Counseling Children Under Ten

Counseling Children Under Ten

Psychology 13

                                                      November 15, 2016

While providing counseling services for adult people might be less tasking and involving, provision of counseling services for children under ten is associated with a myriad of legal requirements. Counselors face legal and ethical dilemmas when dealing with young children. The ethical considerations require that children should expect confidentiality from the counselors. However, parents have legal rights that limit the rights of the children. The ethical standards require that counselors respect the right to privacy and avoid any illegal disclosures of confidential information to third parties. However, counselors have an obligation to disclose the information in instances that threaten the security of the children. The information may be communicated to the children’s parents and guardians. Counseling serviced for the children under ten has the specific legal requirements, limitations and obligations.

Counselors must consider that some children may not give voluntary and informed decisions and, therefore, counseling should be made in the presence of parents or guardians. Counselors act in the best interests of the clients and take appropriate measures that will safeguard the confidentiality of the clients. Additionally, even though parents or guardians have the legal rights to information from their children, the ethical responsibility of the counselors is to ask permission from the children before releasing the information (Yakunina, Weigold, & McCarthy, 2010). The main reason behind such a decision is that children might have untrustworthy issues with their parents or guardians.

Children under ten should never be allowed to deal with children from other clients on their own. Rather, a parent or guardian should be present there to see how the session is going. Additionally, the children should be corrected where they are wrong and should not be allowed to manipulate other children. The reason is that parents or the guardians will be responsible for their children’s mistakes.

The parents and guardians must be present before the counselors can start the sessions with the children to know whom to tell in the case of dangers that may arise during the counseling sessions. However, they are not allowed during the sessions as they might make the children not reveal all the information to the counselors. Additionally, some parents and guardians are not trustworthy with the children and, therefore, their presence might hamper the sessions (Yakunina, Weigold, & McCarthy, 2010). Furthermore, confidentiality between client and counselor does not require any other person to access the information except in extreme cases of protection of the customer.

Different states have different mandatory laws regarding children under ten. The accepted method of reporting about any child abuse or neglecting is acceptable if the reporter in his or her official capacity detects the abuse or negligence. For example, a professional counselor could report whatever one is told by the children when doing the counseling. If a child reveals that he or she was raped by the parent and the case was not reported, the counselor could report to the police in the official capacity as a professional counselor but not as an interested party. However, he or she should clarify if the information given is credible and if the client is telling the truth.

Another method whereby it becomes mandatory to report is when a person has knowledge or observes a child under ten being subjected to torture or any other kind of harm. The reporters should give the circumstances under which they believed the child in question was going to get hurt. However, they are not required to go into the details of providing evidence of abuse or neglect.

It is a requirement for the therapists to know and meet the parents or guardians of the children and seek some valuable information from them before meeting the children. Equally, it is important to meet the legal guardians of the children so that the therapists can report on any sensitive information that is for the benefit of the children during the sessions (WHO, 2014).