Glossary
Terms parents come across, explained
Short, plain-English explanations of the words you'll hear from schools, doctors and counsellors, written by a child counsellor with 25 years' experience.
A
- ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
- ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects attention, activity levels and impulse control, in ways that are more marked than expected for a child's age and cause real difficulty at home or school.
- Anxiety in children
- Anxiety in children is a feeling of fear or worry that becomes a problem when it is stronger, lasts longer or happens more often than a situation calls for, and starts getting in the way of everyday life.
- Attachment
- Attachment is the deep emotional bond a child forms with the adults who care for them, which shapes how safe they feel, how they handle stress and how they relate to other people as they grow.
- Autism
- Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference in how a person communicates, relates to others, processes sensory information and experiences the world, and it is present from birth even if it is recognised later.
B
- BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
- The BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) is the largest professional body for counselling in the UK; its members agree to follow its ethical framework, and its register is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
C
- CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services)
- CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) are the NHS services that assess and treat children and young people up to 18 with mental health difficulties; some areas now call them CYPMHS.
- Confidentiality in child counselling
- Confidentiality in child counselling means what a child says in sessions is kept private, including from parents in most cases, with clear limits when the counsellor believes the child or someone else is at risk of serious harm.
D
- Demand avoidance (PDA)
- Demand avoidance is a strong, often anxiety-driven need to resist or avoid everyday demands and expectations, and PDA (pathological demand avoidance) is a widely used name for a profile of autism where this is the central feature.
E
- EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan)
- An EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) is a legal document in England, issued by a local authority, that sets out a child or young person's special educational needs and the support they must receive to meet them, from birth to age 25.
- Emotional regulation
- Emotional regulation is the ability to notice a feeling, manage how strongly it shows and come back to calm afterwards, a skill children develop slowly with help from the adults around them.
G
- Gillick competence
- Gillick competence is the principle in UK law that a child under 16 can consent to their own medical treatment or counselling if they have enough understanding and maturity to fully grasp what is involved.
I
- Integrative counselling
- Integrative counselling is a way of working in which the counsellor draws on more than one therapeutic approach and combines them to suit the person in the room, instead of following a single model for everyone.
- Interoception
- Interoception is the sense that tells us what is happening inside our body, such as hunger, thirst, needing the toilet, tiredness, pain, a racing heart, and the physical feelings that come with emotions.
M
- Masking
- Masking is when an autistic or otherwise neurodivergent person hides or suppresses their natural responses and copies the behaviour of people around them, so they appear to fit in, often at a high cost in energy.
- Meltdown
- A meltdown is an involuntary loss of control in response to overwhelm, when a child's nervous system has taken in more than it can cope with; unlike a tantrum, it is not aimed at getting something and the child cannot simply stop.
N
- Neurodivergent
- Neurodivergent describes a person whose brain works in ways that differ from what is considered typical, for example someone who is autistic, has ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia or Tourette's.
P
- Play-based counselling
- Play-based counselling is counselling that uses toys, art, sand and games as the main way a child communicates, so children who can't yet put feelings into words can still work through them.
R
- Restraint collapse
- Restraint collapse is the outburst or emotional breakdown a child often has after holding themselves together all day at school, usually soon after they get home to the people they feel safest with.
S
- Safeguarding
- Safeguarding means the steps adults and organisations take to protect children from abuse and neglect, prevent harm to their health or development, and act when a child may be at risk.
- Sand tray
- A sand tray is a shallow box of sand, used in counselling with a collection of small figures, in which a child builds scenes that show what is on their mind without having to describe it in words.
- School refusal (EBSA)
- School refusal, now often called emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA), is when a child finds it extremely hard or impossible to go to school because of anxiety or emotional distress, rather than choosing to skip it.
- Selective mutism
- Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder in which a child consistently cannot speak in certain situations, such as at school, while speaking freely in others, such as at home with family.
- SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator)
- A SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) is the teacher in a school who is responsible for organising support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and working with their parents.
- Sensory overload
- Sensory overload happens when a child takes in more sound, light, touch, smell or movement than their brain can process at that moment, leaving them distressed, irritable or unable to function until the input reduces.
T
- Transition
- A transition is any change from one situation to another; for children it can mean small daily changes between activities or big ones such as starting school, moving to secondary school or leaving education.
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