The other day, I enjoyed one of our own poster's, Peter Rober, article in the Summer '98 Family Process( vol. 37, #2, p.201-214). It's entitled, "Reflections on ways to create a safe therapeutic culture for children in family therapy." 

I appreciated that he used a lot of short therapeutic vignettes to illustrate his clinical points. One of the things that stood out for me was his emphasis 
on children and therapists negotiating meaning together as a way to create 
a safe therapeutic culture. I found his writing style to be very easy to 
read and very concise. I also found that he managed to include many 
thought provoking ideas. 

Some of the other points I enjoyed include: "(family therapists who work with children) must be able to tolerate uncertainty, chaos, and confusion. They must be aware that they won't be able to control or understand everything in the session." (p.206)"At the beginning of the first session, it is usually best to get to know the child aprart from the problem." (p.206) "All too often therapists harbour the fantasy that they could be better parents than the real parents. One way to point out to parents how incompetent they are is for the therapist to demonstrate  skill and charm in engaging their child, or by demonstrating how pleasantly he or she can play with the child, or by showing them how easy it is to understand the child. 

Parents who come to therapy with their child feel bad enough as it 
is...They feel guilty and impotent, and they don't need a therapist to rub 
it in even deeper." (p.208)