aggression, post-traumatic stress disorders, low self-esteem, poor social skills, impulsivity, learning difficulties, divorce issues, coping skills issues, handling trauma, grief, divorce or many other childhood problems.

For further information contact Shannon Rios at 303/444-5456 or shannon@lifethreads.net

Testimonials:

"It was a pleasurable experience working professionally with Shannon Rios. Shannon and I worked collaboratively on various children's programs. I found her interventions engaging for the clients and therapeutic for the families as a whole. Shannon has a gift for bringing simplicity to even the most complicated cases." Monique Lowe PhD- Clinical Psychologist in the Minneapolis Area

"During a transition of rebonding with my child whom I had been apart from due to my own faults, Shannon was a counselor that helped guide, and if needed, instruct in a comfortable way to bring a natural relationship back together between us. Shannon offered helpful advice with real circumstances which was beneficial to our relationship. Thanks." AB mother of 3 yr old from Denver, CO

©Shannon Rios 2002 Reprinted by permission only