Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence
Join me on Next Level Play Therapy, a podcast for child and adolescent therapists seeking to elevate your play therapy services. Hosted by Cathi Spooner, LCSW, RPT-S, at Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training.
Each episode delves into the nuances of play therapy, exploring innovative techniques, evidence-based practices, and practical strategies for providing exceptional therapeutic experiences. These engaging discussions cover a wide range of topics, including building rapport with children, how to make sure you get great outcomes for clients, therapeutic toys and tools and strategies to use in sessions, addressing trauma and attachment issues, engaging parents, promoting emotional regulation, and nurturing resilience for children and their families.
Whether you're an experienced therapist looking to refine your skills or a novice clinician venturing into the world of play therapy, the Next Level Play Therapy podcast equips you with the knowledge and insights to enhance your play therapy practice. With interviews featuring experts in play therapy, exploration of best practices, discussion of game-changing principles and strategies, this podcast equips you with the tools to unlock the amazing power of play therapy to transform the lives of children, adolescents, and families.
Tune in to Next Level Play Therapy and take a journey towards becoming an exceptional play therapist as we navigate the next level strategies that lead to profound healing and growth for children and their families.
Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence
How to Conceptualize the Role of Parents in Play Therapy
What’s one of the biggest struggles play therapists say causes them to feel anxious, incompetent, frustrated, and generally overwhelmed on a regular basis?
If you guessed working with parents – winner, winner, chicken dinner!
It’s one of the most common challenges I hear from play therapists.
Do any of these sound familiar?
“I can’t get parents to schedule a parent only session with me.”
“I’m getting lots of phone calls, texts, and emails from a parent telling me all the things their child is doing and I feel pressure to fix it fast.”
“I feel like parents just want to drop off their kid for me to ‘fix’ and they want things fixed yesterday.”
“My client asked if their parent could join the session so I said yes and it was sooooooooo awkward. It was awful.”
If you said yes to any of these then you are not alone.
The underlying root of these stressful situations is a fundamental missing ingredient in your approach to play therapy.
The problem is that most play therapy training doesn’t talk about how to work with parents in play therapy, especially challenging parents.
If this is your struggle then join me for this weekly podcast! We’re going to tackle the question of how to conceptualize the role of parents in play therapy so you can get better engagement and stop feeling emotionally drained and frustrated.
There are three key things you need to figure out that will set you up for success engaging parents as your partner in the play therapy process.
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
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. 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. Hey there. Welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy, where we talk about all things play therapy. And today I have a question for you. If I were to say what, uh, let me see. I'll, I'll say like the top, top three, maybe top four. What's this one thing? Is one of the top four. If I were to ask you what is, what is the thing that makes play therapist anxious? It activates your imposter syndrome and feeling of incompetence and like two seconds flat. What is the one thing or one of the top four you would say is the thing that activates anxiety, distress, feeling like incompetent, worrying that your client's not gonna be coming to play therapy anymore, if people really find out that you don't know what you're doing, and by the way, you actually do know what you're doing, what is the, what is the top thing? Top four, one of four. So if you said working with parents, then winner, winner chicken dinner for you. Because I, I, this is probably one of the top things I hear from play therapists all the time. So let me know if any of these sound familiar to you. I can't get parents to schedule a parent only session with me and I'm getting phone calls and texts and emails in between sessions about all the terrible things that are going on and play therapy's not working. They maybe even talk to their parent, might have talked to their individual therapist about it and that. That therapist agreed with them and now parents are telling you, even my therapist is saying play therapy doesn't work. These are real things unfortunately, um, that play therapists have had to encounter. And there is nothing that strikes anxiety in the hearts of play therapist faster, especially new play therapists. I would say even seasoned therapy play therapists, we don't, we don't like it when our clients get pulled from therapy prematurely, and it does happen, but that's the fear, right? The fear is, oh, parents are gonna pull their kid from therapy and then it'll be all my fault and it will have mean that I failed. I would've failed my client. And then you feel like you fail yourself, right? These are all the things. So if you have answered yes in your head to any of those questions, or if you have answered yes, that you have experienced any of those things, oh, the other thing, I hear all the ti all the time is, I went out to the lobby and my client was there and they asked with the sweetest little face and the sweetest little voice. Can my parent come? And then there's that internal moment of freezing of, oh my gosh, what do I do now? What, what do I say? They asked? So parents are important, so I, I should bring them in. Then it goes terrible'cause everybody's awkward. And maybe something happened that you weren't real comfortable with, or you felt awkward because you weren't sure what parents were thinking in this session. If you've answered yes to any of those things, then you are in the right place for today because that is exactly what we're gonna talk about. And the thing that we're gonna talk about is what are three things, fundamental things that you need to figure out in order to move forward feeling a lot more confident. And I would say even competent when you're working with parents. And here's the thing, most play therapy sessions, and I would even say most graduate school programs, unless you're a marriage and family therapist, don't really, one, you're not working with children, especially university programs. It's rare. There are a few, but it's rare that a university program has a whole program or classes or structure in place, including your internships and your practicums. That's another thing. I'm not even gonna get into that one today because in my head I'm like, oh my gosh, I hear that so many times. Um, like I go to my practicum, but I'm the only one working with kids and my supervisor's awesome, but they don't really know how to work with kids. And then I get into these issues with parents and I don't know what to do. The thing is, most programs and most training when you're working with play therapy and kids don't really talk about how to work with parents when you're working with their child. How to work with parents in play therapy, what exactly does that look like and how do we do that? And so I think it's something I feel passionate about, not, I think, I do feel passionate about it, but I think it is something we don't talk a lot about, which is why I do talk a lot about it because I hear stories all the time. And the same thing keeps happening over and over and over. And I'm almost 30 years, 35 years in, I'm over 30 years in and I'm still hearing it. So obviously we still need the support in this area. And so today, in today's episode, I really wanna look at this as kind of a workshopy topic. So if you're listening or watching the live stream. Or maybe you're watching the replay or even listening to the podcast, feel free to stop and go, well, for the live stream, you can't stop and go, but you can always go back and listen to the replay or go over and listen to the podcast, but, but I really want to kind of have you do this in maybe a little bit of a workshop framework. And what I mean by that is write things down, take notes, stop. I, I wanna challenge you to do some thinking about what this would look like for you and the work that you are doing in play therapy with parents. So that is what we are talking about today. So my name's Cathi Spooner. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and registered play therapy supervisor, and I have been in the mental health field for almost 35 years now. Um, and, I go live every Wednesday on Instagram. If I don't have a guest, I go live on Instagram 'cause I use StreamYard to stream and it's hard to do that on Instagram. But anyways, um, so I got live every week on Instagram, YouTube, and my, um, my in LinkedIn. So let's, let's get started to, I forgot to say, um, if you find this information useful, please feel free to share it across your social media platforms. And if you're watching on YouTube, then feel free to hit that subscribe button and notification bell. So you know when I go live every week or, um, and then if you're watching, you wanna watch the replays on my YouTube channel, it's really easy to find 'em there. You just go onto the live tab and you'll see all of 'em. It goes back a few years. They, I can't. stream into my Facebook group anymore, but I started originally Whoof. It's probably four years ago now. Those are all in my Facebook group. And you could see the ones when I was in there when I first got it started, I wanted to throw up every time I hit the Go Live button. Yeah, so, uh, all my early ones are in my Facebook group, but most of them, you can find most of 'em. Um, for the last kind of, probably three years on LinkedIn. Alrighty, so let's get started for today. Alright, so today what we are talking about is how to conceptualize the role of parents in play therapy. I did talk a little bit about this last week in last week's live episode. So if you want to kind of have more information, you can go back and listen to last week's. Also, I've talked about this a bunch, so you can always pop over to my YouTube channel on the live stream, on the live tab, and go through and watch some of those replays. So the first thing that I think is critical in order to set up this foundation of skill building is how are you defining the role of parents? And I like to use the lens of neuroscience and attachment theory. Couple of reasons. There's decades of research that give us information. We get more all the time and also using that lens, I feel like that lens will, you can integrate that in any play therapy, theoretical model. For example, if you are using child-centered play therapy that I personally think child-centered pers uh, child-centered play therapy is fundamentally an attachment kind of approach to use with children because it's so heavily focused on the relationship between the therapist, uh, play therapist and the child. So if you look at neuroscience and attachment theory, you can, um, you can kind of see how those fit together, including how you work with children. I mean, sorry, how you work with parents. Be, just because you're using child-centered play therapy doesn't mean you can't work with the parents. That model influences how you meet with parents and it influence and then, that's that how question is influenced by how you define parents' role, and that role is based on your theoretical model. If I'm using a neuroscience and attachment theory model, then I am conceptualizing the role of parents through that lens, and I'm looking at decades of research to show me how attachment influences and is critical in child development, not just for um. Not just so they can have a good relationship with their parents. It's much, much deeper than that. When you're using that neuroscience and attachment lens, we, we use concepts by Peter Funy about mentalization. How are you understanding the intentions, the beliefs, the emotions, the values of others based on these intentional behaviors that have now developed in your mind and created these whole belief systems in yourself about yourself, others, and how relationship works. We look at mental models, right? Maps made, we're looking at interpersonal neurobiology. What are those neuro pathways laid down and those implicit experiences stored, and what is that implicit bias that gets activated within relationships? And physiologically, how does that impact us? So when we're using that neuroscience and attachment lens, we're, we're even thinking about neural, uh, network development and how that influences our neural pathways that are strengthened or pruned, right? We get that from Bruce Perry. All of these things, when we are using a neuroscience and attachment lens, then we're beginning to formulate our conceptualization of the role of parents and that that whole case conceptualization is going to be influenced by your theoretical model. So let's say even, even if you're using Adlerian Play Therapy or Gestalt Play Therapy, these are two models that that conceptualize the role of children within their larger environment, right? So child-centered play therapy, it just kind of conceptualizes the child and that relationship between play therapist and child. And then, the, the parents we kind of meet separately because that's how the model was developed and that's how the model conceptualizes. In a, in a, um, Adlerian or, or Gestalt play therapy or family play therapy model, the, the, the role of parents would be conceptualized a little differently. And so here's what another place where I wanna kind of challenge and dig a little deeper. I, I remember being in graduate school, I always wanted to work with children. I went into being a graduate, go getting into a graduate school program knowing I wanted to work with children. I didn't know much about therapy back in the day. Um, and I, I didn't know exactly what that looked like. I knew what I knew, what play therapy looked like because I had been introduced to it when I was in my twenties as a special education teacher. And went to graduate school and I learned about this thing called family therapy. Oh my goodness. You would've thought I was a new convert, right? I was all, it was like somebody shined a light in the darkness of my mind, finding the missing piece to the puzzle to really understand children, looking at children in context. And then, you know, over the years, over the decades getting, getting introduced to attachment theory, neuroscience and attachment theory and all of the pieces began to fit when you're thinking about working with children. But I remember being in graduate school and I took one class on working with children. Basically it was a class on diagnosing children. That was it. And then I, I had my practicums in grad school. No, no children.'cause nobody knew how to do it. And you're just trying to get your degree right. You're just trying to get it done. Plus, I didn't know. Um, and then getting a job and having amazing supervisors, I learned, I feel so fortunate. I have always had excellent supervisors in my, in my beginning. That being said, none of them knew how to work with children, and so they had a playroom in the place where I worked, but nobody knew how to do it. And the kind of, the theory was, oh, their kids just play with them. Oh, just, oh, you're not sure what to do, you know, just get some worksheets, and it felt horrible. It felt horrible. And just trying to figure out, but nobody really understood one, how to use play therapy, which is getting a little better now, but still there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of areas for growing, right? But I would say the big thing is not just how to work with children and play therapy, but how do you use a play therapy model? How do you integrate parents? What is, and most of the training that we get doesn't focus on that. And so what I find as a result is a lot of play therapists, this is an area where there is a big struggle. And so here's what I want you to do. If you're listening or watching the, um, today's episode, I really want you to stop and think. Think about what play therapy model you are using. And what does your play therapy model say about the role of parents in play therapy? Fundamentally, what is the role of parents? And then kind of write out what that means from your, from your play therapy model. And then it also, if you wanna add some neuroscience and attachment theory to that. What is neuroscience and attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, mentalization, polyvagal theory. Um, attachment theory using internal working models. Like what is your theoretical foundation that you are using, and what does your theoretical foundation say is the role of parents and why? Why are they important? Because when you go to explain it to parents, you're, you need to explain why. And the thing is, in order to engage parents effectively, we really need to be clear about our, how we're defining their role, and how are we inviting them into the process. In order to do, and I, I clearly, I believe parents are a, a critical part of the healing process based on my theoretical foundation and how I conceptualize using a neuroscience and attachment lens. I believe they are critical. In fact, one of the ways I kind of want to challenge a new way of thinking about it a little bit is, if I asked you who is the therapeutic agent of change for the child in play therapy, who would you say, right? The therapeutic agent of change is a fancy term for saying who is the facilitator of deep healing for the child? We've been taught most of the time, unless you're a, the, uh, marriage and family therapist. Um, I feel like I'm a marriage and family therapist in my heart. As a social worker we think systemically also. But then I found out about play the, um, family, thera Family, family systems theory in grad school. And so, I'm kind of an in, I'm, I'm internally a marriage and family therapist in my heart who's a social worker. Um, and so I, I lost my train of thought. I kind of get lost on that. What was I saying? All right. So if we're thinking about the role of parents, um, and I'm using, uh, neuroscience and attachment theory. The thing that I wanna push back on a little bit is who, who is the therapeutic agent of change? Most people would say the play therapist. The play therapist is the one in the play therapy session. I wanna challenge that to say that, to say that I think parents are the therapeutic agent of change. And my job is to, to facilitate connection, trust, and, and strong therapeutic rapport with parents so that they feel seen, heard, supported. They can trust me, trust that I'm not judging them. That they, they, they'll feel comfortable talking with me about when their shark music, right. That's a circle of security term. When their shark music gets activated, especially shaming, guilt. We can have a conversation about that and I can provide support so they can go and do the things that I'm asking them to do with their child. That might be family play therapy sessions. That might be meeting with me separately so we can do parenting skills. For me, it is probably both. At some point in time we're doing family play therapy sessions, but the key is I think, how are we conceptualizing the role of parents? How is that influenced by your theoretical model? And then that's going to influence your decision making about what to do with parents. So that brings us to the next question. So that first one you're writing down, how are you defining the role of parents in play therapy and why? What is your theoretical foundation for that, um, how, how you're conceptualizing parents that way. Then that's gonna influence how parents participate. So here you wanna think about what are your expectations based on your theoretical framework, your theoretical lens, your theoretical foundation, based on how are you defining the role of parents and why? Then how do you want parents to participate? What are, and you have to get clear on this first. So this is your time. Like if you're multitasking right now, uh, if you're driving, 'cause you're listening to the podcast, you can listen later. Don't, don't do this while you're driving. But think about this. Um. What are your expectations for parents, and this is what I had to do, this a like, decades ago, well, not decades, but probably 20 years ago at this point, I just remember getting so frustrated. I'm getting all the phone calls. I can't get the parent to schedule with me. I'm trying to accommodate, I'm doing all the things, and I found myself getting really, really frustrated and thinking, oh, they don't care. You know, they just want me to fix it. All the things. And then I thought to myself. Wait a minute, you're not being compassionate here. Um, and compassionate doesn't mean we don't have expectations. We can still have expectations. We can still hold boundaries. It our, our internal congruence around, um, parents and their role it, right? That's what we're looking at. So I had to tell myself to step back a minute, like, what? Wait a minute, I actually haven't identified, I didn't communicate that to parents from the get go. How are they supposed to know if I don't explain it to them? I am naturally assuming they're going to do what I want. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm, if you don't, tell me why and help me understand the reason for this, when I think it seems silly, you're not likely to engage me. Like I'm, I'm not a just follow along and do what you want person, which is kind of irritating for people sometimes. Um, and I, and you know, I don't mean to be annoying, but on the other hand, if you want me to do something, why should I just blindly do it? That that opens up a whole host of other things. Well, parents are the same. They're not gonna know. They're not the therapist. And I had to remind myself of that, you know what, this parent is not the therapist I am. And I didn't, I didn't communicate my expectations. And then I thought, oh my gosh, what are my expectations? And I consider myself to be a recovering people pleaser, which is why I just don't go along anymore as part of my people pleasing recovery process. Um. Plus I like to think for myself that way I can, you know, if I make the decision it goes badly, then I made the decision I have to own it. Right? Anyway, so. So I had to get brutally honest. What are my expectations if I take my people pleasing out, if it, if it were really gonna be the way that I wanted it to be and the way that I believed it needed to be, what would that look like? And what does my play therapy model say is the role of parents and how am I gonna decide and that's gonna influence how am I deciding if parents are in the session and if their session in the session, how am I structuring that? That's gonna avoid getting into that place where your cute little your cute little client with their cute little face and their cute little voice looks at you with those cute little eyes and say, Hey, can my parent come in with so much excitement? You're like, how can I say no to that? But then it doesn't necessarily mean they need to come in. Maybe, maybe it would be a good thing. But if you have figured out your expectations and you have communicated those, and you've communicated what that's gonna look like, then you've structured it and you can avoid getting into some frustrating situations where you're feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, burned out, um, irritated, imposter syndrome is in high gear. You can avoid those situations by first figuring out what are your expectations of why, why are they your expectations? What does your theoretical model say is how you're gonna en engage parents. So, so this would be a time for you to write down, what are your expectations? Like if it could be how you wanted it to be, what would that look like? How would parents be involved? And then what? And back that up. Then you're gonna kind of double check that. Okay, here's what I want. Let me go back and look at my theory model and then ground that in my theoretical model. And then once I figure out the role, then how is that gonna look in the sessions? If parents are in the sessions or if they're not in the sessions. If they're in the sessions with the child, what is that structured like? What's the focus? What, what does your model say that you're doing with that? If you're meeting with parents separately, what does that look like? What is that structure gonna look like? These are all the things that would be good for you to kind of take some time to write those down and think those through. Because you have to get those two things sorted out and settled in your mind in order to do the third thing, which is how are you gonna explain your role? How are you gonna explain, explain to parents what is their role in play therapy, even when are you gonna do it? And I always say, do it from the first phone call and then do it again in that diagnostic intake appointment, that very first appointment where you're gathering all of the information, especially about parents' role and how are you conceptualizing the parenting piece of it? Where, where do they need some help with that? Maybe how might they unknowingly be contributing to the sustaining the problem. All of these things you're doing in that first intake appointment, and then now you're explaining to parents. Now you figure you've got your case conceptualization, you've identified your expectations, and now you're gonna communicate those. And so you, you wanna consider how your play therapy model makes sense of the presenting problem and the parent's role. And then you are communicating like, what are two to three things that define the role of parents in play therapy and maybe what's going on with their child and how their partnership with you? Not drop 'em off in the office. You are helping them understand they're partnering with you because they're a vital key process and you are there to support them as much as you are to support your client. In fact, if you consider parents as the therapeutic agents of change, then that even increases the importance of parents partnering with you. They're with their child every day for the rest of their lives. You are with their child for a brief period of time, one hour a week, 45 minutes a week, and that you are there to support them, to help them as much as you are their child. So, so this is gonna be how you are explaining it. How are you explaining to parents what is their role the change process. And then what I, what I encourage you to do is write all that down. Like write it down. So that, and PI would even say practice saying it. Maybe get somebody else to say it with role. Play it a little bit. I know in um, play Therapy Academy, we do this, all the time I have Play Therapist role play with me all the time. And now, now that I've gotten Elevation Circle, which is my, my membership program, then I just got started. Now we're starting to do that in there as well. In fact, we just start in Play Therapy Elevation Circle next month we're gonna be starting our monthly book club, and we're starting to read the. Uh, we're gonna be reading the Brainwise therapist. So I just finished reading the first three chapters. Well, I read chapter three yesterday. It's all about interpersonal neurobiology and integration, and the middle prefrontal cortex area. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, this is what I'm talking about tomorrow. Like the role of parents, right? This is why it's so important. So anyways, we, we talk, I get so excited about that book club that we're doing an Elevation Circle that I can't stand it. Anyways, so, um, so these are, these are things that would be in. I import, maybe write them down and maybe role play how are you gonna explain it to parents just to get your confidence up a little bit. So that's it for today. Let me do a quick recap, and if you're interested, I'm gonna tell you about a course I have and for a brief period of time, because everybody's going back to, all the kids are going back to school play, therapists, caseloads are just gonna start getting full again. I thought it'd be a really good time to, um, offer a discount for one of my online courses. It's very comprehensive about working with parents. Like if you want all this laid out, then, the course, the partnering with parents is a, um, probably a course that you would find useful. So let me do my quick recap and then I'll tell you about the parenting course that I have on sale right now. So the first thing is really how are you defining the role of parents? And if you use a neuroscience and attachment lens to define the role of parents and you're really thinking about parents as a therapeutic agents of change in order to create lasting and deep healing, even I would say at the neurobiological and at, you know, level, those neural pathways, then you, you are conceptualizing parents as the therapeutic agent of change and your role is to support parents in order to help them be that therapeutic agent of change. So it's still child focused. It's just now you're conceptualizing the role of parents as a critical part of helping that child heal. And then once you have figured out how you are defining the role of parents, then you need to think about what are your expectations for how parents are going to participate. What are your expectations and why? Why are, why are those expectations the way they are? What does your play therapy model say about the role of parents and why? Because your play therapy model is going to explain the why as well. And then, based on those expectations and based on the reasons you have those expectations, then you're gonna decide what is that actually gonna look like in practical application. How are pa, are they gonna be in the play therapy sessions? Are they not gonna be in the play therapy sessions? When are they gonna be in play therapy sessions and when are they not gonna be in play therapy sessions? And when they're in play therapy sessions, what does that mean about what you're going to be doing in those play therapy sessions and why are you doing that? So it answers all the questions once you get your, your conceptualization of their roll down pat, then you are, you identify your expectations and why. And then the third thing is how are you communicating to parents, what is their role? You're gonna want to go back to your, the way you conceptualize their role based on your theoretical model. And then two to three things that your theory kind of defines. About the role of parents and why, and then write down how you're gonna explain that to parents. I had a, I had a plea therapist that worked for me years and years and years ago when I was in Virginia. She did this brilliant thing. I loved it. I thought it was so cool. But then I'm kind of nerdy. So she did a whole PowerPoint presentation that she would, and it was, it wasn't a long one. I think maybe it was like six or seven slides maybe, and that she just laid it out. In a, in a logical, organized way, based on her theoretical model. Um, what is, you know, what is play therapy? What is she gonna be doing with their child? And what is their role and what is that gonna look like? The role of parents. So think about how you are going to explain it and then write it all out so you get clear yourself. So that is it for today's session or livestream episode, podcast, or livestream replay. If you're interested, I have a course called Getting Grounded Partnering with Parents in Play Therapy. It, it is a very comprehensive course. I had all the play, this is a while back, I had all the Play Therapy Academy members ask me, hey, what do you guys want in a course?'cause the courses are included in Play Therapy Academy. Um, what do you guys want in your course? And they gave me their whole wishlist. Um. Conceptualizing using a neuroscience and attachment lens. We walk through the neuroscience and attachment theoretical lens explaining why parents, the role of parents, and understanding that at attachment. And then there's also, and then how to even work with challenging parents. I feel like the easy parents, the really high functioning parents, um, naturally will get it. They'll naturally be motivated to go find things out. I feel like when you're working with the more challenging parents who are struggling more, it's important for us to be able to understand how our theory lens then says, how are we even gonna work with these parents? And I feel like when you're using a neuroscience and attachment lens, it gives you lots of good information about now how to work with even challenging parents. So you can build trust, you can build that bridge with them of trust and get them on board, and now you're providing support to them so they can help their child. So there's, there's a, there's modules on all of those things. There's, there's the practical how to, what to do, when to do what, um, traps to not fall into like, do this, don't do that. Some of those things that I've learned over the last million years. Um, and then also even like some tips for working with um, children who are working with parents in high conflict divorce situations. Not like some thing, you gotta make sure you do this, think about this. Here's why you need to do that. If you don't do that, I'm telling you, you're not gonna enjoy your life. You're, you're gonna hit your life. Um, so I wa like all my 30 plus years of being in the mental health field, working with children and families. I, I put all of that in this course, so it's very comprehensive. Um, it's, it's, they're all prerecorded. Take it in your time zone when it's convenient for you. Um, there's, there's guides in there. There's kind of workbooks, things to help you apply the skills, and right now it's $40 off. Um, it's 11 play therapy ces. I think it's also approved for, um, social work CES here in the US So it's very comprehensive. You are gonna walk out of there feeling much more confident, having a plan, knowing what to do and why you're gonna be doing it. Then you can apply those right away. So the course is called Getting Grounded Partnering with Parents in Play Therapy. You can get it now while it's$40 off at Renewing Hearts Play therapy training.com. That's RH Play therapy training.com. RH play therapy training.com and the course is called Getting Grounded Partnering with Parents in Play Therapy. Alrighty, I will see you next week. Bye for now. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Play Therapy. I hope you found the discussion valuable and gain 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. 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 in relationships. If you have any questions or topic suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you. 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.