As a parent or caregiver, all you want is for your child to be happy, get along with others, and enjoy school, their friends and family, and activities. Your child is likely exhibiting feelings and behaviors that you do not fully understand. At Embark Counseling, our child counselors are experts in child development and effective counseling for children, giving you peace of mind in supporting you and your family with your child’s mental wellness needs throughout the therapy process.
Play therapy for children is different from what we would expect as adults. When adults face difficult situations or trauma, they can talk through their thoughts and feelings, analyze what they have experienced, and problem-solve. Children often have difficulty communicating what they have experienced, regulating their emotions, and finding ways to manage and problem-solve through their experience. Play therapy is an effective and developmentally appropriate approach for helping children improve.
Our therapeutic work with children provides what children need developmentally to work through their situations while learning new emotion regulation and communication skills. Our work with children is grounded in developmental theories, and each session intentionally promotes your child’s development and learning of new ways to communicate, problem-solve, and improve social and emotional regulation skills.
At Embark Counseling Services, you are the expert on your child and may feel at a loss with how to help your child. We are trained in various therapeutic approaches to best help your child and you on your healing journey. Our counselors are here to help you find success in parenting and family life and have been specifically trained to understand the root core of what is challenging your child. With this, we intentionally provide parent consultation sessions in tandem with your child’s play therapy to help you better understand what your child is going through and how to help and support them through their healing and learning new skills. Research is rich in identifying that parents and caregivers are integral to the child’s healing and integrating new skills into their world. As a Family Systems practice, we may recommend additional support with other professionals for other family members, either within our practice or in our community, to support the entire family.
Why Play Therapy?
Play Therapy is an evidence-based approach that is proven effective for nearly every emotional or behavioral concern you may have with your child. Our play therapists have been through additional extensive training and supervision to learn how to interpret the meaning of children’s play by observing how they express their play and non-verbal expressions in a safe and consistent environment.
While playing, children often reveal their thoughts, what is bothering them, and their unconscious worries, concerns, and fears. Children work through their experiences by developing meaning and learning to manage stress and their behaviors in the context of play while optimizing healthy development. In essence, toys become the child’s words and provide a way to communicate their thoughts and feelings in a non-threatening way.
Play therapy is also helpful in strengthening bonds between children, their siblings, and their parents, resolving traumatic events, and processing strong emotions, such as anxiety (general, social, separation), depression, including self-harming behaviors and suicidal ideation, anger, grief, chronic illness, among many, many other presenting issues.
Who may benefit from Play Therapy?
Play Therapy is an effective approach for any child who has experienced any adverse event, attachment ruptures, struggles with trust or communicating needs or feelings, or has attention-seeking behaviors that cause distress at home, school, or with friends. Since Play Therapy focuses on play and not talk, Play Therapy is also a good option for children who are resistant, shy, selectively mute, or have any other neuro-atypical, or have a learning disability, as it provides a safe environment for all children to be themselves without judgment or expectation.
Benefits include: social-emotional competency, problem-solving ability, development of coping skills, and increasing self-esteem and self-concept.
Some modalities that might be used include various games and fun toys, sand trays, and expressive art therapy. Play therapy is not just for children; it has also been proven effective for teens and adults!
Our Play Therapy Approaches
- Child Centered Play Therapy
- Directive Play Therapy
- Attachment Play Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy
- Child-Parent Play Therapy
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
- Sand Tray and Sand Play Therapy
Learn more about Play Therapy below:
Play Therapy is not the same as play that you will watch your child engage in at home, at school or with their friends. We do not expect or encourage children to play in ways that other environments may desire or correct toward. This approach creates an intentional environment that encourages your child to be as authentic as possible, so that the root problem is revealed. This provides an optimal opportunity to guide children through learning new skills and healing from maladaptive patterns, whether it is emotional in nature or behavioral.
Our therapeutic approach is also inspired by Neuroscience, paying close attention to how the brain is functioning, and what the brain needs to heal and develop. As children integrate their play and understanding of themselves through the Play Therapy process, the brain develops and their world view begins to align with social emotional safety and competence. These are building blocks of development, and more evidence of how Play Therapy works! For more information and research on Play Therapy, click here.
Our Play Therapy rooms are full of toys and resources necessary to keep children interested, creative, engaged and healing. We carefully select the toys and supplies in each of our Play Therapy rooms to give children a choice of materials, and those that will provide an opportunity for each child to safely play out real life themes and promote creative expression of feelings and events. Some of our Play Therapy rooms are also equipped with equipment and supplies to support our Therapy Dogs and their handlers.
You and your child likely have questions about counseling. Below are some things parents can do to introduce your child to counseling and prepare them for the counseling process.
From our experience as counselors, it is important to be supportive, honest and reassuring. Children may have fears about the process, and if it will hurt, or if something is wrong with them.
Your child’s counselor will help your child understand:
- Therapy is a process to help solve your problems and feel better.
- We are not medical doctors, so we will not give you a shot or make you take medicine!
- Our counselors believe that behaviors tell a story, and do not define the child.
- Therapy is a confidential experience, so you can tell your counselor anything, and you will not be judged or in trouble.
- Our therapists play with children, so if you do not know what to say, we can just play!
Your child may be timid when coming to therapy for their first session. Your child may actually refuse. It is helpful to help them understand that Play Therapy is their very special place with their Play Therapist to help them feel better, and to PLAY!
Ongoing, it is essential that your child knows that their experience is special, just for them, and their process is a safe place where there is no punishment for their feelings, or for who they are fundamentally.
We value the parent-child relationship, the family-child relationship, and also the child-therapist relationship. As trained experts, we will structure the process and treatment goals alongside you and your child. In the initial session, your therapist will gather the information necessary to know what your child is struggling with, what your goals are as the parent/caregiver, and what the child wants out of their process. All of our therapists value open communication, although we recommend not discussing issues in front of your child. Please provide this information in confidential communication through email, or during your parent consultation meetings.
The first four to six sessions are considered our assessment phase, and will be used to develop the therapeutic relationship and begin implementing the preliminary treatment interventions. Most likely, your therapist will approach the beginning stages of therapy from a Child-Centered approach. After this phase, your first parent consultation session will be scheduled to provide insight and understanding to what your child is experiencing, and what your child needs in the healing and development process. Parent consultation sessions are typically scheduled ongoing every four to six weeks, or when clinically needed to support the healing process for either the child, or the parent.
The number of sessions required will vary depending on the intensity of your child’s presenting issue, the support the child receives from the influencing systems and parent support, as well as how the child is developing through the healing process. We generally recommend anywhere from 20-40 sessions, although this will largely depend on the presenting concerns and the cohesive involvement of the parents/guardians in the process. Your child’s therapist will navigate this process with you during your parent consultation sessions. It is important that to maintain the momentum in healing that all recommendations from your therapist are followed, including support between sessions and the frequency of sessions.
