GROW Counseling
GROW Counseling
Ideas for creative play with your kids - especially during a quarantine!
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Dr. Wendy Dickinson, founder and psychologist at GROW Counseling, chats with Mary Anne Sylvester about some ways families can help manage this time of quarantine. They discuss schedules, emotion identification and regulation, and opportunities to really connect as a family! We've also developed a resource to go along with the emotion identification piece. You can download for free on our website!
Hi everyone, Wendy Dickinson here at Grow Counseling. I'm a licensed psychologist and the founder of Grow. We are a counseling practice located in Metro, Atlanta, and we have offices throughout the city. So we're super excited that you've joined us for the podcast today. I have asked Marianne Sylvester to come on with us. She's one of our therapists that works out of Alpharetta and to our Buckhead office. And she has some specializations that I think are going to be super helpful to the conversation today. So, Marianne, thank you for making the time for us. Yes, thank you for having me, Wendy. I'm happy to be here. Why don't you give our listeners just a quick overview of the kinds of clients that you see in your specializations so they know where you're coming from?
SPEAKER_01So I work mostly with children and teenagers as well as families. Some of my areas of focus include anxiety, social skills development, stress management, parent education, and play therapy.
SPEAKER_00So you are the expert that we need on today. A lot of parents are finding themselves at home with their children, potentially spending more time with their precious darlings than they ever have before during this quarantine and the self-isolation. And in all seriousness, it can be really difficult when you're not used to spending day in and day out with your kids. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about was just play time with children and why that's so important for them. So let's we're gonna dig into some of this, but let's let's start there. Why is play important for a child?
SPEAKER_01Play is very important for kids. Um, kids naturally play. You don't have to teach them how to do so. Um, it's the way they communicate with us is through their play. And there's a quote I love by a play therapist named Gary Landreth, and he talks about how play is a child's language and toys are their words. Um they just naturally talk with us through play.
SPEAKER_00That's great. I love that. That toys are their words. What is what does play do for kids?
SPEAKER_01Play helps children build important life skills, um, including conflict resolution, social skills development, um, language development, and it provides them with this space to express creativity and their imagination.
SPEAKER_00So I I love that piece of kind of helping them process, um, especially because we know that they're gonna be taking in a lot of um the stress in the environment these days. So it kind of helps gives them an outlet for that. Let's talk a little bit about how parents can use this time that they have with their kids to connect through play. What are some of the things that you would recon recommend to to parents?
SPEAKER_01Yes, so Wendy, as you mentioned, this is a unique time in which our kids are home. Um they're not going to school, they're doing school from home. So it's a very unique time, and I would encourage parents to view this as an opportunity to reconnect with their kids, to increase bonding with their children through play.
SPEAKER_00So so let's break that down a little bit. Like, what are some of the specific activities that families can do together that you would put under this umbrella of play? I mean, I know it may seem kind of intuitive to say, oh, go play with your children, but you know, I think in a busy world, we're used to moving kids from activity to activity, and we're we're less accustomed to having lots of open free time to get down on the floor and play with them. So, what do you what do you recommend to families that are trying to figure out how do we kind of regroup and do this well?
SPEAKER_01So there are many different activities that families can engage in with their kids, including indoor activities as well as outdoor activities, you know, as the weather's getting nicer, it's great to be outdoors with the family. Um, so some specific activities that families can do together include building a fort with blankets and pillows you have laying around the house. Um, maybe even having a dance party, kind of getting those wiggles out if kids feel like they're stuck inside. And then some outdoor activities that can be fun. You could go on a nature walk with your kids. So maybe ask them to find a plant of a specific color or texture or shape, or even look at the clouds and create stories about the shapes that you and your kids uh see in the clouds.
SPEAKER_00That's great. I was on social media when I was checking in on social media because I've been limiting my time, but um, I noticed this one person was posting pictures of their children playing with cardboard boxes, and like every day they transform the cardboard box into something else. And it just reminded me like you don't have to have any any fancy toys, you don't have to have any prefab kind of things. Like that imagination piece is so critical for children that you know, a cardboard box can be a car, it can be a spaceship, it can be a house, it can be any kind of different things. So I I love that idea of you know, inside, outside, let their imaginations run wild and see what they come up with.
SPEAKER_01Yes, definitely. I love the example you shared, like you said, you don't have to have certain items or go out and buy new toys to play with your children.
SPEAKER_00What about the kind of mental health side? If you're wanting to help kids process feelings or check in around their stress level, how would you engage them around some of those kind of conversations?
SPEAKER_01One activity that I enjoy doing with some of my clients in the play therapy room is talking about animals and having them either act out an animal or draw an animal that represents how they're feeling that day. So that's an activity that families could easily do together. Um, maybe you could even find a stuffed animal in the house and have that be your animal that represents your feeling.
SPEAKER_00And then what are some of the follow-up questions or conversations you would have about that once they've made the drawing or found an animal in the house?
SPEAKER_01So you could ask the child, tell me why you chose the tiger to represent how you're feeling today. What are tigers like? How can you relate to them? And you can even ask about the size. Is it a big tiger? Is it a baby tiger? Just to ask those curious questions and get to know more about your child and what they're feeling in the moment.
SPEAKER_00I think that's great. I want to camp out here for a minute because I I think that um this is not an area that parents are usually really equipped to be able to have conversations with their kids about. When their kids are sharing big feelings that they're having right now, maybe they feel scared or you know they've they've her overheard the TV even if you're careful and they're feeling anxious. How do you, as a parent, how do you reassure your children or validate their feelings or respond when you know that they're they're sitting with these big feelings?
SPEAKER_01It's very important, like you said, that children feel validated in what they're feeling. They might be experiencing a wide variety of emotions right now. So simply recognizing what they're feeling, maybe saying, I notice you're feeling sad, or here you're expressing some anger right now, and then asking what they can do with the feelings. So, what can we do with that sadness? How can we cope with that emotion and encouraging them to come up with ideas to make sense of that feeling?
SPEAKER_00So let's kind of break this down. I think I think this is a really good um example to help parents figure out exactly how do I respond to my kids. So if the you send the child off to draw a picture or find an animal and they come back with a caterpillar, and you start asking them questions like, tell me about that, why did you pick that? How does the caterpillar feel? And you get down to they picked it because that caterpillar is afraid or feels scared. How would you process that?
SPEAKER_01So I would start by reflecting that emotion, letting the child know you heard them and you heard what feeling they're experiencing. So saying, I hear that you're feeling scared right now, and then maybe asking them, what can we do when we feel scared? You could also offer your child an idea, maybe engaging in a deep breathing exercise, so belly breathing where you get on the floor and uh feel your belly as you take deep breaths can help a child to feel a sense of calm, or even doing something they enjoy. So after you acknowledge the feeling they're experiencing, then maybe uh watch a funny show or listen to a song that they like to bring them some joy.
SPEAKER_00I think that's great. I think one of the things that everybody's kind of navigating right now is how to feel the feelings. We we live a lot in a world that's distracted and pulls us away from how we're feeling. And I think with all of this space and all of this time that we have, we're really being confronted by our feelings. And so I love this idea of just kind of helping kids label and process what they're feeling without in that moment trying to fix it or change how they're feeling. We obviously don't want to get bogged down or camp out in um difficult emotions. So I like the idea of helping them find a way to shift the feeling or move through it too, but but to really stop and pause and check in with first understanding how they're feeling. I think that's incredibly helpful. Um, when you let's let's talk for a minute about play and how specifically we talk big picture about how play is important for children, but um specifically around this time of quarantine, dealing with COVID-19, parents are stressed out because of the financial instability in the stock market. How is play helpful to children during this time?
SPEAKER_01So during this time when we're experiencing a lot of uncertainty and stress, children might notice the stress we're experiencing and even take on some of that stress. Um so play can serve as a great stress relief role for kids. It can distract them from some of those big and scary things that are going on in our world right now and provide them with the moment to escape into their imaginations and just be a kid again.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, there are definitely some times when I want to crawl into a cardboard box and pretend like I'm somewhere else. Yes. So I can identify with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I would encourage two families just to get outdoors right now. I know, you know, going out in public isn't quite an option right now, but we can still go outside. We can get some fresh air, we can soak up the vitamin D from the sun. So that can be a helpful way to engage and play, especially during this time with the coronavirus, just getting outside with your family.
SPEAKER_00That's great. I think uh being outside is one of the things that helps to reset and reground people faster than almost anything else. I think it just gives us a perspective of you know, life, life is gonna continue on and trees are still trees, and the sun is still shining, and the pollen is still wafting up from all of the growing things around. There's something very reassuring about that. Shifting gears just practically for a minute. One of the things I've been thinking about is how um, you know, people who are used to sending their kids to school and they do school at school and then they come home and maybe they have more free time, more playtime after school when they're at home. That whole thing, that whole schedule and process has been disrupted. And now we've got a lot of parents who are homeschooling and trying to find this balance of school time and playtime and all the things. What are your thoughts about what can be helpful to a family during this time?
SPEAKER_01So creating a schedule can be very helpful and putting it in a place in your house where your kids can see it. So maybe on the refrigerator or in the playroom, someplace that they go each day, they can see their schedule, they know it's happening. Kids thrive on certainty and routine. So if they know what their day is going to look like from the moment they get out of bed, that can be helpful. Um, and also creating that designated place for them to do schoolwork at home can help it to feel less confusing. Um, if there aren't as many distractions nearby, they might be able to better distinguish, okay, this is school time, and then distinguish when playtime is.
SPEAKER_00I love that idea. I was talking to somebody the other day about, you know, the schedule thing. You've seen it a lot on social media with these TikTok moment-by-moment schedules, and the idea that the schedule brings some predictability, but it doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all approach. So you don't have to download the most popular schedule on social media. You can look at your family and determine what works best for your family, what does your family need? But I love the idea that kids need that predictability because I we probably forget that they they get that in school every day. That's they're very regimented in school with what they do when. Anything else that that comes to mind in terms of kind of helping manage these transitions or the blocks of time during the day?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so as I've been working with families during this time, um, something that can be difficult as you have kids working from home or doing school from home is that they might be easily distracted, um, or they might ask, When is playtime? When can I go outside? So I would encourage parents to give their children um time warnings, let them know, okay, 15 more minutes of school, and then we can go outside and play, or then we can go back to the fort that you built. It lets them know that there will be playtime, that they can take a break um from school, and they don't have to be doing schoolwork all day long.
SPEAKER_00I think too for the parents, I've I've had some conversations with parents about just having reasonable expectations that you know, doing schoolwork from home doesn't have to look like you're doing schoolwork every minute from eight to three or whenever your child would have normally been in school. So I think it's really about kind of going, okay, big picture, what do we need to get accomplished today? You know, what's maybe the ideal and then what's the the baseline and being flexible and gentle with ourselves in the midst of it to recognize that we're all doing the best we can to get through something that's really difficult. It's it's a very challenging time. So I think if we remind ourselves of that and give ourselves permission to do the best we can and show up the best we can, and that tomorrow's another day, it's gonna help everybody to feel a little bit more um stable and grounded during this time. So thank you so much, Marianne, for your time. I think that was super helpful. We have some other resources on our website, www.growcounseling.com. We have a resource page specifically for surviving COVID-19, and there's a family and um children's tab with some great resources and exercises, things you can do with your kids. Um, one of my favorites is self care bingo for children, so you might want to check that out. We are so glad you joined us today, and we look forward to seeing you next time when you tune in with us on our Grown House Like podcast.