09/05/2024
🧸What is Play Therapy, and when should you consider it for your child?🧸
The wise Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
Sometimes, we worry about our children when we realise they are having trouble at home or school. Sometimes, we are concerned about our children’s development, eating or sleeping patterns, social skills, academic performance, emotional well-being, or how they interact with family members. We often wonder where we can get some help with this.
All children are unique and amazing in their ways. Often, children can experience problems with feelings, behaviours, or emotions that cause disruptions in their lives and those around them. Sometimes, children encounter difficulties that they struggle to understand or work through. These difficulties range from grief, adjustment difficulties, bullying, friendship problems, abuse, illness, separation, loss, anxiety, and many more.
When these problems remain unattended, children can become withdrawn, rebellious, inattentive, disruptive, and sad. It concerns parents, caregivers, and teachers who realise that a child in their care is experiencing something very distressing and may not know how best to help. I chatted with Sinead van Niekerk from Thriving Play Therapy about play therapy.
🧸What are the statistics in SA?🧸
📉In young adults with mental illness, 50% of them started with symptoms before the age of 14.
📉67% of children have experienced a directly or vicariously experienced a traumatic event.
📉The South African Depression and Anxiety Group in 2016 reported that 25% of teens had experienced sad or hopeless feelings.
🧸What is play therapy?🧸
Play Therapy is a specific communication approach in which play is used with a multitude of mediums such as sand, clay, drawings, puppets, movement, music, therapeutic stories, and paint to help a child or adolescent to express and process their emotions, feelings, thoughts, wishes, and needs. It also allows children to understand muddled feelings and upsetting events they have not had the chance or the skills to process or sort out properly.
Adult therapy usually expects the person to talk about what is troubling them. However, a child’s natural way of communicating is to play. With Play Therapy, children can use play to communicate at their level and pace without feeling interrogated or threatened.
🧸How does play therapy help?🧸
Play is a child’s natural medium of self-expression. It is an essential part of every child’s cognitive, creative, emotional, social, and language development. Play Therapy is an objective-based play that helps children in various ways.
Play therapy allows your child to “play out” their thoughts, worries, feelings, and problems. In the Playroom, the therapist works to build a positive relationship with your child. They provide emotional support and a safe place for healing and children to understand and process their thoughts, emotions, feelings, and behaviour.
🧸From which age can I take my child to play therapy?🧸
Many play therapists take children from 3 years to 13 years old but continue to work with them until they are 18 years old. For children younger than 3 years, it can be beneficial for Mom and Dad to come for a consultation if there are notable behavioural changes and persistent problems or if they have been through trauma. In these cases, we can provide parents with resources to help them at home or refer them if the situation warrants it.
🧸How do I know if my child needs play therapy?🧸
When child safety or the safety of others is questioned, the child should immediately be referred for play therapy. Examples are domestic violence, abuse, neglect, talk of self-harm, etc.
But sometimes, if a child goes through something difficult, they do not necessarily have any behavioural changes or persistent problems. Or they might not have gone through anything complicated you are aware of, but their behaviour has changed suddenly. It’s usually not just one thing but a combination of things.
☣️Some complex changes a child might go through that might be difficult for them to process:
⚠️Family related
🔹Death of a significant person or pet
🔹Divorce
🔹Moving
⚠️Situational stressors
🔹Witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event
🔹Natural disasters (like Covid-19)
⚠️Medical changes/challenges
🔹Facing medical procedures
🔹Chronic illness
🔹Hospitalisation
☣️Some behavioural changes or persistent problems your child may exhibit
⚠️Behavioural problems
🔹Lack of personal hygiene
🔹Biting, shoving, fistfights
🔹Aggressive behaviours
🔹Stealing or breaking the law
🔹Lying
🔹Passivity or withdrawal
🔹Phobias
🔹Preoccupation with s*x
⚠️Social problems
🔹Struggling to make friends
🔹Being a bully or constantly being bullied
🔹Struggling to work in groups
🔹Difficulty with communicating
🔹Struggling to relate to others in a positive way
🔹Social immaturity
⚠️Emotional problems
🔹Attempting or talking about self-harm or su***de
🔹Excessive and sudden or prolonged:
🟠Anxiety
🟠Anger
🟠Sadness
🟠Worry
🟠Crying
🟠Avoidance
🟠Tantrums
⚠️Classroom problems
🔹Struggling with problem-solving
🔹Lack of concentration and focus
🔹Spacing out
🔹Lack of interest
🔹Struggling to complete tasks
🔹Never completing homework
🔹Excessive forgetfulness
🔹Poor academic performance
🧸What can you expect from a play therapy session?🧸
Sessions for Play Therapy will look very different depending on the therapist. Many occupations use play therapy when working with children for various reasons, e.g., psychologists, play therapists, play therapy practitioners, social workers, teachers, etc.
First, they usually start with a parent meeting. They talk to parents about their concerns and learn about their child and family. They also discuss confidentiality and what parents and children can expect from the sessions.
The play therapist often talks to the child’s teacher to see if the concerns are shared in their school environment.
If they decide to continue with therapeutic sessions, the child will come to therapy for a few sessions. This is critical in a therapeutic process. They have to give time for a child to become confident in the playroom and for a trusting relationship to form between them and the therapist. In between, the therapist may check in with the parents to see if there is any progress.
If you are in Bloemfontein, contact Sinead van Niekerk, a qualified play therapy practitioner from Thriving Play Therapy. She has a B.Soc.Sc (2012) degree, Honours in Criminology (2013), and Honours in Psychology (2016) with a Certificate in Therapeutic Play Skills. She is on the Play Therapy UK Register of Play and Creative Arts Therapists and is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority. You can contact her at 082 558 4843 or email her at playtherapy@thriving.co.za
Pic by Pro Church Media on Unsplash.
