Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

Play Therapy with Parents | 5 Essential Tips for Family Play Therapy Sessions

• Cathi Spooner, LCSW, RPT-S • Episode 91

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🚨 5 Signs You Might Be Accidentally Sabotaging Your Play Therapy Progress (and What to Do Instead)


If you’re a play therapist who’s tired of getting those frantic mid-week parent calls, texts, or emails saying “nothing is working”—even though you see real progress in the playroom—this week’s free livestream is for you.


Here’s the hard truth: sometimes our best play therapy efforts fall flat outside our offices. 


Parents get frustrated.   Kids feel misunderstood. 


And you end up buried under play therapy session notes, parent updates with phone calls/texts/emails, and endless questions… while the transformation you know is possible never fully takes root at home or school.


Leaving you feeling like you’re missing something but can’t quite figure it out.


What’s a play therapist to do? In this podcast episode, we’ll unpack the 5 signs you may be sabotaging your client’s progress without even realizing it—like relying too much on parent reports, or missing the chance to see family dynamics play out in real-time. 


Then I’ll show you exactly what to do instead so you can stop guessing what’s happening outside the playroom and start watching your clients and their families heal right in front of you.


Expect a fresh perspective, some “ouch” moments (in a good way), and practical steps to shift your sessions from just play to powerful, family-centered transformation.

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

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 everybody. Welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy, and today we're gonna focus on five signs that you may be accidentally sabotaging progress in play therapy. So if you find yourself. Not knowing if play therapy is working. Maybe you feel like it's working in the sessions, but it's not, but parents are telling you it's not working at home and you're getting all those midweek, frantic phone calls from parents telling you everything that is not going well in the play therapy sessions. That might be a sign. That there's a better way to do things and there's, you might actually be missing something. So that is what we are gonna talk about today. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go over five signs that might be an indication that you might be missing something or that you might accidentally be sabotaging. Progress in play therapy. I find this happened a lot, and in fact, to be honest, a lot of these things that I'm gonna go over today, I actually experienced early on and I, I kind of banging my head against the wall thinking, what the heck am I missing? Now, we all, we all have those clients where things go smoothly. The, the sessions are going great. But maybe you have those clients that are a little more challenging and you keep thinking, I know I'm missing something. What is going on here? Might even be able, uh, be creating some disconnect between you and parents. I've had that happen too. It was so frustrating not understanding what was going on. When clients were telling me one thing, and this sometimes. With, um, adolescents as well. Clients were telling me one thing and it's not going well, and they're telling me all the things that are going on, and parents are like, what are you doing in there? Are you making things worse in there? Because they don't see it at home? And in my mind I'm like, what is the disconnect here? Because I cannot figure this out. Until eventually we did. And, um, but it can slow progress down. It can leave you feeling like you're not doing a good job. Second guessing yourself, frustrated, feeling overwhelmed. Activating your imposter syndrome, thinking that you must be the worst play therapist on the planet and any day, day Now parents are gonna figure it out and pull their client from play therapy, which means you would've been an epic failure. And the likelihood that this is true is very, very slim. So that is what we are gonna talk about today. I'm gonna. Go over five signs that you may be accidentally sabotaging your play therapy session, and then what to do about it. How can you move forward and be much more effective because that's what matters, right? That's why we got into this profession, because we want to make a difference in the lives of children and their families. I would include their families. I am a firm believer. I have been saying this for decades, mostly in my head, but sometimes I say it outside my head. I am a firm believer that if we really want to help communities heal, we need to. Change families, one family at a time, that that communities are only as strong as the families within that community. And the more and more I stay in this. Profession of mental health and play therapy, child and adolescent mental health. And the more and the, and the older I get, I've, I've been alive many decades now and in the mental health field, several decades, and my working hypothesis has always been that, that families are as strong. I mean, communities are only as strong as the strength of the families in them. And the older I get, the more I realize, especially with, with social media and all that, we're finding out about families being burned out, stressed out, overwhelmed. And, and so the, the role of social media on anxiety and low self-worth, low self-worth and bullying, and. Children just really, really struggling with their mental health. I'm a firm believer that families helping children connect and helping to strengthen families is the key. And what I find is in the mental health community, and I would say. I'll speak really with play therapy, community, child and adolescent community, we tend to use more of an individual lens, an individual approach, meaning we only focus on the child and even, even the Association for play therapy identifies the client. As, as the child, as the client. But what they'll also say, and I am wholeheartedly a believer in this, is that children exist within families. So, so we need to, my my opinion is that we need to consider children in the context of their family and what does that mean, and. These five signs that I'm gonna go, that I'm gonna go through. Are intended for you to kind of think, oh, I'm experiencing this. Oh, maybe I need to look at this a different way. So if we're ex, if you are experiencing any of these five signs, I want you to post in the comments which ones write the number in there, which ones you're experiencing or maybe have experienced in the past. So think about these things and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you some ideas for what to do instead. So if you're listening on the live episode, then I would love to know who's here. Post your name in the comments. What population are you working with? Where are you working? Um, what play therapy modality that you're using. So go ahead and post that in the comments. If you're watching live, if you're watching on the replay, I would still love to hear from you. I love having conversations with people about play therapies. My, I can nerd out on that most of the day. Um, so post in the comments, where are you from, what population you're with, you work with, and, um, what plea therapy models. Also what number. What number sign can you relate to that you have experienced or you are experiencing now? And if you're listening on the podcast, I would love to hear from you. Pop over to my Instagram channel at Renewing Hearts Training. Send me a message, post a comment on the replay.'cause I, I livestream using Streamy Yard on. LinkedIn and YouTube, and then I live stream unless I have a guest simultaneously on Instagram. So you'll see me kind of going back and forth between camera lenses and those of you watching the replay, including those of you in my Facebook group, join the conversation. So let's get started for today. Today we are talking about. Five signs that you might be accidentally sabotaging your play therapy progress. And the five signs are number one, if you find that your inbox or your voicemail. Or you're getting along texts from parents or caregivers saying that nothing is working at home. They're still experiencing tons of problems even though you might have seen and like in your plea therapy sessions. Clients seem to be doing fine. So there's a disconnect there. Parents are, are calling you, texting you, emailing, you, telling things are all the terrible things that are going wrong and they're, they're worried. That's why they're. They're texting you or emailing you or or calling you because they're worried. They're worried that things aren't going well, and they're letting you know so you can fix it and you're confused because in the plate therapy sessions, things seem to be going fine, and so now you start feeling pressure. To fix it fast and you start feeling responsible that maybe somehow you're failing your clients and parents are gonna pull their client, their child from plate therapy 'cause it's not working and you feel confused about what you're supposed to do because in the plate therapy sessions, things seem to be going fine. So that's sign number one. If any of you can relate to that. Put a one in the comments or message me. Um, sign number two. Even when you give suggestions to parents for some strategies that they can use at home, they tell you that they've already tried it. It doesn't work. Or they tell you that strategy doesn't work with their child and it happens and then you keep getting those phone calls. So number two, sign number two is when you give parents strategies to use, excuse me, now I have a tickle in my throat. Sorry. I get a drink of water. All righty. Sorry about that. Now I have a tickle in my throat and I, this makes it hard to talk. Um, so parents sign number two is parents are, you're trying to give suggestions, specific suggestions to parents about what to do to make things better and things they can do at home or make suggestions at school. They tell you they've already tried it and it doesn't work and it doesn't work for their child. So if you can relate to number two, put number two in the comments. Number three, you are seeing really good progress. Clients are engaging with you. They are, um, doing the strategies. You have a really good rapport with them. And they, they are engaged in the play therapy process. You're looking at the themes, everything's to, seems to be going on, I mean, to be going well, and then parents report that those are not getting translated to school or home. So this can create a little bit of disconnect between you and parents because then it looks like you somehow have the magic touch and they somehow don't. And maybe I, I feel like parents already come with a, a little bit of guilt and a sense of failure. A lot of times, not always, but a lot of times they, they feel that sense of they've somehow let their child down and somehow they are failing their child because they haven't been able to figure it out and help their child themselves. And so if you seem to be the one who knows how to get it done, but they don't seem to know how to get it done, and somehow you're better than they are. That can create a little bit of disconnect. But here's also what I'm gonna say. This one might be a little ouchie. I, I, I only mean it to kind of help maybe shift thinking a little bit. Um, and it, it might be that you are focusing so much on your relationship with the client, which is a good thing. And if parents don't have those skills, who's going to be the one helping to translate them to home and school? And when you are gone, who's going to be helping to? Support the changes that have been made. And yes, a lot of the change can be made using individual play therapy sessions. I'm not saying that they're not helpful. What I am saying is maybe there's a bigger picture and it's not all or nothing. Maybe it's not all one way individual, or maybe it's not all. Another way. Maybe there's, maybe there's another way to look at this and if you're only doing individual play therapy sessions, then maybe, and parents aren't seeing the changes translated to home or school, then maybe you it, it's a good idea to think about. What might help to do things differently? What are you missing? Because children do need their parents and their caregivers for co-regulation to help them generalize the skills to their everyday living. So. Number three is you are seeing great progress. The clients are doing great with you in the play therapy session, and parents are saying it's not translating at home, which is creating a little bit of a disconnect. Sign number four is that maybe you are spending way more time writing progress notes and documentation, and maybe even reports. That time you spend there outweighs the time you actually spend interacting with parents or maybe engaging with parents, or even including them in the play therapy sessions to get a better sense of what's going on. You can see in real time for yourself what's going on. And so number four is maybe you're spending way more time. On other things than building that relationship with parents and working with parents, and maybe even including them in the sessions, or maybe even including family members in the sessions. And sign number five is that parents are becoming increasingly frustrated. That things aren't working, and they're saying things like, well, what are you doing in there? Or maybe they're telling, asking you, how is playing actually gonna help? Maybe they have said to you, well, my therapist said play therapy's not working. Or my pediatrician said, play therapy's not working. And my pediatrician said, you, you need behavior management. That's what's gonna help these, these behaviors. That can be really frustrating as a play therapist. Not knowing what to do and feeling like you're getting set up for failure by other professionals, you might even getting a little mad about it. I, when that used to happen to me, I used to steam steam about it on my inside and on my outside. I would try to put on my best professional. My best professional face and voice regulate internally so I could be congruent with what's reflecting on my face and in my voice about professionalism and trying to be supportive and not putting parents in the middle and all, you know, all the things we try to do. Um. That can be really, really frustrating and it can make you feel like you're kind of set up for a failure and now you don't have that rapport with parents and they're now starting to doubt you and maybe now you are, imposter syndrome has fully gotten activated and you are worried that you might actually be. In the wrong profession or thinking you all other play therapists are way better than you and they figured it out and somehow you seem to be the worst play therapist on the planet. Here's the thing, the likelihood that is true is very slim. The likelihood there's, there's something going on in this disconnect that would be a sign that you need to pay attention to and think about things differently. Take a step back and think about things a different way. So what can you do instead? If you've experienced one or more of any of these signs that you might accidentally be sabotaging your blade therapy sessions, post which numbers you resonate with in the comments, or just make a mental note of it and keep listening. So here are some things to do instead. I would highly recommend not only relying on parent observations and parents reports, so don't get me wrong. I am a firm believer that parents are a very valuable source of information about their children, and they have really great insights into their children. Here's the thing, who of us 100% of the time, all the time about everything fully understands what's going on. Even as therapists, we don't it for our own things going on in our own lives. We can't fully take a, a neutral outside looking at things from a different perspective all of the time. Sometimes we need help to look at things a different way, but also to interact with us and get a better sense of us. So they might be able to see some of our blind spots. Right. That's why we go to therapy. That's why we talk to our colleagues. That's why we get into play therapy communities to get help and support. That's why we get into consultation because we, we don't always know everything, so we can't 100%. Expect that parents are gonna know one, they're not play therapists, they've not been trained, they haven't been trained in mental health, child and adolescent fa uh, therapy. They, unless maybe they are a therapist and even then, who of us fully knows everything, right? Because, so nobody can be fully understanding of everything. Including getting that information from parents because you're getting the information secondhand, you are getting the information based on parent, uh, the meaning that they make of it. You get it based on their perceptions, based on their understanding of the situation. You are having to rely on secondhand information rather than being able to see it. In real time for yourself and to me, that's where Family Play therapy sessions can be helpful because it allows you to see in real time what is actually going on with your client and what's going on in their relationships at home. With family members. Um, sometimes play therapists even will go and do observations at school. If you're a school-based, the therapist, you might go and observe what's going on in the classroom, right? You're gonna go see for yourself if, if the issues are, are more at home and maybe some of the school ones are, are due to issues going on at home. Then being able to have all the family members in the session, at least parents and the child or parent and child. Then you get to see in real time what are the dynamics, and you get to see the strengths. I've had situations sometimes where. Um, I'm getting reports about how horrible things are. These are really complicated cases. A high conflict divorce, maybe child protective services has been involved. Maybe there's a guardian ad litem where I'm getting all these reports about like maybe one household is doing all these terrible things and maybe some things have happened, right? Things happen. Um, families get stressed out, parents get overwhelmed. They don't always act in their best selves. Sometimes there's a lot more pathology to it than that, but sometimes I've had where I've had the whole family system in there, not, not both sides. If it's divorced families, I only do like one parent and children and maybe the other parent and children. That's a topic for a whole other. Uh, livestream episode or play therapy podcast. But for the purposes of today, um, I, when I've been able to see the dynamics myself, I've been able to see some of the strengths. I can also see where maybe there might need to some changes made, and that's the other benefit of family play therapy sessions. Is that you can help parents practice the skills in the sessions, or maybe you are bringing parents in at the, like maybe the last 15 or 20 minutes of the session, maybe you've taught the child the skill, the first part of the session, and now you're bringing parents in and together, parent and child are practicing the skill. So now parent knows what to do. At home, or maybe you're using the whole session as a family play therapy session, and you're really working on helping parents develop some attachment based parenting strategies that they can practice using in the session, and you are right there in the session to help them out. You are there to model. Give some subject. My mouth isn't wor working today. Suggestions is the word I meant to say. And by seeing what's going on and understanding the dynamics, you are better able to figure out. What play therapy activities or what types of interventions to do in the sessions. The thing is though, if you're gonna use a play therapy model that includes if, sorry, if you're gonna. If you're gonna include parents or family members in the sessions, don't just do it randomly. Just don't do it impulsively, and I've talked about that in other episodes, so you may wanna go back and listen to some of the other episodes, but don't just don't just include them. Without a framework. So if you're going to be using family play therapy, you wanna make sure you have a play therapy model that you're using that's gonna help you know what to do in session. What's the role of the parent? What's the role of the play therapist? What are you doing in each stage of the treatment process? What types of interventions you may want to use at. Different stages of the change process. If you're interested in learning, uh, a family play therapy model, then stay tuned because I do have a training coming up and I'm gonna talk a little bit about that. Just make sure that you are using a, a family play therapy model to help and that's gonna help you be way more effective. So that is it for today. Let me do a quick recap. So today we're talking about five things. Five signs that you might be sabotaging, progress in play therapy, and what to do instead. And so the five signs. Can be an indication that you may not be using the most effective approach to help your clients heal, and some of those signs are that maybe parents are telling you nothing is working. You're getting all of the phone calls, emails, and texts. Between sessions, nothing's working. When you make suggestions, parents tell you they've already tried it and it doesn't work and nothing works. The none of these things work for their child. Or maybe, maybe your things are going great in your individual play therapy sessions, but there's a disconnect about what's happening at home and parents are reporting that those changes that you are seeing. In the playroom, they're not necessarily seeing at home or in school or maybe you spend the amount of time that you spend engaged with parents or maybe families. Is so, so much lower than the amount of time you spend in documentation. Don't get me wrong, documentation is important. You definitely want to do your documentation. My point here is. If you find yourself spending more time focused on your documentation and your writing in between sessions, and you're not spending the kind of an equal amount of time engaged with family members or parents, it might be a sign if things aren't going well and you're not making progress, that might also be a sign That one's a little more subtle. And then finally, if parents start asking you and they're kind of suspicious, what are you doing in those plate therapy sessions? Why can't I be in there? Nothing's working. You know, why? Why are you using play therapy? How is playing going to help the situation?'cause I'm not seeing any changes. Or maybe maybe the parent's therapist told parent that play therapy doesn't work and they should, they should do behavior management or maybe the pediatrician. Has told parents, yeah, play therapy doesn't seem like it's working based on what you're telling me. And you should probably do behavior management. So if any of those things have happened to you, it might be a sign that you might not be using the most effective approach to helping your clients heal and make progress. And what I would propose instead is that you may wanna consider family play therapy because. That way you can see in real time what's going on in the sessions. You can also help p parents practice some of those, um, some of those parenting strategies like co-regulation. You can, parents can. Um, and children can learn better ways of connecting and building secure relationship and secure attachment. And in family play therapy sessions, parents and children can learn the skills and practice those together, together so that parents can make sure those happen outside of the play therapy session where the change really is needed. In their everyday lives and that parents are there in their lives knowing how to support their child throughout their lives. Parents are gonna be around way longer than we are as play therapists, so my thought is why not support parents and help them become the therapeutic agent of change for healing for their child? And that benefits the whole family. The whole family gets an opportunity to heal. So that is it for today, and that kind of brings me to. If you are looking for, um, a play therapy model where you can integrate parents and family members, then I wanna let you know about my training coming up using my attachment focused family play therapy model. I also have a book. Called attachment focused family play therapy, um, an intervention for children and adolescents after trauma. So you might be interested in that as well. Um, this one is specifically focused on working with traumatized children and teens. However, the play therapy model it, I use it for lots of different presenting issues. So if you're interested in. Attending or participating in my upcoming training, attachment focused family play therapy, that's gonna give you, uh, a family play therapy framework that you can use. The theoretical lens that will be talking about is using an attachment and neuroscience lens. So that's your theoretical lens that you are looking at, and we're gonna go through that. To help you use that for your case conceptualization about what is going on, how are you making sense of what's going on? Because then you're gonna use that information to actually use the uh, play attachment focused family play therapy model in the training. I'm gonna go over the stages. What is the therapist's play therapist role? What's parents' role? How do you decide what play therapy strategies to use? What are the stages? All the things you're gonna practice some activities. So the good news is you can attend either virtually. There's a virtual option and an in-person option. The training is gonna take place on Saturday, November 8th. The in-person option is going to be in St. George, Utah. It will be so beautiful at that time of year. So I would highly recommend if you need some in-person hours or you really want to do some in-person training that you, you, um, join us in St. George, Utah. If you're not able to, then I would highly recommend joining us virtually. If you have questions about it or I get questions from people living in Australia, feel free to reach out to me. There is a recorded version already on my website. It's a shorter version, but it does go over all the essentials. So if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me If you are living in, uh, the part of the world where it makes even virtual options challenging. Then just reach out to me, send me a message. I'm happy to answer those. I do have another training coming up if you're interested. It's called using a neuroscience and attachment lens with santra in play therapy. So that one's only in person. We do two days. We immerse ourselves in Sant Tray, all things neuroscience and attachment, and how does that work with Sant Tray? The other thing I wanna let people know is I have my Plea Therapy Academy program. Which was my kind of, I call it my VIP like membership. It's very small, small group. We do a maximum of 10 people in the program. You, we do consultations twice a month. Case presentations, getting feedback from me as well as. Your colleagues and even those of you who feel like you're new and you don't know anything. So you might feel a little intimidated about joining us. You know more than you think you do.'cause I have had heard pure gold come out of people who think they're newbies and don't know anything. So I do have two openings. I might have more, but I have two openings. If you have been looking for a way to get more support or maybe you wanna pursue your registered play therapy play therapist credential, then this program will meet the requirements for the registered play therapy credential. Some of the requirements, not all of 'em, but some of them, the consultation part, it will supervision. So if you're interested in that, also schedule a 30 minute call with me. Uh, I'm happy to have a conversation with you if you have been thinking about it. If you're not sure, just schedule a virtual call with me for 30 minutes and we'll see if it's a good fit. So I'm gonna post all these links in the comments. Um, if you have any questions, feel free to message me. If you are interested in any of these, you can also pop over to my website at rh play therapy training.com. That's rh play therapy training.com, and the training that I co have coming up about my attachment focused. Family Play Therapy. The training is called Attachment Focus, family Play Therapy. There's other things on my website. Feel free to pop over there, check things out. And I am on my way today to the Association for Play Therapy Annual Conference. I'm very, very excited. So as soon as I pop off here, I'm gonna be heading off to the airport, heading over to Houston. And I'm super excited for my training with Dr. Anne Ordway from the Association for Family and Conciliation Courts. She and I are doing a workshop together, play therapy with children in high conflict families, repairing connections. We're really focusing on a, a dynamic. Of parent, child, uh, child, parent contact problem, no parent child contact problems. I always get those backwards, which is, we used to call it resist refuse. It's. Kind of a new way of thinking about parental alienation a little bit 'cause that one didn't always fit very well. So I'm super excited to be talking about that 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 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 topics, suggestions for future episode. 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.