What’s the Role of Parents in Play Therapy with Anxious Children?

In the play therapy profession, the focus is typically on the children and providing play therapy sessions only with the child to facilitate healing.

Makes sense when you think about it because parents bring their child to you for help overcoming their mental health challenges.

But is it really the most effective way to conceptualize the problem and healing the problem?

How much focus do you allow to identify family relationship patterns sustaining the problem?

How are you gathering information to fully understand the problem?

How are you using that information to strategize the best approach to play therapy with anxious children?

Whenever I ponder clinical issues in my work with clients and prepare for trainings, I always like to go to the research to see what the research says when it comes to children’s mental health and treatment.

So that’s what I did.  

I perused the research literature on children’s mental health and parental involvement in treatment.

Yep! I went down another research literature rabbit hole and came out with gold!

I found an interesting article examining the role of parents in the development of anxiety in their children and the effectiveness of parental involvement in treatment.

There was some really interesting data about the role of parents in the development of their children’s anxiety as well as what type of treatment involving parents was effective (and not effective).

Intrigued?  Want to know more?

Join me on my podcast episode this week! I’ll review the data identified about what types of family patterns/parental behaviors were examined to give you insights into what to explore with parents and children when working with anxious children.

I’ll also review the data outlining what types of treatment approaches involving parents were effective and what wasn’t effective so you can use a play therapy approach that gets results.

Citation for article:  Wei, C., and Kendall, P. C. (2014). Parental involvement: Contribution to childhood anxiety and its treatment. Clinical Child and Family Psychological Review, 17, 319-339. doi.10.1007/s10567-014-0170-6

And - if you find the information useful - spread the love and share the podcast with your colleagues!

Leave a comment because I’d love to get your feedback.

Join my free Facebook Community Play and Expressive Arts Therapy Playground.

Check out my free resources for mental health professionals working with children, adolescents, and families who want to integrate play therapy and expressive arts into their clinical work.

I work with individuals and agencies to develop successful strategies and meet the treatment needs of your child and adolescent clients and their families using play therapy & expressive arts.

Contact me to schedule a free 30-minute video call if you're ready to level up your skills

Transcript

Ep 29-what's-the-role-of-parents-in-play-therapy-with-anxious-children

[00:00:00] Cathi Spooner: Welcome to Next Level Play Therapy, a weekly podcast dedicated to supporting the next generation of child and adolescent therapists to provide exceptional play therapy services. We'll explore all things play therapy to elevate your work with children and adolescents using the therapeutic powers of play, I'll discuss practical tips and ideas so you can provide a transformative experience for your young clients and make a real difference in their lives.

[00:00:32] So get ready to take your play therapy skills to the next level and make a lasting impact in the lives of children, adolescents, and families.

[00:00:46] Hey there! Good morning. Welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy, where I talk about all things play therapy and expressive arts to help you take your play therapy skills with children, adolescents, and families to the next level. And one of the things that I love to do, especially when I'm creating courses, which I'm in the middle of doing now, it's almost done, getting grounded partnering with parents in play therapy,

[00:01:20] that's my next course launching in May. It's also part of my Play Therapy Academy program, which is my online play therapy consultation program that includes group consultation calls, courses, extra support. So if you're interested and you want to really take your play therapy skills to the next level,

[00:01:46] I will talk about that a little bit more at the end. When I researching the courses that are going into Play Therapy Academy, which are also available if you're not in Play Therapy Academy, I like to look at the research, cause I like to make sure that I'm providing the most up to date information.

[00:02:08] And when I was going through and looking at the research, I found this really interesting article that I feel like is important for play therapists to kind of help you feel like you are staying on the track, but on the, on the right track with your clients because It's grounded in research. And how, how, how to conceptualize parents when you're doing your case conceptualization process.

[00:02:44] Also though, how are you using that for your treatment planning? Like what are you going to do? How do you take that information about what exactly is the problem and why is it happening? So you're looking systemically and you're looking at patterns. And what do I do? How do I help my clients? And if you've listened to any of my previous live stream episodes and you will have heard me talk a lot about my, my conceptualization for working with children always includes parents.

[00:03:22] Like children exist within a family system. That's family system has existed for generations. And so if we are looking at children within the context of their system, so we're using kind of a family systems lens here, then how are we conceptualizing the role of parents in the change process? Because children are with their parents

[00:03:52] way more than they are with us as play therapists. And parents really are the therapeutic agents of change because they're with their children, because they have the ability to provide support in order to help children apply skills they're learning in all areas of their life, not just in the playroom.

[00:04:16] Then I think it's important that we take a look at what the research says about parents role in the development of what's going on with their children. As well as how they can be part of that change process. So I'm always really careful when I'm talking to parents because I feel like as a parent, here's one of my theories.

[00:04:46] My kids are young adults now. I did not have the, Uh, I, I had the neuro diverse kids, the ones that back in the day did not fit the molds of what the prevailing parenting experts were saying that, like, none of that worked with my kids because they weren't your typically developing kids. So, um, plus looking at things generationally, I had a ton of guilt.

[00:05:16] You know, I so I developed and then I started talking to other parents and I'm like, oh, we all have guilt. I'm not the only one. We just have various kinds. So I'm a firm believer that when you become a parent, regardless of it is a natural birth or adoption. When you become a parent, you, you develop guilt.

[00:05:38] I called mine, mommy guilt. I know dads have daddy guilt. So I think we have to be mindful when we're working with parents that we need to earn trust. We need to let them know that we're here to support them as much as we are their child, because if we want them to make the changes that they're going to make, then they really need to know that we care about them and we're not judging them.

[00:06:06] We need them to understand that we're here to support them, which means that we're not judging them. And so I always like to say that. And especially when I'm about to dive into some patterns that are typically displayed when we are taking that deep dive into gathering all that initial information in that first session to begin our case formulation.

[00:06:36] So if you're joining me live today for this week's live stream, I would love to know who's here. Feel free also to ask questions. What I would ask though is not to ask specific client questions or share any client information. Just because it is a public format and we do want to respect privacy. That being said, if you're a play therapist, the likelihood you have lots of children on your caseload struggling with anxiety is very high and there tends to be some very, um, typical things that we see when we're working with children who have exam, uh, anxiety and their families.

[00:07:25] So feel free to ask specific questions or join the conversation, share your insights. If so, I'd love to know who's here, post your name in the comments, where you're from, what population you work with. Are you working with children with anxiety? Which the likelihood, the answer to that question is yes, it's very high.

[00:07:49] If you're watching on the replay, honestly, feel free to post in the comments, join the conversation. And also if you're watching on my, or if you're listening on my podcast, feel free to join the conversation, add your comments. Please feel free if the information is helpful, please feel free to share it

[00:08:11] across your social media platforms. And if you're listening on the podcast, I would love to, um, get a review. If you find this information is helpful, please feel free to leave a review for the podcast next level play therapy podcast. Alrighty, let's get started. Let's see who's here. We have a few comments.

[00:08:33] I think this is going to be a very popular topic today. So first we have, Hey, Carla. Good. Good to connect. I was going to say it's good to see you, but I can't really see you. I can see your comments. Carla says, I always say we do not mother or father with what we know, but with who we are. I love that Carla and you and I are both.

[00:08:59] We both share that passion for including parents and doing that family work. So I, I love that you're doing that work as well. They're in Mexico, which is very exciting. Carla also says this is such a release for them and we are all with all of our parts, internal family systems. Yes. Agreed. Totally agree.

[00:09:25] I love that concept too. So let's see who's here today. We have Mary Carla Flood from Washington, D. C. My old stomping grounds. I grew up in that area in Virginia. So welcome, Mary. I always like connecting with some of my East Coast people. Um, Facebook user says, I appreciate your experience and knowledge in our group.

[00:09:52] I highly recommend it to everyone. Thank you. And I'm, I'm thinking you might be talking about our Play Therapy Academy. So I'm going to be talking about Play Therapy Academy. I have a couple of openings and those are going to fill up fast. So, um, I'll talk about that at the end if you're interested. So Facebook user Irma Riverside, California.

[00:10:18] Welcome. Also, I want to work with children who are neurodivergent and are visually impaired blind. Right now I'm working towards my RPT. Awesome. Well, welcome everyone. Yeah. And with the kids who are neurodivergent, I, I think what we find is there's a lot of anxiety that comes just from trying to navigate the world that works differently than the way their systems work and not everybody always understands and they don't always understand how to navigate.

[00:10:55] So, I've always found that they're, when you're working with neuro diverse kids, it's not uncommon if they're coming to play therapy anyway, it's not uncommon that they do struggle with anxiety. And then parents are you know, that's hard for a parent to watch their child struggle like that. So parents want to be able to know how to support their child.

[00:11:19] And so to me, that's why conceptualizing them as therapeutic agents of change means that we can help them learn how to be effective with their kids and help their children become resilient and learn how to navigate things. So let's get started with the article today. So in the description, I posted the citation for the research It's not so much a research article as much as it is, um, a literature review.

[00:11:55] And then they kind of made recommendations based on the information that they, um, found through looking at different studies. And all of the studies were based on working with children in adolescence, working with children, and there was a parent component to the treatment approach, and they looked at the research of those programs.

[00:12:31] And so let's get started. So the, the purpose of this study was really, they were looking at two areas and what they were looking at was literature that had a relevant parental factors that have been bound in research to be associated with the development of anxiety for children. And then they looked at the interventions to reduce that childhood anxiety that incorporated parents.

[00:13:05] And so what they did is they examined all of these interventions to see how they worked. They looked at the research to get an idea of what what types of parental factors played a role in the development of anxiety for children and all of the treatment approaches that they looked at in the study were, uh, used a CBT, a cognitive behavioral therapy approach.

[00:13:37] So one of the things that's important to understand because your theoretical model that you're using for your treatment approach, you're also using that theory model to conceptualize the problem. So all of the information we're going to review today is through a CBT lens. I like using an attachment and neuroscience lens.

[00:14:03] I still think the information that the article identified, if you look at it, even from a neuroscience and attachment lens, it, you can kind of, um, see how that plays a role, even I might explain it differently. I think the, um, the parenting behaviors identified are, are important regardless of what theory model you use and then how you understand it is going to be dependent or influenced by your theory model.

[00:14:43] And then that's going to influence your treatment planning. So those are, if you've, um, if you're interested in more of that, these are things that I've talked about in previous live streams. I also have courses on all of these things, case conceptualization, treatment planning. The new one coming out is going to be working with parents.

[00:15:03] All of these are going to be in Play Therapy Academy and for those people who don't need that level of support, um, they're still available to you as well. So what were the parental factors identified in the literature? Um, so there were several and I, I think, uh, I, I thought it would be useful to share these because, um, when you're thinking about what's going on with your client, I think it's important to kind of pay attention to these.

[00:15:37] One is parenting styles. If you've been working with children for any length of time or probably in grad school, you might have heard about these. I think these are ones most of us have heard about. And the way the, uh, the, the, uh, authors define parenting styles, I'm just going to read a quote from the article.

[00:16:00] They define parenting styles as a global set of parental attitudes and general patterns of parenting behaviors that constitute a context for specific episodes of parental child rearing behavior and create an emotional client for parent child relationships. So these are, um, parenting styles would be permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative.

[00:16:28] So I think most of us have probably heard of those. They also identified parenting behaviors And I'll read, uh, the definition of parenting behaviors are conceptualized as specific kinds of parental interactions with children in specific situations. So they looked at various kind of dimensions, uh, parenting behaviors, like, acceptance or rejection, psychological control, or autonomy, or behavioral control.

[00:17:02] And that they, what they found was, this is going to surprise people, not at all. Especially if you think about it from an attachment standpoint. And you think about secure attachment and the role of secure attachment for children to develop the ability to have a good sense of self and and resiliency.

[00:17:26] What they showed, what the research showed was that behaviors of warmth, support, psychological autonomy, and clear, firm boundaries for expectations of behavior were linked to well adjusted child. So basically, you just described secure attachment in my mind. Um, they also showed, which I think we don't see a lot of, and I think it's useful for us to think about as play therapists, which is the research that they found also identified parental modeling of anxiety, um, was of anxiety and anxiety behaviors to their children, reinforced and accommodated, sometimes anxious avoided behaviors in their children.

[00:18:21] Some of the other parental factors identified were parental control, so parents restrictive or excessive regulating protection, behaviors like over control, over involvement, intrusiveness, um, restriction, lack of autonomy, and granting and encouragement of child dependence. And what I find is I, for me, when I look at this, I'm like, Oh, this is a circle of security all day long, you know, top of top of the circle, where, where parents are having a hard time allowing children to go and explore and develop that autonomy.

[00:19:04] And then they, they, they are probably more effective with the, um, coming back for support, but having a harder time, um, allowing that independence and exploration. So, um, another is the parent child relationship. So some dysfunctional family patterns like problematic communication, um, interpersonal conflict,

[00:19:36] enmeshment, verbal or physical aggression, insecure attachment style, essentially. So those different specific patterns within the family system and within that relationship between the parent and the child and how they're interacting. And the other factor that they identified was a parent's, um, history of anxiety.

[00:19:58] So what they found is children who had ,children who had anxiety were highly likely to have parents who also struggled with their own history of anxiety. And so what may happen is if parents are still struggling with their own anxiety, they may become internally triggered and respond in ways that are not effective. So if we think about this again, I love that circle of security, uh, model and way of thinking in circle of security

[00:20:34] they talk about shark music. So this is why we want parents to be self aware and develop that so they can recognize when they're triggered versus if I'm triggered versus my child is doing something. And so the second thing that they looked at in the study, um, they looked at these different treatment models and looked at the effectiveness of parental involvement

[00:21:02] and the model itself of how they were integrating parents into the treatment approach. And remember the study, this study included, so the study was treatment approaches to, to help children with anxiety. So anxious children, children with anxiety, and these models, these treatment approaches all included a parent component.

[00:21:32] So they were looking at the effectiveness of each of these different types of treatment approaches to get a better sense of, is there some sort of approach that worked better or not? Really, which is good information because you want to be, the approach you're using, you want to make sure that it's effective, and it's always nice when there's some research to kind of back that up.

[00:21:57] What they found in the research were mixed results, and that was largely due to the way in which parents were integrated into the treatment approach. And all of the models used a CBT approach. So, there were, what they found was most of the models that they looked at included at least some of the nine components, which I'm going to read those really quick from the article.

[00:22:29] So some of the components of the treatment were psychoeducation, parent training, parent modeling of coping. So parent training about recognizing some behaviors that may not be effective and parenting behaviors. Also, helping parents understand their style of coping may be modeling to the child about anxiety. Some contingency management.

[00:23:01] So I'm looking at ways in which they might, parents might be, um, unknowingly reinforcing a behavior that's not beneficial for their child. So making some of those changes to make sure they're not um, reinforcing things that they really don't want to be reinforcing again. This is a CBT model, so this is going to take that behavioral component to it.

[00:23:30] So also cognitive restructuring. So changing any of those parenting beliefs that are not effective. Parent anxiety management. So how are parents going to manage their own anxiety. Collaborative problem solving. So working with the child. Communication skills. So how are, how are we, um, communicating? Are there ways in which it's negative and not effective and how are we replacing those with more effective ways of communicating?

[00:24:03] And then relapse prevention. So how do you make sure, because that's, I think that's such a good idea too, to think about it because after treatment, or, you know, stressful things happen, how are you going to manage that to make sure that you have a plan in place to kind of get back on the right course? Um, and not, not go back into old patterns that are not going to be effective.

[00:24:32] So what are some recommendations we can take away? Right? So we're looking at the research, which is awesome. And how do we use that to be beneficial for the clients that you're working with. So here are some of the recommendations and some of these are mine as well as a play therapist. Really wanting when you're doing that initial case conceptualization, when you're, meeting with parents and you're doing that psychosocial assessment at the beginning, make sure to ask a lot of questions.

[00:25:08] Um, I always say frequency, intensity, and duration. Frequency, intensity, and duration. Frequency, intensity, and duration. You want to make sure that you are asking all the questions to get a better sense of what's going on and in a Play Therapy Academy when people do their case presentations and we staff different cases,

[00:25:34] this is a lot of the part of the case presentation is like, how often are these happening, part of and so this is your case formulation. And in Play Therapy Academy, we're practicing all the time because if you want to know, how do I help my client? You first have to know, well, what's going on and why is it happening?

[00:25:55] And what's going on means I need to look for all the things. I need to be specific in the way that I'm looking for things. Um, and so one of the things I did in Play Therapy Academy to make sure there's a lot of support are these courses. And in the course I go through, what questions should you be asking and why?

[00:26:15] How do you make sure you do a thorough assessment? And then how do you take that for your case conceptualization? In this, in this study, we're looking at it from a CBT lens, the authors were, and so they're going to formulate their approach based on CBT. So I am predominantly attachment and neuroscience focused family systems when I'm working with children and I'm working with their parents.

[00:26:45] So I'm, I'm going to approach it by teaching some attachment based skills. That being said, we're still wanting to look and gather all of the information to make sure that we have a full understanding of what's going on and why. Okay. So full disclosure, my husband has gone to work and now my dogs are in the room and Luna, come here.

[00:27:16] Luna is doing her digging. Luna likes to come in to the office and she likes to dig up all the carpet cause she's a dog and that's what she does. But if you hear some strange scratching sounds in the background, it's my dog, Luna. And if you're watching on the live stream, instead of listening on the podcast, sometimes you'll see Luna walking around in the room behind me.

[00:27:44] She's, uh, so she's in here hanging out. So she stopped, she stopped digging, but you're probably going to hear some digging again. And Lily is just kind of walking around. So she's being quiet today. All right, so back on track. So recommendations make sure you are gathering all of the information because that's going to help you figure out how to integrate parents and it's going to be influenced by your theory model.

[00:28:15] So, and you want to identify your goal. Why are our parents involved? Don't just have them in the room and kind of not sure what to do because they It's kind of confusing for them and they're not sure what they should do or what should they not do. Plus, you won't get the best results because you won't necessarily know what you want them to be doing.

[00:28:39] Um, so you want to identify the goal for having parents in. Again, that's going to be influenced by your theory model and how you're applying that and that's in your treatment planning. So you're putting that in the treatment plan as well. How are parents going to be involved? And your strategies then if it's more intentional and you're working using a specific theoretical model, like I developed, uh, an attachment focused family play therapy model and there are specific phases and there's different ways that parents are involved.

[00:29:17] So when I'm doing parent child work or family work, I'm usually using my attachment focused family play therapy model. And um, and um, and that model when I'm using that model is really focused on repairing relationships, teaching attachment focused parenting skills to create that secure attachment. So if you're Adlerian play therapy, then you're going to integrate and work with parents based on an Adlerian play therapy model.

[00:29:56] If you are child centric play therapy, it's going to look different. Parents aren't going to be in the room. You're going to be doing that work with them in the separate, when you're just meeting with parents without the child present. So it look it's going to look different depending on your treatment approach.

[00:30:17] The other thing is deciding are you going to have parents in the room? And are you going to be like I would be working on repairing attachment relationship, but maybe, maybe I want to teach a lot more CBT. Maybe I want to use a play therapy CBT approach. Let's say I have like a 10 year old that I'm working with and we've been working on dealing with cognitive distortions and restructuring those.

[00:30:48] And teaching skills for coping and, and now we want to integrate parents in maybe for the last 15 minutes. And then we're going over with parents, what we, with the child present and parent and child might be practicing together because maybe parents are going to act more in the capacity of a skills coach.

[00:31:11] And they're going to help with that Um, exposure process, that exposure component to challenging anxiety in the moment and using different skills and changing cognitive distortions in the moment. Because parents have the ability to do that because they're with their child all the time. So if you're thinking about it that way, you can use parents more like a skills coach

[00:31:38] for some of that exposure work and practicing skills and doing some of that homework in between sessions. So that is it for today. And let me just do a quick, quick recap. So thinking about children exist within the context of their family and understanding children's mental health challenges within this context

[00:32:05] is an important part of really fully understanding what's going on with them. So you really want to make sure you're doing that case conceptualization, gathering all of the information, figuring out from all of the information that you've gathered, gathered from that first session, what's going on and why is it happening with this anxiety?

[00:32:28] And then you're using that to formulate your approach. All of these are going to be influenced on your treatment, your play therapy model. And so the purpose of this study was really using a CBT lens, looking at what the research says. identifying some parental components and those then become the target of change in that treatment plan, that treatment approach.

[00:33:00] And so in the study, they provided a lot of information about what are some of the parent components or parent factors that the research showed were part of sustaining and contributing to that child, uh, that anxiety that the child is experiencing. And so some of the components that they identified were parenting styles, parenting behaviors, such as acceptance or rejection, psychological control or autonomy, behavioral control, parent modeling of anxiety, and parents responding in ways when their anxiety gets triggered, then they're responding in ways that may also contribute to sustaining that anxiety for their child.

[00:33:59] So you're looking at, uh, parenting behaviors. You're looking at parental control. Are they allowing children to identify, um, develop that autonomy and go and explore the world and learn how to deal with different things as they come? And are parents able to support their children without reinforcing the anxiety?

[00:34:23] And then what the research also found is children who have anxiety, there is a high prevalence that their parents also have a history of anxiety. And so what they looked at in the, what they looked at in the, the article, they looked at the effectiveness of different CBT approaches that integrated parents. They looked at the different ways parents were integrated and what they focused on in that treatment approach to address anxiety with children.

[00:35:02] All of the treatment models they looked at in this study focused on CBT. And so the approach that they take was going to be using that CBT theoretical lens. And so most of the, they looked at all of the different components. of parent involvement in the treatment process and then looked at the effectiveness of that.

[00:35:30] And so with the recommendations that we can take away as play therapists, first and foremost, is when you are doing that initial psychosocial assessment, you want to make sure to gather all of the information and the article really provided some good information about what to look for. And, um, also you want to identify using your theoretical model,

[00:36:01] what is the goal for parents? How are parents going to be involved? So this is going to be heavily influenced by your play therapy model and different play therapy models will integrate parents differently. So you're looking at that, but you want to be, you want to be intentional. Like, what is your goal for having parents involved?

[00:36:24] What are they going to be doing? How are they going to be participating in that change process? And then you can integrate parents as skill, I call them skills coaches because basically you're teaching children some coping, if you're using like a CBT kind of approach with a, a child with anxiety, then you're bringing parents in at least the last 15 minutes or maybe the whole session and parents and child are learning the skills together so that in between sessions, that child is going to practice their skills,

[00:37:03] parents are going to be involved in the practicing. And parents are going to be helping them to apply those skills in their everyday life. So you can, you can think about it that way as well. All right. Well, that is it for today. I hope you found this useful. If you have found the information useful, please feel free to share it across your social media platforms.

[00:37:28] If you're interested in Play Therapy Academy, I have I have a Saturday group and a Wednesday group. Both groups have about two openings each. If you're interested, Play Therapy Academy is really I always say it's kind of like a VIP experience to help you develop confidence and competency using your play therapy skills with your clients and getting a ton of support.

[00:37:57] So we have the twice a month, um, group consultation calls. Two people are always presenting. We're focused on your cases, helping you develop the skills. And while you're presenting your case, other people in the group are also learning. Also, though, you get their feedback, you get their experience. So not only do you get my 30 years, 30 plus years working with children and adolescents families, you also get their experience.

[00:38:30] So, um, very supportive group. Also, the courses are in there to help you learn the skills. And then we practice those and that the live meeting, the live group calls, and you can take the courses when it's convenient for you. We also have a group chat feature, so in between sessions you get tons, tons, tons of support.

[00:38:58] There's other bonuses as well. The goal though that I had in mind for Play Therapy Academy is really to help you get a lot of support. When you're learning something new, your imposter syndrome is pretty high. So being able to get that support, to feel confident and know how to help your clients and make the difference that you want to be making in their lives, to be able to do that and feel good about it.

[00:39:28] So if you're interested in Play Therapy Academy, then hop over to my website. at rhplaytherapytraining. com go over to the courses on the supervision page and once you click on the supervision page you'll see Play Therapy Academy you can read more about it. If you're interested, schedule a 30 minute video call with me.

[00:39:54] It's a free video call. We talk about Play Therapy Academy, make sure it's a good fit for you. Um, there is a process like there are forms to fill out and things like that. So you don't want to wait too long. I anticipate these are probably going to fill up fairly quickly. Um, so if you've been thinking about it, just, schedule a phone call,

[00:40:14] we'll see if it's a good fit for you. Also if you're interested in some of the courses that I've been mentioned, you can also hop over to my website on the courses page and check them out and I'll see you next week. Bye for now.

[00:40:34] Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Play Therapy. I hope you found the discussion valuable and gained new insights and ideas to support your work helping children, adolescents, and families heal. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Your feedback helps to improve and reach more people who can benefit from this information.

[00:41:00] Remember, play therapy is a powerful tool for healing and growth. Whether you're a new play therapist or experienced, I encourage you to continue your learning journey to unlock the potential of play in your own work and relationships. If you have any questions or topics, suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you.

[00:41:23] Connect with me on social media and visit my website at Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training to stay updated on upcoming episodes, trainings, and resources. Thank you once again for listening to Next Level Play Therapy. Until next time, keep playing, learning, and growing.