I have worked with children for many years through Play Therapy. I am often asked, "Why Play Therapy?" I even had one mother tell me that her child loved to talk and she thought he would do better in my office talking than in the playroom. While talk therapy is an excellent avenue for adults to express themselves, it isn't necessarily best for children. Though many children do love to talk, they all love to play.
Play therapists explain it this way: Play is a child's language and toys are their words. When a child is allowed to enter a world where he/she can play freely, many thoughts and ideas are expressed. Have you ever taken a child to a playground, only to have him say repeatedly: "Watch me!"? In the playroom, children understand that they are the center of attention because the play therapist is constantly letting them know that they are paying attention to them through a process known as verbal tracking. As a child plays, the therapist makes comments about what they are doing to let the child know they are important. To be able to get the undivided attention of an adult for most of an hour is empowering for a child. Most children don't get this kind of attention anywhere else in their lives. No matter how attentive parents try to be, it is difficult for most parents to spend 15 minutes with their children without normal interruptions. When my daughter was small, I would read to her every night before she went to sleep. One night the phone rang and I immediately jumped up so I could answer it. To my child, she thought this meant that the phone was more important than she was. She innocently asked me, "Mommy, do you have to answer it?" She got my attention very quickly and my reply was "No, I don't." That started a rule in our house that whenever I was reading to my children, phone calls would just have to wait. Children want to know that they are important and are being listened to. Play therapy is one method in which this is accomplished.
While talk therapy is an excellent avenue for adults to express themselves, it isn't necessarily best for children. Though many children do love to talk, they all love to play.
Play therapy also allows children to work through confusing life situations, such as parents who fight or who divorce, medical traumas, sexual abuse, death of a loved one (or death of a beloved pet). I had a young girl who repeatedly wanted to play doctor with me and she would love to give me pretend shots. This went on for weeks where she would ask me to be the patient and she would tell me I was sick and had to have a shot. She would explain that the shot would make me feel better later. She especially seemed delighted in letting me know it would hurt, then giving me the shot anyway. When discussing this behavior with the mother, I was informed that this child was particularly afraid of shots and had to be held down by the mother and the nurse in order to have her shots administered. What this child was doing in the playroom was making sense of her medical trauma in having to be held down for her shots. It calmed her down to be able to have the power to give someone else the shot and have it hurt them instead of her.
Play therapists don't always understand exactly what is going on inside a child's mind while they are in the playroom, though many times their play behavior tells us most of what we need to know. The important thing is not that we understand their thoughts behind their play, but that we allow them the freedom to play and act out whatever they need to do to feel better. Play therapists offer no judgments of a child's play, nor do we correct them if they do or say something wrong (ex: misspelling a word on the chalkboard). The child is the director of their play and the therapist is merely the fortunate spectator who is allowed to witness freedom and growth at work.
