Your child isn’t giving you a hard time. They’re having a hard time.
That reframe changes everything. If your child is having a hard time, the question isn’t how to make them comply. It’s what are they struggling to do that they don’t yet have the skills for? Therapy, evaluations, and parent coaching for ADHD, behavior, and developmental challenges in Greater Houston and across Texas.
You’re not a bad parent. And your child is not a bad kid.
That’s the first thing we want you to hear, because by the time most families reach us, both of those things have been quietly wondered about for a long time.
You’ve heard “he just needs more structure” or “she’d be fine if you were more consistent” or “have you tried taking away screen time?” You’ve tried those things. They haven’t worked the way they’re supposed to. And every failed strategy leaves a little more doubt behind.
What we know from working with these kids every day is that behavior that looks like defiance, laziness, or bad choices is almost always something else. A brain that’s wired differently. A nervous system that’s overwhelmed. Lagging skills, not character flaws. When you understand what’s actually going on, the treatment becomes clearer, and so does the path forward.
Talk to us about what’s happening →What families tell us when they arrive
- “We’ve tried everything”Sticker charts, consequences, rewards, punishments, none of it is working consistently
- “He’s so smart but nothing sticks”The gap between what you know they’re capable of and what they produce is exhausting for everyone
- “The school keeps calling”You’re fielding calls and emails about behavior you don’t always see at home
- “She falls apart over small things”The reaction is so outsized relative to the trigger that you don’t know what to brace for next
- “He won’t do anything I ask”Every request becomes a negotiation or a battle, you’re walking on eggshells in your own home
- “The diagnosis doesn’t feel like the whole story”Your child has a label but it doesn’t explain everything, or anything seems to explain everything
What we help with
These presentations often overlap, co-occur, and get misidentified as each other. A child doesn’t have to fit neatly into one category to get the right help, and at CCFC, we work with complexity, not just clean diagnostic boxes.
ADHD & Attention Differences
The child who can’t hold still, can’t finish anything, loses everything, forgets what you said thirty seconds ago, and is somehow also capable of hyperfocusing on Minecraft for six hours. All three subtypes, inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined.
Executive Functioning Challenges
Getting started, staying on task, shifting gears, organizing thoughts and materials, managing time, regulating emotions in the moment. Executive functioning challenges show up in kids with ADHD, and in plenty of kids without an ADHD diagnosis.
Autism Spectrum
From toddlers with developmental delays to highly verbal teens who are exhausted by social navigation to adults who are only now understanding why things have always been harder. We take a strengths-based, neurodiversity-affirming approach.
Behavior & Oppositional Patterns
Defiance, aggression, noncompliance, tantrums beyond the expected age. Usually a signal that something is hard and not being communicated any other way, not a character problem. We figure out what’s driving it before deciding how to address it.
Spirited & High-Needs Children
Intense, sensitive, persistent, perceptive, the child who feels everything at full volume and has no dimmer switch. Often labeled before they’re understood. We help families see the gifts alongside the challenges.
PDA Profile
Pathological Demand Avoidance, or Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. An anxiety-driven profile that looks like extreme oppositionality but doesn’t respond to standard behavior management. Requires a different approach entirely.
Twice-Exceptional (2e)
Gifted and challenged, at the same time. High intellectual ability alongside ADHD, a learning difference, autism, or dyslexia. These children fall through the cracks in both directions: too capable for some supports, too challenged for others.
The most important thing about a 2e child is this: their gifts and their challenges are on an even playing field. One shouldn’t get more attention than the other. We help families see both clearly, and help schools do the same.
Teen Risk Behaviors
Substances, reckless choices, school refusal, conflict with family, declining grades. Usually a sign that something else is happening, anxiety, undiagnosed ADHD, trauma, depression, not just adolescent willfulness.
Adult ADHD & Executive Functioning
Late diagnosis, always-suspected, or long-diagnosed and still struggling. ADHD in adults affects careers, relationships, finances, and self-worth. We offer both therapy and practical executive functioning coaching.
ADHD doesn’t look the same at every age.
The hyperactive boy bouncing off walls is one presentation. It’s not the only one, and it’s not even the most common one we see.
ADHD in young children
- Constant motion, can’t sit at the table, always climbing
- Trouble following multi-step directions
- Grabs things, interrupts, can’t wait their turn
- Meltdowns during transitions
- Short attention span except for preferred activities
- Difficulty with morning and bedtime routines
- Loses belongings constantly
- Tantrums that seem disproportionate
ADHD in older children
- Messy, rushed, or incomplete schoolwork
- Forgets to turn in assignments that are done
- Spaces out during lessons, often unnoticed
- Trouble starting tasks even when motivated
- Works well below their obvious ability
- Loses track of time constantly
- Emotional, overreacts to minor frustrations
- Social difficulties, impulsive comments, trouble reading cues
ADHD in teenagers
- Chronically disorganized despite real effort
- Deadlines missed even when they care about the work
- Restless, easily bored, needs constant stimulation
- Impulsive, acts before thinking through consequences
- Intense but unstable interests
- Emotional sensitivity, rejection sensitive dysphoria
- Late nights, sleep problems, morning battles
- Known as “bright but underachieving”
Girls and women with ADHD are frequently missed. Inattentive ADHD, the daydreamer who sits quietly and falls behind, is more common in girls than hyperactive ADHD, and less likely to get flagged. Girls are more likely to internalize, mask, and develop anxiety or depression before anyone identifies the underlying ADHD. If any of this sounds familiar for your daughter, it’s worth a thorough look. See our evaluations page →
ADHD and anxiety. They travel together more than most people realize.
Somewhere between 30–50% of kids with ADHD also have a significant anxiety disorder, and the two make each other worse in ways that can be hard to untangle. The ADHD makes it hard to organize, follow through, and meet expectations. The anxiety about failing at those things, and about disappointing people, creates a second layer of paralysis on top of the first.
But here’s the complication: anxiety can also look like ADHD. A child who is anxious and scanning for threats is going to struggle to concentrate, sit still, and complete tasks. Treating anxiety as ADHD, or ADHD as anxiety, produces slow results at best and makes things worse at worst.
This is one of the most important reasons a thorough evaluation matters before jumping to treatment. Understanding which is driving what changes everything about how we help.
Read our blog post on ADHD + anxiety →Signs it might be both
- Treatment for one isn’t working as expected
- Avoidance that looks like defiance but feels fear-driven
- Can focus when calm but falls apart under pressure
- Perfectionism alongside disorganization
- School refusal, ADHD shame + anxiety avoidance
- Anger and meltdowns that seem out of proportion
- Stimulant medication increasing anxiety symptoms
- Sleep problems driven by racing thoughts
- Social struggles, impulsivity AND fear of judgment
We evaluate and treat the full picture, not just one diagnosis at a time.
How we treat ADHD, behavior, and developmental challenges
We don’t apply the same approach to every child. What works for a 5-year-old with impulse control problems is different from what works for a 15-year-old with rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is different from what works for a 35-year-old who just got diagnosed. We match the treatment to the person.
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
PCIT is unlike most therapy for young children because the therapist coaches the parent in real time, through an earpiece, while the parent is actually with the child. No waiting a week to practice. Skills are built in the moment, during real interactions. PCIT has strong research support for reducing tantrums, aggression, defiance, and noncompliance in children ages 2–7 while strengthening the parent-child relationship.
Parent Management Training (PMT)
PMT teaches parents the specific behavioral strategies that actually move the needle, how to give effective instructions, when and how to use praise and consequences, how to respond to defiance without escalating, how to set limits your child will take seriously. We offer PMT both individually and as a group. The group format has the added benefit of community: parents finding out they’re not alone in this.
Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS)
CPS starts from a different premise: kids do well when they can. Explosive, inflexible behavior isn’t wilful, it’s a lagging skill. CPS identifies the specific unsolved problems (not symptoms, not behaviors, specific recurring situations) and works through them collaboratively with the child rather than through compliance training. The child’s input is central. This approach is particularly effective for PDA profiles and kids for whom standard behavior management has made things worse.
CBT for ADHD
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy adapted for ADHD addresses the thinking patterns that come along with it, the all-or-nothing framing, the shame spiral after a mistake, the avoidance of tasks that feel impossible. Combined with behavioral strategies, CBT helps children and adults build more flexible, realistic thinking and more effective coping.
Executive Functioning Coaching & Support
Practical skill-building for the real challenges ADHD creates: time management, organization, task initiation, working memory strategies, planning and prioritizing. We work with children, teens, and adults on the systems and habits that make daily functioning more manageable. This is different from therapy, it’s hands-on, practical, and focused on what actually works for a specific brain.
Social Skills Work
Not social skills training in the traditional sense, not drilling scripts for how to make friends. We work with children and teens on understanding their own social style, reading the room, navigating the specific situations that are hard for them, and building genuine connections rather than performing neurotypicality. Group formats available.
Zones of Regulation
A structured curriculum that teaches children to recognize their arousal state, understand what shifts them, and build a personal toolkit for self-regulation. Particularly effective for ADHD, autism, and emotionally intense children, because knowing what zone you’re in is the prerequisite for doing anything about it.
Floortime / DIR
A play-based, child-led, relationship-focused approach to autism treatment. Floortime gets down on the floor and follows the child’s lead, building emotional and social development through connection and play rather than discrete skill instruction. We offer Floortime therapy and coach parents in using it at home.
Triple P Parenting
Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) is one of the most researched parenting programs in the world, a practical, positive approach to managing behavior and building strong family relationships. It gives parents a toolkit they can use across different situations, different children, and different stages of development.
Family Therapy
When one child’s ADHD or developmental differences reshape the whole family, how siblings relate, how parents align, how communication breaks down, family sessions address the system, not just the individual. We also work with couples on co-parenting a neurodivergent child, where different parenting philosophies can create real strain.
Spirited kids. High-needs kids. Intense kids.
You know this child. The one who feels everything at full volume, joy, frustration, boredom, excitement, and has absolutely no dimmer switch. The one who “locks onto” an idea or a desire and will not let it go. Who reacts so strongly to a change in plans that you’ve started avoiding changes in plans. Who is exhausting and fascinating and sometimes both at the same time.
Spirited children are often labeled before they’re understood. ADHD. Anxiety. Gifted. High-need. Oppositional. Sometimes all of the above get applied to the same child at different points. Sometimes the label fits and sometimes it’s just the closest box available.
What we know is that these children have an abundance of intensity that can become tremendous strengths, with the right understanding, the right environment, and the right skills. We help families learn what makes their spirited child tick, manage the hard parts with less exhaustion, and focus on the gifts that are genuinely there.
What families tell us after treatment
Families tell us that through the therapy process, they gain a deeper understanding of their child’s needs, desires, and emotions, just generally what makes them tick. They learn to focus on their child’s strengths and appreciate their gifts. To feed her curiosity, explore his interests, and grow as a person and a parent.
The intensity doesn’t go away. But it stops running the household. And eventually, it starts looking less like a problem and more like who this person is going to be.
Talk to us about your spirited child →
Autism therapy at CCFC: what we do and don’t do.
We do not offer ABA. Our approach to autism is relationship-based, strengths-focused, and neurodiversity-affirming. We believe the goal of autism therapy is not to make an autistic child appear neurotypical, it’s to help them thrive in their own neurology, build genuine connections, and navigate a world that wasn’t designed with them in mind.
Autism looks different in every child. The non-speaking toddler, the highly verbal teenager who is exhausted by every social interaction, the girl who has learned to mask so well that no one sees the cost until she falls apart at home, these are all autism. Our evaluators and clinicians work with the full range of presentations, from early childhood through adolescence.
We also work with parents, because raising an autistic child is its own experience, and the grief, love, advocacy, and constant recalibration that comes with it deserves real support too.
Note: current autism prevalence is 1 in 36 children (CDC 2023).
Our autism services
Floortime / DIR
Play-based, child-led therapy that builds social-emotional development through relationship. Parent coaching included.
Social skills work
Genuine connection and social navigation, not scripted compliance. Group formats available.
CBT adapted for autism
Anxiety and rigidity are common in autistic children, CBT modified for concrete thinking styles addresses them.
Zones of Regulation
Self-awareness and self-regulation tools tailored to each child’s sensory and emotional profile.
Parent & sibling support
The whole family is affected. Sibling experiences go overlooked, we don’t ignore them.
Autism evaluations
ADOS-2 based evaluations for children and adults. See our evaluations page →
Parents aren’t on the sideline. They’re part of the treatment.
Every approach we use at CCFC for ADHD and behavior challenges involves parents, not as recipients of a report about their child, but as active participants in the work. This is true from the earliest ages through the teen years.
With PCIT, you’re in the room and the therapist is coaching you in real time. With PMT and Triple P, you’re learning a specific set of skills and practicing them at home between sessions. With Collaborative Problem Solving, you’re learning a different way to understand and solve problems with your child, one that actually involves your child as a partner.
This isn’t because we think you’re doing it wrong. It’s because skills learned in a therapy room only transfer to the home if you know what they are and how to support them. And because the parent-child relationship is the most powerful therapeutic tool available.
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✓Monthly parent sessions throughout treatmentYou always know what we’re working on and why
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✓PCIT, real-time coaching for ages 2–7Learn the skills while you’re actually with your child
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✓PMT group availableLearn alongside other parents navigating the same challenges
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✓School consultation when neededWe can help you communicate with your child’s school about accommodations and strategies
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✓Your own support if you need itParenting a child with ADHD or developmental differences is genuinely hard. We don’t pretend otherwise.
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Our Parent Management Training group brings parents together to learn evidence-based behavior strategies alongside each other. The shared experience matters, there’s something different about learning these tools alongside other parents who are navigating the same challenges.
PMT covers: how to give instructions your child will actually respond to, when consequences work and when they backfire, managing defiance without escalating, and building the relationship that makes all the other strategies more effective.
Learn about the PMT group →Not everything that looks like ADHD is ADHD.
This is one of the most important things we want parents to hear. Difficulty concentrating, impulsivity, and hyperactivity are ADHD symptoms, and they are also symptoms of anxiety, trauma, learning disabilities, sleep disorders, giftedness, and autism. Treating the wrong thing produces slow results at best.
We see children who were diagnosed with ADHD when they were actually gifted and bored. Teenagers on stimulants that didn’t help because the real problem was anxiety. Kids sleeping through the night with undiagnosed sleep apnea. Taking the time for a thorough evaluation, not a 20-minute appointment and a rating scale, changes the trajectory.
See our evaluation services →- ADHD & executive functioning evaluations, children & adults
- Autism spectrum evaluations, ages 18 months through adult
- Learning disability & dyslexia testing
- Gifted & twice-exceptional (2e) testing
- College & workplace accommodation documentation
- Diagnostic clarification, when the picture doesn’t fit
- Differential diagnosis, ruling out anxiety, trauma, sleep issues
Adult ADHD. It didn’t go away when you turned 18.
A lot of adults with ADHD spent decades being told they were disorganized, scattered, not trying hard enough, or just a little flaky. Some got diagnosed as kids and drifted without support into adulthood. Many, especially women, were never diagnosed at all.
Adult ADHD affects careers, relationships, finances, and self-esteem in ways that don’t get better with willpower or better systems alone. The shame that accumulates from years of underperforming relative to your own potential is real, and it needs real treatment.
We offer adult ADHD therapy, executive functioning coaching, and ADHD evaluations for adults who have never been formally assessed. Many adults find that a diagnosis in adulthood reframes their entire history, and that’s not a small thing.
Heading to college with ADHD or a learning disability?
College accommodations, extended time, separate testing rooms, note-taking support, recorded lectures, require current psychoeducational documentation. Many families wait until freshman orientation to figure this out. Don’t wait.
We provide accommodation documentation for College Board, ACT, and college disability services offices. See our evaluations page, and get it done before senior year starts.
Adult ADHD often looks like this
- Chronic lateness despite real effort to be on time
- Starting projects enthusiastically, finishing few of them
- Always misplacing things, keys, phone, wallet, train of thought
- Forgetting things you were just told
- Difficulty reading long documents or staying in meetings
- Rejection sensitive dysphoria, disproportionate response to criticism
- Relationships strained by forgetting, lateness, or impulsivity
- Brilliant in a crisis, paralyzed by ordinary tasks
- Always “on”, racing thoughts, difficulty winding down
- A history of underachievement relative to ability
More on ADHD, behavior & development
From our blog, written for parents and adults navigating these challenges.
All About Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
How PCIT works and why the real-time coaching format makes it different.
BehaviorCorrecting Children’s Behavior: A Positive Parenting Approach
What actually works, and why punishment alone rarely does.
ADHD + AnxietyThe Connection Between ADHD and Anxiety
Why they co-occur so often and what that means for treatment.
Twice-ExceptionalTwice-Exceptional Kids: Gifted and Challenged
Understanding and supporting the 2e child who falls through the cracks.
EvaluationADHD Diagnosis: What the Process Actually Looks Like
What to expect from an ADHD evaluation and why it matters to do it right.
AccommodationsCollege Accommodations for ADHD and LD
How to get your teen the documentation and services they need before they leave home.
Parent SupportYou’re Not a Bad Parent
For the parent who has started to wonder if they’re the problem.
Insurance we accept
EAP
Reduced-fee options
Income-based sliding scale available.
Low-cost sessions with our graduate
trainees for qualifying clients.
Learn more →
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for out-of-network reimbursement.
Full insurance & fees →
Questions parents and adults ask us
