Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

What Are the Top Mistakes Play Therapists Make Working with Parents?

• Cathi Spooner, LCSW, RPT-S • Episode 86

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Raise your virtual hand and shout YES! if you never make mistakes and you are the perfect play therapist who does everything right all the time.


Do you hear those crickets? 🦗🦗🦗


The sound of silent voices, well, except for the crickets.  😂


That’s because no one is perfect.  The good news is that we don’t need to be perfect.


If you have been doubting yourself and thinking about all the ways you messed up and probably made things worse, 


Then you are not alone.


We all make mistakes and sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over until we figure out how to stop making those mistakes in play therapy.


That’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode.  


Let’s name the common mistakes play therapists make when working with parents so we can call them out, get honest, and figure out how to stop doing them.


I’m discussing the three most common mistakes that I see play therapists make when working with parents that result in poor play therapy outcomes for their clients AND what to do instead.


If you’ve been struggling and thinking deep down that you’re the only play therapist who makes mistakes with parents, then you don’t want to miss this episode!  


We’re going to have an authentic conversation about engaging parents as your partner in the healing process for their children.  


Let’s do this! 


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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. 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. Good morning. So welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy, and today we are gonna be talking about mistakes play therapists make when working with parents. And I have made all of these mistakes early on in my career. And I, I notice these are mistakes that come up over and over when I'm, when I'm talking with different play therapists through Play Therapy Academy and, and Play Therapy Elevation Circle, which is my brand new membership for play therapists. So, so these are things that come up all, all the time actually, when I'm talking with play therapists about their work with clients and then we get to talking about what's going on with the parenting component of things as we're trying to sort through and figure out what is at the root of the problem. What I notice is that there is a tendency to really not necessarily understand how to integrate parents. Um, so I'm, I have a course that's available right now. It's, I have a, a special promotion that I'm running on it right now. So I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more if you, if you are one of those people who really feels like you're struggling to work with parents, especially the challenging parents. I feel like most of us have come across instances. I say most, but I feel like all of us have. Where we're struggling with parents, especially the challenging parents that are pretty complex. Um, and so I, I think at the root of it is struggling to understand the role of parents in play therapy and what exactly does that look like. And then when you're trying to sort through what's going on, that, that there's not a lot of progress, or maybe you've gotten stalled out in your play therapy or maybe you're running up against some, uh, some walls, blockages needing a breakthrough with your clients or for your clients in play therapy, there are some, typically, there are some things that I find you wanna look at, and one of those is working with parents. And so then what ends up happening then is there are some, what I would call typical mistakes made when working with parents. And so the last couple of episodes I've talked about expectations and some things. So like laying the groundwork for your work with parents. And today I wanna talk about some mistakes that play therapists make when working with children and their family, and then what to do instead. And these mistakes are specifically focused on mistakes made, um, when working with parents. So that is what we're gonna talk about today. And so the t today's topic is, what are top mistakes play therapists make when working with parents? We're gonna cover three mistakes today that play therapists make when working with parents. So, um, so my name is Cathi Spooner. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a registered play therapist here in the United States, currently living on the West coast Originally, I don't know, I grew up, my dad was in the Navy, so when I say originally I, part of me is like, well, my originally, but that's where I spent most of my life. I'll say that, uh, I spent most of my life on the East coast. Um, so I would love to know who's here today listening to the, or watching the live stream episode. I stream every week on LinkedIn, YouTube, and, and usually unless I have a guest, I'm usually also streaming into Instagram. And then for those of you, um, watching the replay or listening to the podcast, I would still love to know who's here. If you're watching the video on, uh, of the livestream, I would love to know who's here. Post your name in the comments, what population are you working with? Where are some of your struggles, when working with parents? If you are listening to the podcast, please feel free to message me. You can hop over to my Instagram channel at Renewing Hearts Training and send me a message. So let's get started for today. The first mistake that I see play therapists making is what I'll call accommodating versus enabling. And so here's the thing, we are helpers. We get into the mental health field because we wanna help. And helping means that we try to do our best to help our clients overcome any of their challenges. I don't know if you guys just heard, you probably just heard my dog Luna barking. I don't know. Those of you have dogs are gonna, you're gonna relate to what I just said. Luna. My husband and I laugh about this all the time. She probably even hears me saying her name. Luna does this thing where she is convinced there are, there are bad people all around the perimeter of our house waiting to get in. There's nobody out there, but she feels compelled to bark and make sure they know, especially at our neighbors who, um, are very nice people, but she feels compelled to remind them that they can't come in her yard. So anyways, you probably just heard Luna barking out there. Um, you're probably gonna hear her again. She has been on a roll this morning, barking at the neighbors. So, all righty. So back to mistake number one, which is accommodating versus enabling. We're helpers. We wanna be helpful, so we'll adjust and work around and try to do everything possible to make things easier when we can and at some, at some point, at some point we might have to address difficult issues. And so there's a tendency to not wanna be the bad guy because we're helpers and being the bad guy doesn't feel therapeutic. I don't necessarily, I don't think we're being the bad guy. I think it just feels that way because it's uncomfortable for most of us. I'm gonna include myself in that category. Um, I just like to get along. I like all of us to, um, collaboratively, I've just learned over the last several decades that they're in, like in any relationship. Including the therapeutic relationship. There might be times when you have to have some hard conversations and so ha if you find yourself kind of over accommodating and not holding boundaries or setting expectations for how things need to work, then the result is gonna be, and this is how you're probably gonna know if you have maybe been engaging in a little enabling behavior, and that might be if you find yourself feeling frustrated, um, because you're always responding to phone calls or texts or emails, and you're getting those, what I call those nine one nine one one calls or texts or emails about everything that's going wrong. But yet there's been some missed appointment. Uh, let's, like everybody misses appointments here and there. That's just kind of part of life, right? I'm talking about more like parents are not coming in for appointments or they have every reason why all legitimate, um, but week after week after week after week after month, after month after month, if you're finding you can't get them in because there's always a reason, then that's a red flag that you need to have a conversation. Um, and those little five minute check-ins at the end, they'll work for the really well-functioning parents. That is not gonna work for the parents who need more support. That's been my experience. Maybe you, you find it differently, but I stopped doing those because I found them to be really ineffective when I really needed to facilitate some change. And so if you find yourself, like frustrated and starting to get a little burned out because you don't have time to get your progress notes. And maybe you're staying up late, or maybe you're not spending time with your family because you're trying to catch up on your progress notes. Or, maybe you're not doing your progress notes and you're supposed to be doing your progress notes and you're really behind on your progress notes might be a sign that you are not holding boundaries and you're over accommodating, which means now you're kind of enabling the problem to continue. And I know that feels a little ouchie. Ouch. Um. The only way it's gonna get better, right? They always say the first step is to acknowledge the problem. And I know for me that's when things really changed is when I kind of took a step back and got a little honest with myself. When I found myself getting frustrated and then starting to say things in my head like, oh, parents don't care, or, you know, taking on the responsibility and blaming myself for everything that's going on and everything is my fault. I guarantee you not everything is your fault. Um, so here's what to do instead. The thing you wanna do instead is take a step back and identify your expectations, identify roles. What is your role? Get clear about that. Play therapists, I'll say mental health professionals in general, we are including me in this, we are notorious for thinking, we are responsible for everything. I, I have these really awesome cards. They're called archetype cards. They're by Carolyn Myss, that's spelled MYSS. If I had them available, I'd show them to you 'cause they're amazingly awesome. Anyways, they're archetypes like, um, showing like all these different archetypes, which is a concept that transcend time and space. I promise you this fits in. Um, anyway, there's like light and shadow attributes to each of these com, uh, uh, these archetypes, uh, sorry. There's light and shadow complex attributes for each of the comple, each of the architects. Eventually my brain's gonna work this morning. Um, light and shadow, aspects, attributes around these archetypes. And in the cards, they have really amazing artwork. And so going through these, well, I came across these probably 15 years ago, maybe 12 something years. They're amazing. And anyway, I'm going through 'em. I love 'em. And I'm looking at the archetypes and I, and I am like, stop dead in my tracks as I'm reading through one. Which is Messiah, um. Archetype and I am reading the positive, which is, you know, like we want the best for humanity and we, you know, we're really altruistic and wanna help. And then the, the, the shadow attribute is that we feel like we're responsible for everything we take on the woes of the world. Raise your virtual hand if you can relate. And I thought, oh my gosh, that is me. And I am doing this with parents. I am taking on responsibility for everything. And I, and then therefore, like I'm over accommodating, which. Is the reason why I am so frustrated. So I look at my role. My role isn't to be the Messiah and fix everything. My role is within the context of whatever my theoretical play therapy model is, but ultimately across every theory model, ultimately my role is to fill a, is to provide opportunities for change. I cannot make the change happen. I cannot. And then I have to take a look at, well, who, who can make the change happen? One of those people when you are a play therapist is parents. So what's that gonna look like? If you understand what is the role of parents versus what is your role, then you're looking at your expectations and you're changing expectations. I talked a little bit more about that in the last couple of weeks. I go over that pretty extensively, in my um, course Getting Grounded Partnering with Parents in Play Therapy, which I'll talk a little bit more about at the end. But one of the things that we go over is what is the role and in order, and if you're gonna back that up with theory, then I like using neuroscience and attachment theory because then I'm looking at the role of parents through that lens and what is that actually gonna look like? Especially when you're working with challenging parents because there's the way, there's a way to work with parents who are maybe a, have a lot more layers of challenge, maybe a little lower functioning in terms of you know, generational histories that they are having to overcome of trauma, attachment, addiction, addiction, poverty. Then you wanna, you wanna look at that. I find looking at that through a neuroscience and attachment lens can be really, really helpful. And so in the course, I walk through that a lot. But one of the things you wanna think about is what is your role? What is parents' role? And then. Set your expectations. Step out of over accommodating. Sorry. Step out. Yeah. Over accommodating and enabling and figure out, well, when is, when you know, when is it accommodating?'Cause every, you know, life is hard for everybody and we wanna be flexible, not rigid, but when have you, you passed over that line of Yeah. This is more and needs to be addressed. So the first. The first mistake play therapists make a lot, I find is enabling versus accommodating. The second mistake I see a lot is becoming embroiled in the family uh, the unhealthy family patterns. We, we get pulled in and I always say it's not. If you're going to get pulled in, it's a matter of when and how often. And then the focus is, how do I get out of this now? And so here's the thing, if you find yourself aligning with one parent over the other, or if you find yourself, I find this happens a lot with adolescents as well. Like we find ourselves aligning with the adolescent and then we're kind of only looking at it through their lens, which means now we are not, maybe we're not integrating parents as much as we need to be and, and things are feeling stalled and not really making any progress. Or maybe you're working with chil a child whose parents are divorced and there's some conflict and you find yourself aligning with one parent over the other, and that might look like, like you're, you find yourself like, yeah, their point of view is really valid, and then maybe you haven't met with the other parent, or you don't really talk to the other parent very much. Then, or maybe the other parent's not even available to talk to. If that happens too, you, your, this again is where you have to make sure you're figuring out what your role is. Because the result is now your clinical perspective can be biased skewed and now you've become part of the problem. Um, and a lot of times I find this happens when we're avoiding hard conversations or we're kind of, um, in our minds, we're not able to really access congruence of unconditional positive regard and empathy, which we can still do that and challenge. Sometimes we have to have hard conversations, but if you find yourself getting pulled into the dynamic, then you're gonna lose your clinical perspective. Your perspective is gonna be biased, which now can influence in a negative way, the, the ability to faci, you know, provide those opportunities for change. Here. Here's the thing. I always say this like my, I worked at a residential treatment program in one of my, um, one of my bosses who was actually a really good mentor. Um, if any of you have ever worked in residential treatment, you know there's always crisis. And so he used to chuckle a little bit whenever, whenever my clients were having a crisis, and I would go to him, I'm like, Aw. And he would chuckle a little bit and he would say, yeah, I waste a good crisis. And, and I, it always took me back in the beginning and I'm like, what is he talk? And oh, that's what he is talking about, right? My job isn't to fix it. Now we have this opportunity, and I can have a hard conversation and, do it in a, a empathic and therapeutic way to provide an opportunity for client, for parents to make the change.'Cause I already know what they need to do and if I have, if I don't know what they need to do, I have people I can go to, to staff things and help me figure out what I need to do. And, but the end of the, the bottom line is I am not the one who needs to make the change. Most of the time, unless I've gotten pulled in and I've done something that I need to do a little repair work for, right? That's my job to, to do that part. So what, what to do instead. So when you find yourself taking sides, even when it seems justifiable, the best thing to do is take a step back. Look at the perspective from the other people in the family. Look, I do this all the time. Uh, when I find myself getting pulled, I will take a step back and I will get into my family systems lens and I will look at it systemically and I will try to think about each, each person and try to figure out, okay, what is their perspective on this? What is their perspective on this? What is the other family member's perspective on this? And then as play therapist, our, our client is the is the child, always the child. That doesn't mean though, that we don't look at the other perspectives. We, we don't look at things systemically. We need to conceptualize our client in context of their family system. I would even say school and like the whole context of their environment, what, you know, sports, places of worship, friend circle, all the things. Primarily though, when we're talking about working with parents, we're talking about looking at the child in the context of the family and looking at that from the different perspectives to get a better sense of what it's like to stand in the shoes of that other person. And then our job is to facilitate conversation or or play, right? We can use play therapy to do that. Especially depending on the age, in order to help, help facilitate that change process. But we are not the ones who are making the change. We cannot make the change for our clients Our, we provide opportunities and we provide information in order for them to make the decision to to change. Or sometimes I might think they need to do a certain thing and then turns out, oh, there's another option, and that seems to be the option that might be the breakthrough. Or sometimes they need to do their way for a while until they're ready to follow my recommendations. Sometimes we hold hard things for, for a while. The other thing that I find if, especially I find when you're working with families is to have, I honestly, with kids and, and clients, I think it's always good to have a support network. I don't think we can do this job alone. I and I isolation. I, I think, the best, one of the best things we can do is to get into a, a support community. That's one of the reasons I started Play Therapy Elevation Circle, which is my, my newer membership for, um, to have a community. We, in that membership, we meet once a month and do consultation. We just, uh, next Monday we start our book club where we see, we go through a book. We're going through being a Brainwise therapist by Bonnie Badnock. I'm so excited. It's one of my favorite books. Um, and then, you know, use that information to plot, uh, apply with the work that we're doing. And, and to me, having that community where you can get that support and take a step back. We do that a lot in Play Therapy Academy. Play Therapy Academy is really geared for people who are pursuing their RPT credential. If there's a little more involved in that one, it's kind of a higher level of contact. Um, versus Elevation Circle is really a place to have that community so you don't have to feel like you're doing it alone. And if you're, if you're finding yourself getting embroiled in the unhealthy family patterns, then having that community can be a really good way to get some other perspectives. That's one of the things I love about community is, is the power of of the different minds in the group and people being able to see things from different perspectives and offer solutions and access to resources. So if you find yourself, not if, when you find yourself getting aligned one way more than the other, even when it's justifiable, our job is really to take that step back and to take that position of what's in the best interest of the child, even if it's something that makes the child uncomfortable. Like what's in the best interest of doing that? Because then there's a therapeutic way to work through that. It doesn't mean we avoid, it just means there's some therapeutic work to be done and you have to have that relationship where they'll, they'll stick with you through the hard times. So the third mistake that I find play therapists making is avoiding versus leading. And if you find yourself like dreading certain clients coming or their parents and you find yourself trying to avoid conversations with them. That's a good sign that there are issues that aren't addressed. It might be your own shark music to use a circle of security term like, like your own things getting stirred up. But it, it might not be. It might be you're getting stirred up 'cause you're picking up on something that needs to be addressed. And so children and families are kind of notorious for getting us pulled into their family dynamics, which was mistake number two. Our job then is to figure out what needs to happen to facilitate, provide those opportunities for change. One of the things that happens a lot is kind of getting us pulled into their secrets. I, I always tell clients I make a distinction between a secret and a confidence. A confidence is why people come to therapy to have a private place to talk through really vulnerable and difficult and challenging things. A secret is something that's gonna keep you stuck. Your secrets will own you. And therapists, if we. If we get sucked into the secret keeping, then, then we're gonna most likely end up being part of the problem. Now, how you work through that can vary as a therapist, depending on your clients, depending on the way you know, your play therapy model, how you work that through. But there might be the need to have a hard conversation. And being a leader means you know when to have, you know when that conversation needs to happen, and now you're facilitating having some hard conversations and you might have to have hard conversations for several sessions. There's a therapeutic way to do it. So the, the result is if you don't, then you're gonna find yourself probably getting frustrated, overwhelmed, you're gonna be avoiding your imposter syndrome is probably gonna get activated. You might find yourself like this, a lot of times conflict brings up a lot of yuck for most of us. Most people don't like conflict. I am one of those people. I don't like conflict. I hate conflict with a passion to be completely honest. But I've just learned I can't avoid it because it'll be worse. We won't make any progress. We won't get any breakthroughs. We'll stay stuck where we are. I'll feel resentful. I won't be able to be therapeutic. I'll get aligned. It, it just, they're gonna stay stuck because I'm stuck. That's also true in personal life as well. Like, we're not gonna work through our issues and relationships. I feel like that's a thing for most of us, like are, are we leading by having those hard conversations about things that need to be addressed? So what do you do instead? What to do instead is really, you know, we, we in the mental health field. We have made a commitment to lifelong self-awareness and self-reflection, which I find kind of exhausting sometimes and. It's necessary. Honestly, I feel like it makes us like better people anyway, so there's a personal benefit out of it. What kind of person do I wanna be? What you know, do my values align with my actions? Do am I operating out of integrity? Those are important things for me. And what does that look like? And then what does that look like in the therapeutic relationship? So we're always on that journey of self-discovery and self-reflection. All right, so FYI, my dog Luna is now in the room. Luna. She's digging my carpet. You can see in the carpet where there's like little Luna digging piles. She's like bringing up all the carpet. Hi. Okay. She's resting now. So if you hear any strange noise in the background, that was Luna digging. There's nothing weird going on in here. Um, so what to do instead is, you know, ongoing self re reflection, self-discovery, self-care. Sometimes we just need to step out of the situation. Sometimes we need to take a break. Sometimes we need to you know, refill our own water tank and go do something that fills your soul or I, for me, that's getting out into nature and spending time with my family or my faith, spending time filling up with that. I love poetry, so sometimes I'll go read the, I like the mental health poetry, the self-reflection poetry. So sometimes I'll go read some of that and do some journaling. Right? So what do you do? What do you do for self-care? Are you doing it? Are you finding yourself getting frustrated? Burned out, maybe kind of in your head, blaming parents a little bit, like they're not doing this or they're not doing that, and maybe they're not. The, the key is like, what are you doing about it and how are you handling that? And can you get to that place of congruence with unconditional positive regard and empathy where you are able to experience that internally, so it'll reflect externally. Right? That's the con congruence piece. So, so do your self-care. Um, ongoing self-discovery and self-awareness. And I would say be part of a play therapy community that where you can get, get some support. So that is it for today. I'm just gonna do a quick recap on today's topic, which is the three of the top mistakes that I find play therapists making when they're working with parents that will stall out play therapy progress. The first one is accommodating versus enabling, and there's a fine line between being supportive and accommodating versus enabling unhealthy behavior, which is gonna set you up for getting stalled out in play therapy and not making any progress. And the key is you really need to identify your expectations. What is your role? What is client's role? What is parent's role in there? And that's gonna align with your play therapy model. And, and so that's your theoretical model. And so really having that lens that you're looking at to identify parents' role is also gonna help you understand, like your role, what, what is your role gonna look like from that theoretical model? And then also the next one is becoming embroiled in the unhealthy family patterns. It's not a matter of if it's gonna happen, it's a matter of when and how often. And so if you find yourself getting frustrated, maybe being a little blamey in your head and in your attitude, maybe take a step back and take a look at perspectives from each, each person and look at it through their lens, and then get back to that neutral place where you can focus on what needs to happen in order to facilitate healing for your client. And then the third thing is avoiding versus leading. And so if you find yourself avoiding situations, then it's a good sign and maybe you're, it's activating your imposter syndrome or maybe you're getting a little blamey in your head and maybe your attitude's getting a little blamey. Um, and, you know, you're, you're avoiding situations and sometimes we avoid because we don't think it's gonna be therapeutic and, um, it's uncomfortable. So if that's the case, we have to do our own self-reflection because clients are only only gonna progress as far as we are able to progress in our own healing, which means we have to deal with conflict, conflict and lucky feelings, our part of life and part of relationship, including therapeutic relationship. And sometimes these things have to happen. So, the thing you wanna make sure that you are leading by taking the lead to have hard conversations that are gonna provide opportunities for clients to make decisions about the change process and what is gonna happen to facilitate that change. You can do that in a therapeutic way, which is why I like neuroscience and attachment'cause if you look at it through that lens, then it gives you a lot of clues about what to do and help your, and how to help your clients to accomplish that change and get the breakthroughs that are that they need, that they want in order to have that life worth living if I borrow a DBT uh term. So that is it for today. For those of you who are interested and want to take a deeper dive into working with parents and getting developing your skills or, especially when you're working with the challenging parents. I think using a neuroscience and attachment lens gives you the keys to understand how to work with challenging parents, and when you find yourself kind of getting stuck over and over using that theoretical lens can give you some ideas about what you need to do. And that one of the reasons I created the course Getting Grounded partnering with Parents in play therapy is because I found over and over the, these mistakes were being made. And this is an area, uh, that I think, excuse me, most play therapists struggle and don't really have a framework to help them work with parents, especially the challenging parents. And so in partnering with, uh, Getting Grounded, partnering with Parents in Play Therapy, there's, there's a whole module on setting the groundwork, understanding neuroscience and attachment so that you have the ability to define what is the role of parents and what is that gonna look like? Because you're gonna be explaining this to parents to help them understand what is their role and what is that actually gonna look like for the their child to get the healing that they want their child to have. There's a whole module in there on taking that foundation and then what does that look like when you're working with challenging parents? How? How can you get parents to come alongside and be that partner with you in the change process? How are you setting your expectations? All of these things. If there's even a module in there on working, like some do's and don'ts when you're working with children in high conflict, divorced families, that one comes up a lot. So I put a whole module in there to, to help you set, like avoid all the mistakes I made early on. And then once I figured out they were mistakes, I came up with solutions to, uh, move past them so that we were constantly moving towards progress. So this course takes my 30 plus years of experience in the child and adolescent mental health field. And kind of wraps it all up in one course to help you be more effective when working with parents to get that, those breakthroughs and the that healing that you want for your clients, it's, all prerecorded. It's online, it's modules. You can take it in your time zone when it's convenient for you. So if you're interested in that, you are definitely gonna wanna pop over to my website at rh play therapy training.com. That's RH play therapy training.com. The name of the course is Getting Grounded Partnering with Parents in Play Therapy. Um. And the website is renewing hearts play therapy training.com. Rh play therapy training.com. There's, right now I have a promotion that I'm running on it. You can get $40 off the course. Um, and so that's an awesome, an awesome discount. I figured it's, it's back to school time. Everybody's caseloads are gonna be filling up. This would be a really good time to kind of get some, get some new fresh ideas and perspectives to work with parents and help you out there. Also, if you're interested, I do have Play Therapy Elevation Circle. That's my new membership for play therapists. To we, we staff cases once a month. We do monthly book club. There's a community in there for support. Play therapy elevation Circle is more geared to people who don't want all of the like high contact for, uh, play Therapy Academy. Play Therapy Academy is more geared towards people who want to pursue their registered play Therapy Credential. Play therapy elevation Circle is, is a little more, um, I don't wanna say relaxed, but it's, there's not as many meetings, um, there's not all the courses in there. And it's really focused on having a community and giving support to each other and being able to have a place to staff cases and get support and use your people, your Play Therapy peeps as I call us Play Therapy peeps to get support with them. So, um, go check that out on my website. That one's on the consultation page, and 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 gained new insights and ideas to support your work helping children, adolescents, and families feel. 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 topics, 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.