The Hero’s Journey: Can Children Succeed in Play Therapy Without Parents?

How are you integrating parents with more intention into the treatment process for your child and adolescent clients?

Most child and adolescent mental health professionals and play therapists work primarily with the child and sporadically meet with parents. And there’s not usually a specific plan for how parents will participate in their child’s treatment. Overall, parents are usually seen as adjuncts to the treatment process, important, but nonetheless adjunct. (For clarification regarding the focus of this article, caregivers acting in a parenting role such as guardians, stepparents, grandparents, foster parents will be referenced as parents here.)

Here's the thing...

Children are not the agents of change in the treatment process. Parents are the agents of change and integrating them more intentionally into the treatment process allows them to be the therapeutic agents of change for their child.

Here are some questions to consider when you’re working with children and adolescents and conceptualize how to help your client overcome their mental health challenges…

Can children make much long-term progress if their therapeutic agents of change are not an integral part of the treatment process?

What would treatment “look like” if parents were more integral to the treatment process?

What would integrating the whole family into the play therapy process “look like” and why would you even want to include the whole family?

What is a therapeutic agent of change?

For the most part, children are not the masters of their world, and they don’t have full authority nor capacity to institute changes in their lives. The younger the age of the child the less likely that child can make changes in their environment that might be contributing to their difficulties, and they lack the cognitive capacity to clearly articulate what kind of help they need.

Who can make these changes and help your client make the changes needed to ensure they succeed? You as their play therapist don’t live with the child, and for the most part you aren’t going to be actively involved in their day-to-day life unless you work at the child’s school and/or provide more intensive home-based services. Who then, can function as the therapeutic agent of change for your young client and be present in that role for most of your client’s life long after you’re no longer providing play therapy?

Parents.

Adults are in charge and children need their parents to help them make the necessary changes as well as help their environment to make the necessary adjustments for the child. Parents are the therapeutic agents of change for their child to learn and use coping skills, feel safe, learn how to manage their big emotions using co-regulation, advocate for their needs at school, make adjustments in the family relationship dynamics, and help them feel loved and valued. And parents need your support so they can do that effectively. After all, they came to you to get help for their child because they recognized the need for help.

How can you integrate parents in the play therapy process?

Having an intentional plan to meet with parents and establish therapeutic rapport with them in a dedicated session is much more effective than “drive through” parent meetings at the end of the child’s session. Don’t get me wrong, it can be beneficial to include parents in the last 10 – 15 minutes of the play therapy session to teach the parent what skills were learned in the session and their parents can reinforce and use those skills at home and school. To do that effectively, you need to figure out how to include your client’s parents in the play therapy process as a partner and “skills coach,” so to speak, for their child.

I’m not a fan of the “drive through” discussions with parents that take place in the waiting room lobby or at the end of the play therapy session to give parents a “5-minute update.” First, it’s never 5-minutes. And, secondly, what's being discussed in front of the child or how much of the child’s session is being taken up by this end of session check-in discussion? Children usually like having the entire play therapy session.

Here's what I learned after many years working with children and adolescents. When I established a framework to include parents and identified my own expectations for how to integrate parents more effectively (typically by meeting with them at least monthly without their child present), then my working relationship with parents grew considerably. With a stronger therapeutic relationship, parents were more likely to trust me and have more authentic and honest discussions with me. That was the game changer! This approach created a partnership so we could work together and parents could become the therapeutic agents of change for their child for the rest of their life together. After all, isn’t that the goal of play therapy – to help children thrive and become resilient long-term? To thrive and become more resilient, children need their parents to be their therapeutic agent of change, their ally in the world to help them navigate life’s challenges, and to know that they are loved and valued by their parents regardless of misbehavior from time to time. (We’re all cranky sometimes, right?)

What’s the benefit of including your client’s family in play therapy sessions?

Yep! I said it – include the child’s whole family, or at least parts of their family in the play therapy process. Usually when I suggest family play therapy sessions, the play therapists I supervise get a panicked look on their face and hope that I’m just kidding.

Here's the thing ... haven’t you ever wondered about your client’s family relationships and wondered how much of the family dynamics played a role in your client’s difficulties? What if there are family patterns that need to shift?

Consider this – your client’s family shows up in the play therapy sessions every time you meet with him or her. The family is not physically present in the session, and they are present in your client’s values, beliefs, behaviors, relationship patterns, and ways of coping with things. Your young client does not exist in a vacuum so it’s important to conceptualize not only what’s causing the problem but also how to fix the problem. Children exist and thrive within their family systems. So, doesn’t it make sense to include the family, at least sometimes, in the play therapy process?

I know what you’re thinking…

How do you help the entire family to engage in healthy relationship patterns and learn healthy ways of being and coping?

There are too many people to manage and different ages. I can't manage that many people all at once!

How do you get them all to participate in the session?

What if they start arguing and someone has a temper tantrum or refuses to participate What do I do then?

This is the reason it’s important to have a structure and a theory model to use when including parents and including your client’s family in the play therapy process. You need a structure that's grounded in theory and supported by research. I love using an attachment and neuroscience framework because decades of research have provided information about what’s likely contributing to the problem and how to fix the problem.

Over the last 30 years working with children, adolescents, and families, I’ve created an attachment-focused family play therapy model that uses the research and information of attachment neuroscience to help children heal and the importance of including parents and even siblings in the play therapy process. This model provides information about how to help your clients through the treatment process with their family, so your client and their family members thrive long after play therapy treatment has completed. Isn’t that the reason you became a therapist – to help people and make a difference in their lives? I encourage you to consider the exponential possibilities for your client’s healing when you use intention to include family play therapy in the treatment process with your young clients (even adolescent clients) to help them thrive.

And ... if you're interested in learning more about my family play therapy model, Attachment-Focused Family Play Therapy, check out my course and my book – Attachment-Focused Family Play Therapy: An Intervention for Children and Adolescents After Trauma published by Routledge Publishers.

Here’s a recap:

Children and teens need their parents to be involved in the treatment process because parents can facilitate important skill building and create an environment in which change can happen – parents are the therapeutic agents of change for their children.
There’s a different way in which parents are involved in the change process when play therapists identify how parents are important in the change process and then decide how that will look in the play therapy process.
Sometimes you can get a much better sense of your client and their difficulties when you see them within context – their primary relationships. You can identify family strengths, challenging relationship patterns that contribute to your client’s problems, help parents become more actively involved with their children in a way that meets the child’s needs, and help your client develop a secure attachment with their parents and strengthen their sibling relationships.
Figuring out how to engage parents as therapeutic agents of change and help family relationship patterns shift is the key to making lasting changes. Children will be with their families the rest of their lives and will be with you only for a brief period in their lives and making your therapeutic time count is the key to helping to make a big impact in the lives of your clients.

Categories: : Attachment-Focused Family Play Therapy