Our Guiding Philosophy

At IDS, we believe family is the foundation for a child’s development. Family is the ever-present guiding force in a child’s life from first breath through all the growing-up years. Family doesn’t close for the holidays, go on spring break, or call it quits at five o’clock. Family remains a pervasive presence on a day-in, day-out basis, through all the hours of the day, through all the seasons of the year, through all the years of childhood.

In comparison to therapies, school, and other professional services, the family is in the single best position to have a significant and lasting impact on a child’s development. For this reason, it is critical that families are equipped with effective strategies for promoting children’s relationships, communication, and learning.

We know that families are absolutely capable of providing critical, competent support for their children on a daily basis, even when their children have exceptional needs. Our confidence in families is based on decades of research and clinical practice on family-focused intervention, which has found that:
> Parents’ participation in intervention reduces rather than adds to the stress of raising their child.
> Parents’ involvement is an essential ingredient of effective intervention.
> Intervention is the most successful at enhancing children’s development when it involves working directly with parents and increasing parents’ responsiveness to their children.

At IDS, all the services we provide are guided by a common philosophy about the role of the family in a child’s development. We strive to equip both children and their families with necessary skills for strong, satisfying relationships with one another, because we know that learning happens best when it happens in the context of playful, reciprocal interactions with life partners.