NOTE: This post is a continuation of Using Play Therapeutically, part 1, where we looked at a few considerations and guidelines. Now we look at what you actually do when using play therapeutically.
While parents cannot be their child’s therapist—nor should they try—this post isn’t about doing actual play therapy with your child, but rather using play in a therapeutic way to help your child. There’s a lot to borrow from the therapist’s toolkit, and here’s how.
Step 1: Get the storyline from your child
In Part 1, we discussed how a primary goal in therapy—and therapeutic play—is to bring a child’s emotions into the open. So much of a child’s play includes a storyline—for example, the momma doll is putting the baby doll to bed—and that’s where we start because storylines contain not just a story but emotions, too.
When we uncover the storyline, we uncover the feelings.
Sometimes the story isn’t clear—or doesn’t seem to exist—especially when the play feels pretty mundane. For instance, if the family of toy cars just sits there, watching a movie together, something is happening despite the lack of action. Perhaps the cars have some feelings about all this.
Your job is to flesh out the details, for it’s the details that will help you understand the feelings that run through the storyline. It means asking a lot of questions. For example, “Do all the cars want to watch the movie? Whose idea was the movie and why? Did they all want to watch the same movie? What are the different feelings the cars have about all this? What’s the movie about?” And so on.
Generally it’s better to ask open-ended questions (ones that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no), though depending on the child’s age, verbal abilities, insight, etc., open-ended questions might be hard to answer.
Getting the storyline when you are involved in the play
Often, young kids want parents involved in the play. They use you as a character in the story, which adds some challenges. As noted in Part 1, the parent is supposed to let the child lead the play. But what does this look like?
Here’s an example.
Let’s say your child holds a mother action figure and gives you the child figure. “You be the kid, and I’m the mom,” he says, then announces with a smile, “You’re in time out.”
You don’t know what your kid action figure has done to be in time out, what you’re now supposed to do, or how your kid figure is supposed to feel about all this. (Just remember: if you decide what you do and how you feel, you’re no longer sticking with your child’s vision of the story.)
So, you need to ask. “Okay, I’m in time out, and how do I feel? What should I do?” This lets your child know that he’s still in charge of the play, and that he gets to control what happens next.
Whispering these questions can also be helpful because it doesn’t interrupt the flow of play as much. It sends the message that the two of you are pretend playing and that you’re okay with what’s happening.
Keep in mind that when you are a participant in the play, you’ll have to do some play acting. This is a good thing, for it gives you opportunities to express the feelings that your child might be feeling himself. In this way, you’re bringing emotions into the open where your child can not only see them but start to wrestle with them.
Step 2: Look for the emotions underlying the play
Let’s go back to the post, “How to Bond With Your Child Through Playing: What No One Else is Telling You.” In this post, we look at an example in which a parent and preschooler are playing together, and the girl’s toy hippo has just pretend bitten off the feet of a toy dog.
Something certainly seems to be going on because the child is highly invested and stimulated by the play, but what are the emotions underlying the hippo and dog’s interaction?
Is there some meaning to a hippo biting off a dog’s feet? What’s the parent supposed to make of it? And what should the parent do now?
Here, it’s helpful to figure out which toy the child identifies with. Does she see herself more like the dog or the hippo? Is she more drawn to one or the other? Ultimately, we want to figure out onto which animal the child is projecting her own feelings and issues.
In this case, let’s say the child seems more aligned with the dog. (After all, it’s a pretty specific problem that the dog now faces.)
There’s all sorts of emotions that could go with having no feet. Does it mean you can’t walk and you’re stuck (like a baby can’t walk and is stuck)? Perhaps the dog is being punished. Or the dog is made to feel helpless, that someone bigger gets to control the dog and take important things away from it.
Or maybe it’s just pure whimsy and there’s no more meaning than silliness.
Your job is to figure out what emotions, if any, go along with getting one’s feet eaten off. Yes, it’s a bizarre job, but you’ve had stranger, I’m sure.
There’s a lot of questions you could ask to piece it together. You’re wanting to understand what it means to the dog to have no feet. You might ask, “How does the dog feel about having no feet?”
This might be too difficult for a young child, say three years old, to answer. Instead, you might say, “What does the dog do without feet?” Or, “What does the dog say now that it has no feet?” Or, “What happens now that the dog has no feet?”
You’re trying to get more details. And details are the key. The details will hint at what emotions go along with having no feet.
What if your child responds, saying, “The dog can’t walk. Help, help! Someone has to carry me!”
Now you have some information: the dog is helpless and needs to be carried.
To flesh things out further, you might ask, “The dog wants to be carried. How does she feel about that?”
“Bad,” your child says.
“How come?”
“The dog’s too big. No one can lift it.”
Now we’re getting somewhere: the dog wants to be carried but can’t be helped because it’s too large.
Remember that kids often project their feelings onto others. In this case, does the dog’s condition sound like a familiar predicament for a child? Does the girl have some mixed feelings about herself being too big to be carried? Does she have some conflicted feelings of wanting to be a small child while also wanting to be independent?
IMPORTANT NOTE: Deciphering a child’s emotions is hard and takes practice. I know this, not just because I’m a parent but because there has been a steep learning curve in my experience as a child therapist. To that end, I’m writing another post, “How to Decipher Your Child’s Behavior: Some Examples,” which I hope will help you make those connections between a child’s emotions and the seemingly incomprehensible way he behaves.
Step 3: Name the emotions
The hard part is deciphering your child’s emotions; it’s much easier to then name those emotions. (Check out the whole post dedicated just to this, “Naming Emotions: a Key Part of Successful Parenting.”)
Using the example above, the parent might say, “Poor dog. She wants to be carried but is too big. She has to figure out how to get around. I wonder how she feels…”
If the child doesn’t respond to this invitation, the parent might continue, “Maybe she feels sad that she’s gotten so big. Or maybe scared that she can’t do it herself. Maybe angry, too.”
Notice here that the parent is only setting out the feelings for the child to see. The parent isn’t trying to fix these feelings, saying, “Doggie, you don’t have to be carried, you’re a big dog and can learn to fly!” The parent’s job isn’t to find solutions.
Also, know that most kids won’t respond to your naming their emotions. Certainly don’t expect your kid to congratulate you with, “Wow, you totally get it. Thanks for helping me understand things!”
Let’s follow up on the earlier example where the parent is put in time out
Because most parents have put their child in time out, the parent in this example probably has a good fix on the child’s feelings when he’s put in time out: anger and helplessness, guilt or shame, possibly some degree of rejection or disconnection from the parent.
If the child has put the parent’s action figure in time out, he’s wanting the action figure and the parent to have these same feelings. It may not be clear which of these feelings he wants the parent to have, and if she’s unsure, the parent can ask some questions: “Am I angry, or sad, or lonely sitting in time out?” Or, “Do I feel like I did something bad or is it my parent who is the bad one?” Or, “What do I wish I could do right now?” And so on.
When she’s got a good fix on the emotions, the parent can then voice them within the play. Let’s let the scene play out.
The mom says in a high, sad voice, “I hate sitting here. I didn’t do anything wrong. I wish I were big and not small.”
“Quiet,” the child responds. “No talking!”
This is a confirmation that the mom’s named the right feelings: her child wants to further control her, inviting her to feel powerless.
Even though she’s not allowed to speak, she then says, “And now I’m not supposed to talk! I can’t do anything. I just get bossed around.”
The child glares at her for talking. He’s now getting angry because his actual mother is taking power away from him by not giving in to his “no talking” rule. In this way, she’s not following his lead.
So she zips her lips closed with her fingers, and lets her eyes bug out in frustration and helplessness as her child grins with pleasure.
Now she’s doing some good work.
One other key piece
Notice your own feelings when playing with your child because kids will regularly try to make you feel exactly how they are feeling. (For more on this, check out the essential post, “A Key Technique Therapists Use to Figure Out Kids.”)
In the field of psychology, this is called countertransference. The name doesn’t matter, but the idea does: everyone, and especially children, like to give their unwanted feelings to someone else as a way of psychically ridding themselves of those feelings. (No, this doesn’t actually get rid of the feelings.)
So, when you’re playing checkers with your five-year-old who keeps making up new rules so that she wins, you find yourself feeling frustrated. You want to play a real game of checkers, not because you want to win but because it’s no fun playing where you’re always set up to lose in unpredictable, unpreventable ways.
You’re frustrated, so tap into that feeling! Can you pinpoint the feeling more precisely?
You’re frustrated because your child makes you feel helpless. Is this the feeling that she’s trying to get rid of by giving to you?
If that’s the case, you can now speak to the feelings she’s grappling with.
When we look at play as a way of self-expression, it suddenly takes on new meaning, and is hopefully a bit more interesting to adults. There’s now something going on, not just a bunch of random, whimsical playing. And with this in mind, there’s a lot more you can do when playing with your child.
Related Posts
Using Play Therapeutically, part 1
Therapists help children work through feelings and issues using play therapy, and you can use these tools, too, Here are some guidelines.
What Actually is Play Therapy and How It Works
If you’ve wondered what exactly happens when therapists “do play therapy,” this post will explain it all as well as how and why it works.
How to Find a Therapist and Get the Most From Therapy
An insider’s guide to finding, evaluating, and working with a therapist.
