How a Child Psychologist can support your child through big emotions and growing challenges

Childhood is a time of rapid development—physically, emotionally, and socially. While most children navigate these changes with curiosity and resilience, some may find themselves overwhelmed by big feelings, tricky behaviours, or sudden life changes. A child psychologist can help.

At Rose Park Psychology, we offer a safe, playful, and nurturing space where children can express themselves, learn to understand their emotions, and build skills to manage life’s ups and downs. Our child psychologists use gentle, evidence-based approaches tailored to your child’s unique needs and developmental stage.

Common Reasons Children Come to Therapy

Parents often reach out when they notice changes in their child’s emotions or behaviour. Some of the common concerns we help with include:

Separation anxiety or generalised anxiety
Behavioural challenges or frequent meltdowns
Emotional dysregulation and big feelings
Social difficulties or trouble making friends
Attention and concentration issues (including ADHD)
School refusal or learning challenges
Low self-esteem or perfectionism
Coping with family changes (e.g., divorce, new sibling, relocation)
Grief and loss
Recovery from trauma or difficult experiences

How Our Psychologists Help Children Thrive

Children communicate their inner world differently from adults—often through play, storytelling, and creativity. Our psychologists use evidence-based approaches adapted for young minds, including:

Play Therapy – helping children explore feelings and experiences in a safe and symbolic way
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – adapted to build practical coping skills through games, visuals, and storytelling.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – teaching children to notice feelings, accept tricky thoughts, and take helpful actions
Emotion Coaching and Regulation Tools – teaching children how to recognise and manage their emotions.

Parent-only sessions for strategy building and support with a child psychologist
Joint parent-child sessions to strengthen connection
Regular check-ins to track progress and share tools for home
We believe therapy works best when caregivers feel informed, empowered, and involved.

Each session is tailored to your child’s personality, pace, and needs—helping them feel safe, understood, and supported.

Our most available practitioner is an extraordinarily experienced social worker who has worked with children and their families in several settings, including the education department and other government departments. Julie Henderson is warm, forms great rapport and understands the difficulty of many different situations.

Working Together With Families.

We work closely with parents and caregivers to support positive change at home. Depending on your child’s age and needs, sessions may involve:

Parent-only sessions for strategy building and support
Joint parent-child sessions to strengthen connection
Regular check-ins to track progress and share tools for home

We have a range of psychologists who see children and offer the following services, each with different funding.

Medicare Rebates for a Child Psychologist

You can visit your GP and obtain a Mental Health Care Plan. In total, 10 sessions are available, starting with 6 available sessions with the Medicare refund. After 6 sessions, the GP will review and decide whether another 4 sessions are available. We ask that the parent attend a session without the child, so they can provide valuable information to the psychologists. This session and one other can be used toward the child’s entitlement to the Medicare rebate, and one other can be used as well, making two sessions. Some parents opt to have a privately paid session with the psychologist, not claiming the child’s Medicare rebate, either just paying privately or using private health cover.

NDIS funding for a Child Psychologist

Our psychologists see children with NDIS funding, who are self- or plan-managed. See our webpage for NDIS psychologists

For more information about autism see https://www.autismawareness.com.au/

For more information about NDIS see here

ADHD and a child psychologist

For more information, check our page on ADHD assessment

Lesley Golley sees children where the primary issue is ADHD . She works with parents who would like to learn strategies to help them manage their child’s behaviour and support their best achievement. See the following links: ADHD Parent Coaching Program

Gender Dysphoria

Our psychologists provide support to individuals who are seeing gender affirming therapy. For an in-house session, please call us on (08) 8333 0940, and we can guide you to a psychologist.

Caitlin Waldie provides gender affirming therapy by telehealth

Get Started Today – for booking information

Reach out today to book an appointment or find out how we can support your child’s emotional wellbeing.

Call us on (08) 8333 0940 or contact us by email.

Services & Assessment

Children Adolescents Adults Couples NDIS Psychological Assessment Family

Therapy for Children – Child Psychologist Adelaide

Our People

Experience & Depth

We understand that journeys are travelled better together. No issue is too big or too small. Whether it’s a series of sessions to deal with a complex problem or a single session to address a specific concern, we’re here to listen and help.