EP55 The Essence of Play - Nurturing Development in Children

In this episode of 'Pondering Play and Therapy,' Philippa and Julie explore the concept of 'just playing' in therapeutic contexts. They discuss the fine line between play and therapy, sharing personal anecdotes and insights on how play can serve different roles for children. They reflect on the pressure therapists face to meet goals within limited sessions and emphasise the importance of allowing children the freedom to guide the play. They also touch on building agency, establishing safety in relationships, and the therapeutic value of unstructured play.

Window of Tolerance - Dan Seigel - https://www.nicabm.com/trauma-how-to-help-your-clients-understand-their-window-of-tolerance/

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Transcript

The Essence of Play: Nurturing Development in Children

[00:00:00] 

Philippa: Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me, Philippa, 

Julie: and me, Julie. And this week we thought we'd think about the concept of just playing. It comes up in therapy. It comes up certainly with my students. When is the child doing therapy and when is the child just playing? Actually, is that the same thing?

And partly this came out of a conversation I had with I dunno, it was a friend or a family member, somebody I don't know very well and was asking what I'm doing at the moment. I said, oh, I'm a play therapist. I. Play mainly was adopted and looked after children, but that's mainly my work. And then I teach that and they said, oh, isn't play great.

It's wonderful to be able to escape from reality. And I questioned that and I said, oh, to [00:01:00] escape from reality. Or actually sometimes what I see is the children, certainly in a therapy session, it's very intense and it's play is a way of escaping into reality. So I suppose that's what I want to think about when is play something that take is a relief?

It's an escape. It's a few, a moment to not have to be with my other stuff. And when is play a time to actually delve right into my story and a safe way to be with trauma, to be with difficult things and play. Is the reality. But it, you escape into the play in order to look at that reality. So I suppose that's what I'm thinking about is the different roles that play can have for us.

Yeah. 

And I'm thinking particularly about a [00:02:00] child. I don't work with this child anymore, a little girl, and I knew a lot of her story. And there was a sense of me often waiting for her. Quite tragic. And it was a life story that included a lot of bereavements. And I had thought as her parents had thought that she would come and play about those bereavements in the therapy sessions.

'cause that's what we'd thought she needed to do. She was talking a lot about death and dying and funerals and all the rest of it. So there was a sense of always waiting for these stories to emerge. But in all the time that I saw her, there were never any stories. There were never. There was never a narrative.

We played a lot of games, a lot board games, a lot of dice games. But what she loved to do, most of all, was [00:03:00] clean The Doll's House. I've got quite a Big Doll's house lot, and it's got a lot of furniture that it gets rearranged as, each child wants it to be rearranged. But what she wanted to do most weeks was take everything out.

I could help her with that. Clean everything, little dust, pan of brush, hoovers everything and rearrange it in the way she wanted it to be. And making choices about, no, I don't want the washing machine, but I do want the tumble dryer. I want the cooker and the sauce pans, but I don't want the fruit bowl. I want three beds.

I want, she decided exactly how she wanted it to be. And for week after week, I was thinking, I think quite naively that she was wanting to set up a story, wanting to get going with a story, a narrative, perhaps about the many bereavements [00:04:00] she'd experienced. Actually no story ever emerge, but I, think on reflection, and actually I read this in a, a Graham music text a couple of months ago and it just shocked me 'cause I thought, how have I not known that?

And he's saying the children who it appears, they just set up stuff and then there's no narrative. He talks about the setting up. As the process, as what they need to do as the therapy in itself, because this little one was suddenly in control of something, whereas she hadn't been in control of all those deaths.

She was able to order things in the way she wanted them to be, not in the way her parents organized her life. For her, she was little. I'm sorry that I didn't know that at the time when I was working with her because I think all the time I was waiting for a story to [00:05:00] emerge. Oh, and I wonder what's gonna happen in this house.

Oh, you set out three beds. I wonder who the three people are that the beds at for That was nonsense. Julie, I hands up. I got it wrong 

Philippa: there. Yeah, 

Julie: she just needed to sort things and tidy things. That was her therapy. And if I was to work with her or another child again, I would be reflecting much more on, oh, doesn't this feel good for you to decide where things go?

Just where you want things to go. Oh, you are. You are making choices and you definitely don't want those things. And that being what, she needed to work on. 

Not on me sitting there waiting for this story to emerge. 

Philippa: Yeah. It makes me think sometimes with, sand tray children will line up kind of [00:06:00] everything in lines in the sand.

And, again, it's oh, okay what, we, what are they gonna do with this? And they just every tiny thing comes out and it might take 20. Minutes, 25 minutes, and all the little tiny bits are all just lined up in rows in the sand. And then there, there's that moment where they look at it and, there's that.

I think you, you're right from a therapist's point of view, the expectation that something's gonna get going. And then they take them all out again. One by one and put them all, all back into the not my order that they were all in their own order and sometimes they don't put them back in order.

So they're all ordered in the sand tray. But then they take them out and just throw them in the biggest box, in the biggest way. And there is no order in that. And that in itself is I suppose you [00:07:00] could wonder, or maybe it's just that. It's I've done that bit. Now I'm gonna move on to, the next bit of, ordering.

And then, they line them up again or do them in a different way or hide them, but in an order under the, sand. And there's that thing of, okay, now we're gonna find them and they find them themselves and take them back out again. And it's that, it's their process and that waiting, like you say, as a therapist of, okay, now we're gonna start.

And actually the child's already started playing, haven't they? Yeah. And we're, we are three steps behind that. 

Julie: Yeah. And if I'm trusting them, I should have noticed, but I didn't that my des the child's desire to have agency. It can be sometimes I'm, sitting here looking at my my therapy cupboards.

The Lego, so often the Lego gets sorted into colors or the colored pencils get sorted [00:08:00] into high order. They all get sharpened, and then they're all put in high order and they don't become characters. They don't take on symbolic meaning. There isn't a narrative, but it's the process of. Sorting, lining up having agency, because I think so many of the children we see either at some point in the past or now, or just because they're little, they don't have a lot of agency, they don't get to make a lot of decisions.

They don't have the freedom to decide things for themselves. 

Philippa: But I wouldn't, Julie, if that as adults, I like order, my house is very ordered. There's not a lot of mess around. There's not a lot of, and that's not because I don't, I, I don't mind mess if people come and it's all messy and the I'm not avoidant of [00:09:00] it, but I, like my space to, to be ordered and some of that.

Some of that for me is that when I was a social worker working in child protection, I often went into houses where there was deprivation maybe, and there wasn't toys or it was very messy, very. You very chaotic in many ways for children and young people and, often the toys would be broken or they wouldn't, bottles or, plates and things like that would be quite d And it would be, it would feel chaotic. It would feel, and obviously they were needing support so you wouldn't be going into a house like that. They didn't need that. And I was in my early twenties then, and then when I had my child.

'cause I don't, I wasn't [00:10:00] I wasn't. Ordered before that point, I was actually very messy. I tell you once, I was so messy that the guy next door when I lived in this nursing home came to find me, to tell me that my room had been burgled and it hadn't, it was just how messy my room. But the, experience of that and then having my.

Child and wanting them to always know where their things were. And there was something as an anxious parent secure in the knowledge of knowing that all the Thomas, the tanks were in, in one box, that all the jigsaws were there was a, yeah. Sense of safety. I think that was in the, order of.

Of, the house, of the toys, of the do you know what I mean? And I wonder if as adults of children, that [00:11:00] agency of knowing I've put this there, and for me, that's the right space for it to be. And it feels okay for it. I wonder if it's not just in a playroom if, in life. Sometimes we do the sorting clearing out your wardrobe. Clearing out the bathroom cab, you know that there's something just like you say that you can control that moment, can't you? 

Julie: Yeah, and I remember when I was studying I would procrastinate and pause and you'd delay doing things.

But, and I would go and tidy my desk, tidy my office, tidy out my desk drawer because there was a sense of I need a bit of tidiness and order around me. I need to have something that can happen quite quickly and that I can see and I can touch before I can then get back to my essay or my [00:12:00] dissertation, or whatever it was I was doing.

And I, still have that. I'm, I don't think I am as neat and tidy as you philippa around my house. I like it to be tidy, but I dump things a lot. I have piles of things, and then every now and again, I want to scoop it all up, tidy it, sort it, and then feel great and promise myself I will never let it get untidy again.

But of course it does. But yes. Thinking about that sort of play that children do perhaps in a therapy session or at home. The what looks like just sorting or preparing for a story. But in fact, I know now and I've learned from that little girl and from other people's writings that is a process in itself that it seems to calm the brain.

It seems to help us get into the window of tolerance. The section in the middle. Where [00:13:00] I'm not hyper regulated, hypo regulated. It can help me and I can see the children, it can calm them, but also get them to be very alerts, to be engaged, to be active in what they're doing because there's real purpose in it.

When I watch children do that sort of play it's, very energized and it's very, yeah. I don't know that it has a real sense of purpose and agency about it, you 

Philippa: know? And I guess that's no no, like we say this, that's no, no different for adults is it? It is that this is, I know what I can do and sometimes that.

That might be the only thing that you know you can do. Whether you are an adult hiding in your kitchen drawer, whether you, your child, whether you're the child tidying your the doll's house you can do that and you can succeed at it and you know that you've got choice within that [00:14:00] and that you've got this amount of time to do it in so you can just do it.

And there isn't that pressure, that anxiety, that, am I gonna get this right or wrong kind of thing going on. 

Julie: And also wondering what might happen next, because I think when a child starts a narrative, starts a story in the play, then there is a sense of apprehension because neither me nor the child know where that's going.

And that can be scary. 

Philippa: And 

Julie: knowing. When you're sorting out the house, you know when it started and you know when it's finished because all the furniture is either in the house or stacked to the side. The, there's an end point to it. Same as the kitchen cupboard. There's an end point where the stuff that's going back is back in the cupboard.

The cupboard is closed, the stuff that's going to the bin has gone to the bin. And it has an end point. 

Philippa: And there's a sense of achievement that [00:15:00] sense of for me it's a sense of satisfaction where there is no piles in my house and I'm but there's that like moment where you look and you think, whew.

I've done that. 

Julie: Yeah, I've done that. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. For children, sometimes they don't, they, there can be a fear of that can't there, whereas in that contained moment, there can be that I just did this and this looks nice, and Julie's just said it looks great and so that in itself is just, it's complete, isn't it?

You don't really need any more than that. 

Julie: Yeah. And I, see now how important that is for children. 

In a therapy session, but also at home and at school. Just a chance to be free to sort. Yeah. And, I, so yeah, there's that sort of free play that doesn't, have an end purpose.

It does have an end purpose, which is everything [00:16:00] sorted. It's not a traumatic type of play. And something we, you and I were talking about earlier before we came on is how important it is as therapists, educators parents who are spending a lot of time with children who've experienced trauma and adverse experiences.

How important it is to also spend some time around typically developing children and young people to remind ourselves of what play can look like. What play and relationship can look like. And certainly both of us, over the last couple of weeks I had spent time with typically developing children and, I've forgotten what.

I don't mean normal. Typical or healthy play looks like. Yeah. Because I [00:17:00] so spend so much time with, children who have not had that experience or are struggling to have that experience. 

And. There's a sadness and a joy that comes with that. 

Philippa: But I wonder if for those children that there is, there will be moments where there is Ty, where they are playing in a typically typical way in a it might be.

You know that their brain age is a little bit younger than their chronological age. But the play that they're doing is typically what you would expect children to do. So it might be that they're pretending to be a cat or a dog they might be a little bit older than two or three, where you tend to start to see that they might be seven or eight.

But actually that is a typical way of playing, isn't it? It's not a trauma play. Yeah, particularly it might be that you're filling in a gap, so there is a bit of therapeutic, but [00:18:00] actually the role of just being a cat and coming along and being stroked as a cat and, being fed a little treat or a dog and that actually is typically developing play, isn't it?

And sometimes I think in therapeutic sessions. You, need some of those, moments where they can just be children just playing with an adult or adults. 

Yeah. 

And that is as important, isn't it? As, as maybe the trauma processing stuff? Yeah. 

Julie: And, it's, that's something that comes up with students quite a lot with more experienced students.

Or working with children of, with complex needs and complex trauma backgrounds. So our second year, second and third years are working with those, children this year. [00:19:00] And a lot of our lectures and materials are about the trauma processing, but what our students discover in working with a child who's experienced.

Huge adversity is within the therapy session or sometimes for a whole therapy session or weeks of therapy sessions. It feels like just playing. And the students come with the kind of question of, oh, am I really being a therapist? Because we were just playing football. We were just playing Snap. We were just playing a ice cane.

We were just playing families. Go shopping. In the role play, but really helping students understand that is crucial for children as well. To be able to move in and out of what we might think of as trauma play and trauma processing, and to be able to move smoothly back and [00:20:00] forth to typically a typical play for their age, or as you say for a younger age if they've, missed out a bit.

But it can be alarming, I think, especially for a student therapist, to not to not be doing the trauma processing all the time because that's what we're training to do. Surely that's where the health is, but the health is also in the building, the relationship and being able to experience play with a child where the child feels that they are being enjoyed.

And that we are enjoying them. And 

Philippa: yeah, I think it's also that just being alongside, isn't it? It makes me think about teenagers sometimes. If I'm working with a teenager and we might be doing some like story work or processing stuff around school that they, want to do, have these conversations.

They're really calm, they know [00:21:00] the cogniti to therapy and they know they want they're coming and they want to talk about tricky things. But then sitting in a room and talking about tricky things is really tricky and. You don't really wanna do it, do you? Do you know what I mean? And then you're all awkward and conscious.

Self-conscious and all these sorts of things. So actually most of the time I just play sat net side by side. So I do games where we sat side by side, and it might be that we are throwing ping pong balls into beer. Plastic beer, pint cups, I shouldn't say be a pint Cups. Or we're using beanbags and seeing how, if we can get them into to different baskets for different points and we are just sitting side by side and there's a rhythm to it.

They go, I go. They go, I go. And they don't have to be anything. Other than who they are in that moment, they don't have to put that mask on that they have to at school and sometimes at home or with their friends, [00:22:00] that they can be sad or they can be excitable. They if they are a really bouncy kid, they can be really bouncy.

They can sit on the chair. They can stand on the chair. As long as they're safe, they can stand up, move around, or they can just. Be low and flattened. They can be what they want, but there's a rhythm to what we are doing. And in that, sometimes you find they might talk sometimes.

They don't, and sometimes they tell you about their favorite TV program. But I think the value of being in a space with play, even if it's not purposeful, as in we are, actions from that there's that very repetitive rhythmic. But you get that attunement that you get that just being, you just get that presence of, I've got an hour and somebody's going to sit next to me.

I always give them snacks and a [00:23:00] drink. So they've a bit of feeding, a bit of nurture, and they can just be, or. Playing double or Jen or something where you don't have to talk if you don't want to. You can just be present with we've talked before, haven't we? About the third thing, there's this, thing in the middle of is that helps us connect.

Julie: Yeah. That what's running through my head though is the. The panic. Certainly I can get into if somebody has commissioned 12 sessions or 10 sessions and there are goals associated with that funding, and the goal is for the child to this, that, and the other, or the child to talk about this, or the child to process this, da and the sort of.

The pressure that I can feel the therapist, whether it's the parent who's [00:24:00] self-funding and has brought the child, or whether it's the local authority or a charity of the school that's funding and they have a goal in mind. And of course there is a goal in mind. There is something that has wobbled this child and something that isn't, going smoothly for this child in their life at home or in their relationships or their belief about themselves.

Always I listen into that, but when I meet the child in the room, then the child needs to be able to take that therapy where they need it to go. That's my training. My training is a child centered, mainly non-directive. That would be another conversation. The difference between non-directive and child centered, but.

That sense of the belief of the child's own agency to, take things where they need to go, at the pace they need to go at. But the funders have given me 12 sessions, and I know [00:25:00] that's unlikely to be renewed sometimes. So at what point do I, or should I, or can I? Chi be the child along and say the reason why mom, or the reason why uncle, or the reason why your social worker felt this might be good space is this and not putting the child under that pressure.

But at the same time, if I do, my outcome measures at the end, or if there's a report at the end, the report might be things have got worse or the presenting problem is still there. And then have I failed as a therapist? 

And so when there are those periods when the child is in just playing, is that wasting time?

Am I. Helping the child to avoid an issue. [00:26:00] Am I colluding with the child in covering up, avoiding moving away from difficult stuff, or am I respect respectfully accompany the child in the ways that they most need at the moment? This is the sort of push pull of therapy that I often have.

Yeah. It's rare that I get. Endless numbers of sessions. Some children I've seen two or three years and, we really can go at their pace. 

Philippa: That is actually a conversation that we were having in our team meeting the other day around. I suppose what we were talking about was children who are avoidant, shut down, withdrawn to find it. Much more difficult to, access express, talk about what's going on for them.

'cause they've learned the safest way to be [00:27:00] is to not access it. And actually how do you support those children? Especially when we are thinking about limited funding. Yeah. To do the outcomes that, that we've been asked to achieve for them. 

Yeah. 

And actually what they've what's kept them safe.

To not talk about it, to not share it, to not show it. And that's that's helped them survive up until that point. And then all of a sudden they're supposed to come to therapy and start talking about it. It's or, playing it out. Or acting it out. Even, in play, I guess you, you can get children who start to, to get to that point and then realize actually, and then stop the play.

So those children or adults, anybody, it's scary to enter into this level of. [00:28:00] Connection with something that's upsetting. It might not be masses of trauma from the past. It might be bullying in the present, mightn't it. It might be a sadness, it might be it. It could be anything.

But we have to connect a little bit with those experiences in order to play them out, to talk about them, to whatever it is. 

Can be scary and often we don't want to. And I suppose for me it's thinking about the foundation for all of this is safety in relationships. Yeah. And so we are doing the work, aren't we?

They might not in that moment. Be able to, or even in those 12 sessions talk about it or play out. But you've laid a foundation that says there is safety and there is a space in therapeutic in these [00:29:00] therapeutic sessions. So maybe next time, if they come back. And have another 12 sessions, then it won't take the 12 sessions to, because they, we've laid a blueprint of relational experiences, haven't we?

Through that play and through that connection and for me, that is the most therapeutic thing that we can do because that is the foundation that we need, isn't it? Is that there are relationships. That are safe. There are relationships that value who you are and play. Whether it's sitting next to a teenager throwing beanbags into a basket, whether it's cleaning out the doll's house, lining up, you know that play says we value.

Where you are in this moment, we value who you are in this moment and when you are ready or you want to be something different or you want to share something different, this is the space that you can do that. But [00:30:00] you, we do it on your terms. Really? Yeah, 

Julie: because we can't do it any other way. If I try to force it, if I try to guide it, if I try to lead the play in any way.

The child soon lets me know either by not coming or by sometimes telling me that's not what we're doing. The child will let me know that this is not safe. This they are not ready. And, so yeah, as you said, thinking about each 12 weeks of commission as one stage and a child may then. It might be in, within that 12 weeks, they've got to the stage where a grownup can be safe.

The limits of a session can be tolerated, the beginnings, the middles, the ends, the time limits, [00:31:00] and the child leaves after that 12 weeks, knowing that there are people out there like Julie and Philippa. And others who, when I'm ready or when I would like to, or maybe when I'm a teenager, maybe in my thirties, maybe in my fifties, I can come back to this.

And I think it also, and I've seen this happen so many times, especially in a school, it gives the child an experience of a safe adult that they then begin to seek help. Those. 

Some of those practices, some of those strategies with other adults, whether it's a family member a staff member at school, a club member, a friend, they begin to see that not just therapists are safe, but there are, there is safety.

In many adults and many older [00:32:00] people, and perhaps their peers as well, that trust is something that exists. And so believing that the therapy is never just those 12 sessions, never those 1250 minutes it's, actually very rarely what happens in the sessions. Yeah, it's the between and the after. 

Philippa: It's just that I just think the therapy just allows a child to practice it or to test it, whether it's the relationship, whether it's the play, whether it's the, disclosures or the processing.

And actually, yeah we'd be pretty arrogant if we think that actually it's the therapy that makes the difference. I just think the therapy is the bit that lets them practice and then. Then the outside world is the bit that makes the difference really, isn't it? Absolutely. 'cause they thought actually it was okay in there last four weeks.

It was fine. So now I can do this with granny, I can do this with with my uncle [00:33:00] or the TA or whoever is in the, in their world that is consistent and predictable and much more present than we as therapists ever are going to be really. 

Julie: Yeah, it is so much the practicing and I I've watched many clients come in here, but I think very nervous and very, As though they've got some sort of field around them that is very self-protective and their idea, the child's idea is the only idea that can ever be tolerated for them. But I know from them and from their school and their parents that say for instance. School friendships are not going well because this child may come across as very bossy and very one-sided and only got one way of playing.

And [00:34:00] by the time you're seven or eight, nobody wants to play with you if you are not tolerating other people's ideas or incorporating other ideas into your play. And that's something I found happens a lot here in the room is children will set up a story and. Tell me what to do all the time, and I'm making this not a judgment or wondering what's gonna be most helpful for this child.

With my non-directive hat on, I'll be going I'll follow exactly what the child says, but I also know for this child in their outside world. If they play like that, then nobody wants to play with them. Their parents are getting frustrated, their siblings are frustrated, and they're finding it really difficult to maintain friendships.

They don't get invited to parties and play dates and all the rest of it because they've got a very fixed idea of how they're playing. And [00:35:00] so I sometimes, and I'm thinking of one particular client last year. Who I would challenge it and say actually I don't want to do that.

You've asked me to make the enchanted forest, and so I've started making the enchanted forest in the way that makes sense to me, but you are now telling me you wanted it to be a certain way. And I'd say, but that's, my part of the play. And I I'm doing a lot of thinking about that.

To what extent do I, 

Do I maintain my congruence and do I express to the child what's going on in my mind? And with this particular child, we might often be talking about that's what's in my head and that's what's in your head. But I think what's in your head? Hasn't got to my head yet. And, so I'm letting you know what's in [00:36:00] my head.

My head is to have a purple enchanted forest with all the purple things we've got in the room. That's where I would like to make it. But you are telling me you wanted it to be green, but your, brain didn't tell my brain that. And, so we've had lots and lots of moments of practicing and trying out.

Initially this child would get really, cross and frustrated and puzzled. But recently before we ended, this child was able to say, do you know what, Julie? I'm going to let you know something that's in my brain. I don't think I've let you know it yet, but it might make a difference to how you are going to do the, forest or whatever.

So a sense of this child now being able to recognize somebody else in the play. Whereas previously this child would only play pretty much on their [00:37:00] own, and I would be witness and supplier of goods. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Julie: But by the time we ended, we were actually collaborating on things. 

Now, I don't think for this child, their friendships have changed, particularly in this year, but I'm really hopeful.

Is this child moves through school becomes 8, 9, 10, they'll draw on this 

Philippa: experience. 

Julie: So if I was to look at outcome measures from beginning to end, things don't really look that different. But I know internally huge changes have been happening just by playing the, content of the stories I don't think was ever that important.

Philippa: Yeah, it makes me it, is, made me think a little bit about the play and thinking about within the play the, dimension of structure and, [00:38:00] challenge really, and how they fit together and how. Often children need to control is the word we'd use. That they want it in a certain way, in a certain thing.

And with Thera play, I guess what we are helping them to do is experience not having it their way. But it's more the risk of failing, isn't it? That's what I feel is it's the risk of this will fail and I'll feel bad. Because I haven't experienced that failing when I was little and have my parents scaffold me.

'cause we children fail all the time. They can't put the bricks on, they can't fit the shapes in it, in, in the ball. Or they can't hold the, basher for the. The xylophone. And as adults, we scaffold that, don't we? We hold their hands so they can make the tune. We guide the, bricks [00:39:00] with them so they can fit it in the hole.

So they, they put their, typically developing play helps them experience frustration and failure and, it's not therapeutic processing or trauma, it's just that they're learning, aren't they? And they're scaffolded by, an adult. Often, sometimes it can be an older sibling, can't it? But, it's by somebody else who's bigger, who's caring, who's consistent, who's predictable, that's helping them manage that frustration and, failing, and turn it into achievement and success in a really simple way.

And often in therapy, I. Would see that actually for children, that's often what's going on. It's not that they want to control it, it's just that they're that little person who hasn't been scaffolded, so they need to control it so that they don't feel that really. Horrendous part of [00:40:00] failing, which you know, feels tricky for all of us.

And I think that sometimes through play you can help that happen. So in Thera play it's much more structured. So it's like you are talking about non-directive, in Thera play it's pretty much the opposite. It's pretty directive and adult led, but I feel that even within that, there needs to be some.

Some self-efficacy for the child. So I will say things like, I'm gonna do it twice and then you can do it the, third time. So they know that they can do it. So almost I demonstrate it for them, help them to succeed and then they do it, which is what you would do with a, little child.

Or sometimes I think it's thinking about why is a child making this choice. So it might be that we are doing a cushion stack. And I put one cushion on and they say, no I want this cushion. Now [00:41:00] sometimes I'll say, we'll do your cushion next, because I need to hold them and they, and I want them to trust that I, as the adult, have made a decision that's gonna be successful and they're gonna be okay.

Yeah, but sometimes I'll say, oh my gosh, yes. That's such a great caution for that space. Let's use yours. And that is about the child maybe that we've talked about, that avoidant child, that child who hasn't really expressed a voice all of a sudden being able to say, but I'm making a choice. And that's again, going back to when they're little.

And you might say to them, do you want a pink yogurt or a yellow yogurt? And they say, I'll love the yellow yogurt. And we, as adults say, oh, that's a great choice. That's the one I would've, chosen. That's my favorite. Or, and so what you are doing is you're celebrating that child, that toddler can [00:42:00] make good choices, can trust its own internal knowledge.

But for some children they haven't had that, have they? Yeah. So I think it, I think you talking about that little boy about, do you follow him in a non-directive way or do you put a little bit of structure in place and say. Actually this is, what I'm thinking helping him to experience that thing.

I think in a very structured directive thing, you can also do the opposite of allow some of that free choice. 'cause I think it's thinking about. The individual child, isn't it? Yeah. What do they need? Do they need their choices celebrated or do they need to trust the adults? Got them? Do they need to be able to have the self-efficacy or whatever it is to, just play out and have somebody follow or do they need to understand and be able to survive and accept?[00:43:00] 

That they can still have fun, even if it isn't exactly how it was in their head. Yeah. Yeah. And, that's it's thing so whatever kind of play you are doing, I think it you, need to have that flexibility within it, don't you, to play where the child is at. 

Julie: Yeah. And play in, in my own head, I'm playing with lots of choices.

So often I'm in a situation, in a therapy room with a child and the child's doing something, playing something immersed in something, and my mind is working so quickly. I'm not saying anything. I'm not even I'm, making sure I'm within the proximity that the child can tolerate. But my mind is thinking, what?

What does this child need most from me right now? Does this child need me to get out of the way and let them [00:44:00] give them space and time and validation to do what they've already started doing? Does this child need me? To invite myself in, is this child too shy or too nervous of inviting me in because the fear of rejection.

So do I invite myself in? Does this child need me? In this moment to challenge a bit about what's happening and ultimately there's always that choice of, does this child need me to say, whoa, stop, because this isn't safe. So that's always I've got the safety button. I've, I I know at any point I can utilize that.

But my mind as a therapist is constantly thinking about what does this child need most from me? And it, yeah, it depends on partly what I've heard [00:45:00] about the child through their referrers and their family. But ultimately, what this child is letting me know about how they see the world. 

Philippa: What 

Julie: is it they really need a bit of support with?

And is that Yeah, giving them space to make lots of their own choices 'cause they've never done that. Or is it doing the opposite sometimes of saying, actually I'm gonna make a choice about that. What are you going to do? And, seeing what's most helpful for that child. And. These are endless discussions or ethical discussions to make about how do I make a choice about what's best for a child?

Do I trust the child to know what's best for them? Absolutely. Are they yet at this stage that they can express that or guide me in how to guide them? Not always. So I'm having some guesses about what might. [00:46:00] Make life a bit easier and smoother for them outside the therapy room. And then the classic one we often have is I don't know if you've got paints in your therapy room.

I've got my big bottles that I keep hidden, and then I've got my little bottles that can be used up in a session. And for years, the top on the blue one is really tricky. It's, I dunno, it is just it's an, old one. I've never got new ones. Just keep refilling them. If a child takes the red one and says, Julia can't open it on the whole, I'll say you can't open that one.

And I'll leave the child, not leave the child accompany the child to find a way of opening the red one and the yellow one and the green one. And because most children over about the age of five can open those paint bottles might be a bit of a struggle. But I know they can do it. The blue one.

I [00:47:00] absolutely know most adults couldn't open this blue one. It's really tricky. So I'll say, oh, that's the really tricky one. We're gonna open it together. Now I might have a child who's so determined no, I can do it. I can do it. I'm, good at these things. I'm gonna be better than you at this.

You're gonna really struggle to do that. But it's for the very sort of shut down child, the helpless child, the learned helplessness, who with everything says, I can't do it. I don't do it for them. For another child where helplessness isn't part of their profile, I'll just flick the lids on them and off we go.

So it's making a call on what does this child today most need? Do they need to build the efficacy and the agency to be able to do stuff themselves? Or do they just want to paint? And me taking the lids off [00:48:00] all of them is just gonna be helpful. 

Philippa: So 

Julie: it's, I'm constantly making those calls, which is exhausting.

That's why at the end of a therapy session, my mind is really tired. 'cause I'm constantly thinking about, do I move in? Do I move back? Do I say something? Do I not say something? Do I make a sound? Do I remain silent? Do I sit close by? Do I sit far away? And all of that in just playing. 

Philippa: Yeah. And I think that brings this full circle back to, and sometimes kids do just wanna play, don't they?

They do just wanna paint, and it's messy, and there's nothing to be interpreted about it. There's nothing to be inferred about it. They're just painting a house or making a mess, or putting hand prints on a thing and it, [00:49:00] i I saying to you sometimes I kinda use the analogy of a pizza, that sometimes a pizza is a component of all its parts to be broken down and deconstructed.

But sometimes a pizza's just a pizza and you just have to enjoy it, don't you? 

Yeah. 

Just eat it. Yeah. And then that's what I think for kids, sometimes they just wanna paint or just wanna play in the sand. They're not creating anything to be Yeah. Deconstructed. They're just playing cars or dinosaurs or whatever it is.

I, I, in the sense it's trickier, I think with Theo Platy. To just play. But I think there are times where they just, you know, we just sing nursery rhymes and, it's just it's giving them early experiences and all those sorts of things, but they're just in the moment in that thing doing, what they're doing.

Just as a typically developing child, because even children not even all [00:50:00] children have those times where they are playing because they're enjoying the playing. They're not processing, they're not doing something else. And that is probably one could argue more therapeutic than, anything else to be in connection.

In your body in that moment regulated, connected, enjoying that, that time, whether it's play on your own, whether it's play with a, with your peers, or whether it's play with with your, adults. That is that is, yeah. Priceless in many ways. 

Julie: And I'm thinking as you're speaking, I'm thinking about the window of tolerance.

Where we have this image of the window as being quite large in the middle for, many of us. [00:51:00] Not that everything is smooth within that window, but it's being able to smoothly move in and out of stresses. So it's not that everything in the window of tolerance is calm. 

It's we can cope.

That's our coping. And most of us most days are within that ups and downs. Small stresses, and we recover and we come back again. And then every now and again, we have our hyper moments where, ah we say we lose it, but we've, lost the rag. We've become very hyper regulated. And then at times we might become hypo regulated.

We switch off, we dissociate, we flee away from things. And watching children in therapy often find their window might be very small, and yet their hyper section is huge, or the hypo section is [00:52:00] quite huge. And I think of therapy as dilating, making bigger, that middle section. 

That window of tolerance so that they can move up and down through the ups and downs of life.

Smoothly. They can move from one part of their play to another part of play, to one relationship, to another relationship. And I think of the therapy session as helping a child sort of dance through. The ups and downs of life because a therapy session isn't all calm and lovely as it's full of ruptures, repairs, jiggling moments, awful moments, stomping moments, and then sleepy moments, calm moments, and it's really witnessing a child as they learn to go more smoothly between their sections.

You even see it the children who move [00:53:00] initially, sometimes they'll come into the room and they'll play five minutes here, five minutes there. Everything's very scattered. And then over time I could see they spend sort of 10 minutes doing one thing and then they integrate that into the next thing.

Oh, I'm gonna use the sand tray then to do this. And they're, I'm gonna use that. They begin to integrate their play. 

And to me that's like a picture of the window of tolerance, that middle section growing and then being able to tolerate and recover from, the wobbles that happen every day. The small disappointments.

Oh, I couldn't get the lid off the paint. Oh I'll find another way. Oh, my favorite Dolly has got a bit of green paint on her cheek. And I can't get it off because the previous child has painted the face and I can't get it off. And so the next child has to find a way of [00:54:00] being with this and how they begin to build up their sort of emotional muscles.

That's why I when a parent or social worker or foster carer introduces me to a child, I'll often say I'm like a doctor for your. For your emotions, for your inside muscles, for your emotional muscles, and that we can move more smoothly between them. 

Philippa: Yeah. That's a lovely, way of describing it, really.

And I think I'll put a picture of the window tolerance and maybe put a link at the end of the yes, the description, just so people can find it, but over your head. Hopefully when this goes out, I'll put a little picture if I can. Figure out how to do that. Alright. Okay. Or the window of tolerance. 'cause you couldn't quite see your hands in the, you'd have to put your face.

Yeah. But yeah, so we'll do that. But yeah, I think that's probably thinking about the window of tolerance and, [00:55:00] the difference, hypo and how you work with that in play. I think that might be a really nice topic maybe to do another time. We are coming towards the end. Julie, we've been talking for an hour already.

Julie: Oh my goodness. 

Philippa: About certain these things. Thank you. For listening to pondering play and therapy and we ask that you subscribe, leave as a comment. Comments are really the ones that we want, aren't we? We like, if you leave as a comment about your thoughts about the episode you've listened to or any ideas for future topics or guests, if there's anybody you think that actually it'd be really interesting to hear them on pondering plan therapy, we would be happily approach them.

So thanks very much for listening. 

Julie: Thank you. Bye-bye.