You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr Brena Hicks. Hi, I'm Dr Brena Hicks, the Kid Counselor. This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast, where I give you insight, awareness, and enlightenment about your parenting and your relationship with your kids.
In today's episode, I am answering a question from Sarah, and this is about both of her kids who are actively in play therapy at school. and she has been exposed to child- center play therapy recently as a result and has some questions about implementing it since it's so new to her and her children. So Sarah, thank you so much for the email.
I appreciate you reaching out and I'm going to read parts of the email and then we'll dive in together. My sons six and eight are both in counseling at school due to trauma that they've both faced with their other parents. In the discussions I've had with their counselor, she recommended your podcasts and they have been eyeopening.
I've struggled with conflict from both of the boys and learning from you has made me realize what I've been doing incorrectly as a parent. I appreciate your words, you don't know what you don't know, as they've helped me in my moments of despair, realizing I've not been parenting at my highest potential all these years. I'm so glad, Sarah, that that's been an encouragement to you.
And I hope that that's an encouragement to all of us because we don't know what we don't know. And we fall back on that when we feel guilt or shame or embarrassment or frustration over lack of knowledge. You can't know what you don't know.
And so once you learn, you can change. But until then, we're in the dark. So I I'm glad that's been helpful for you, Sarah.
I've spent the last three days at work literally listening non-stop to your podcasts, both your parenting and one for counselors, and I've come home with such an enthusiasm to start working with the boys. However, here's the dilemma. I take all these notes.
I come up with my own examples of what to try at home based on previous repeated conflicts we've had. But then the moment comes around and my mind just becomes completely blank. Or I try reflecting feeling.
They admit that they feel that way. But then I don't know what to do next. I know you said sometimes there doesn't need to be anything next.
But it is hard to watch them pout, cry, throw a tantrum, or close up and not be able to do more to help them with those strong emotions that they're unsure of how to regulate. I assume it becomes easier with time and practice and patience. Yes to all three, but I was just wondering what your advice would be for parents just starting this journey.
What's the best thing a parent can do if they aren't sure what to do in the moment other than not react the way they normally would? Or if you have any specific podcast you can share that addresses this situation, thank you and thanks for doing this. People like you give me strength in myself and hope for humanity.
I'm glad, Sarah. I I truly appreciate those words and I thank you for the encouragement. Okay, so let's dive in because Sarah, you're not alone and there are thousands of people that are in this exact same scenario.
I get emails like this a lot and so although it feels like it's unique to you and you're the only one in these struggles and you're the only one facing this stuff, you're not. So I hope that that's an encouragement to you just to know that this is a pretty standard scenario. And yes, absolutely.
It becomes easier with time and practice and patience. So, it's difficult to wait for things, but it does truly get easier with those three components. But what's my advice for parents just starting this journey?
Well, the first is trust the process. And I say that all the time, but the broken record syndrome is important here because we know that this is helpful. We know that it's effective.
We know the outcomes that it produces in our kids. We have to trust the process. So even when it seems like I should be saying more, I should be doing more.
I don't know if this is actually having any kind of effect. I'm not really know I don't really see change. I don't really know what's happening.
It's okay to not know. And we trust the process because the process is proven effective. We know when we reflect a child's feelings that it helps them feel heard and validated.
We know that it diffuses the intensity of the emotion. We know that it builds an emotional vocabulary for them. We know that they build an emotional IQ as a result.
We know when we provide kids with choices that it helps them build self-esteem, that it helps build self-responsibility, that they accept ownership of the outcomes. We know and we encourage kids that it builds their sense of who they are. They learn that they're capable.
They increase their self-confidence and self-esteem. These are all proven facts. we know them to be true.
So even when it's new, even when we're not sure, even when we feel like we're fumbling and bumbling and things are coming out sideways and backwards, if we trust the process, we know that the outcomes are positive. As far as you coming home with enthusiasm and saying, "Okay, I have these notes and I have examples and I I'm just as prepared as I can be. " And then the moment comes and your mind goes blank.
It's one of the most consistent complaints that parents communicate. It's one of the most consistent things therapists communicate. That that should reassure you.
Therapists go through the same thing. New therapists, therapists that have not been practicing child- center play therapy very long. They get in the playroom and they're like, "I just froze.
I nothing came out of my mouth. I just I sat there. I didn't say a word.
I didn't know what to say. My brain got ahead of my tongue and I I don't even think I said anything intelligible. This is the interesting dynamic of child- centered play therapy influencing the way that we interact with our kids.
Why? Because it's a completely different language. We are learning to speak to kids in a way that is foreign to us.
Reflecting feelings to a child, you feeling word qualifier. We've never done that. providing choices.
You can choose A or you can choose B. Which do you choose? We've never done that.
Using an esteem building phrase or an encouragement phrase, we've never done that. Understanding a three-step limit setting process. We've never done that before.
We've never tracked their behavior. We've never reflected their content. This is a completely new way of interacting with children.
It's a way of being with children and it's a completely different language. You would not expect yourself to be able to fluently speak Spanish if you took some notes and prepared some scenarios and you listened to some podcasts. If you moved to Spain or Mexico or Honduras or name the Spanish speaking country if you moved there, you would not be able to speak the language.
and we hold ourselves to unreasonable expectations because we've been exposed to something and we think that we're fluent and we think that we're proficient and we're not. We can't be. So, here are my tips for just starting out, just starting this journey.
What does this look like? Trust the process number one, first and foremost. Second of all, think of one thing that you're going to focus on.
We do this as clinicians, too. We say, "Okay, we're just going to work on reflecting feelings. " Why?
Because we have to master that. We can't go into a playroom and try to master six things at once. We'll master none of them.
But we can go into a playroom and say, "I'm going to spend this next 50 minutes reflecting as many feelings as I possibly can so that I can become more proficient at that. " So, Sarah, choose a specific thing that you want to focus on first. It can't be everything.
Just one thing. Do you want to provide choices? Focus on that.
Do you want to encourage? Focus on that. Do you want to reflect feeling?
Focus on that. One thing at a time. You can't go big.
You have to go specific. Another tip I would say, it's far easier to rehearse what you're going to say when you're not in front of your child in the moment than when you're in front of your child in the moment. So, here's what I mean.
When you are running, jogging, exercising, showering, folding clothes, loading dishes, driving somewhere, whatever routine, monotonous, repetitive, mindless kind of activity that you do every day or every week, that's when you rehearse mentally scenarios with your kids. I every time I coach a therapist, I talk to them about this. Rehearse when you're not in the playroom.
It's muscle memory. You have to become proficient at this. But if you wait until it's real time with your kid right in front of you, it's going to be really tricky and then you'll get really defeated when it doesn't go how you'd hoped.
And then you're not going to want to keep trying. Rehearse it as often as possible when you're not in front of your child. When you can just rephrase, reword, try again, bumble your words, and then go, "Oop, okay, take two, take seven, take 19.
" You're going to keep practicing it, but not in real time, not in front of your kid. So, you might think of a scenario where you want to reflect a feeling. So Sarah, you referenced they pout and cry and throw a tantrum.
Okay. Imagine one of your boys pouting, crying or throwing a tantrum. Imagine what led to that.
You can probably think of what happened yesterday and you'll have an actual real world example. So when you're showering or driving or exercising or whatever, go Johnny got mad because Joey took his toy. He throws himself on the floor.
Reflect five feelings and rehearse it. You're disappointed that he took that from you. You're angry that he's not sharing.
You're frustrated. You're really upset right now. It It's just a constant rehearsal in your head of how it's going to come out.
And yes, with time, practice, and patience, it will naturally unfold. But what better way to give yourself the time, the practice, and the patience than when you can do it over and over and over again in preparation for actual moments. So that is my ninja trick for getting to a point where it is easier and it is more of a muscle memory than a my brain is responsible for remembering all of this all at once and it's new and it's foreign and it's strange and it feels weird coming out of my mouth.
It's very tricky to do that unless you've gone through it lots and lots of times. And when you said that you try to reflect their feelings and they admit they feel that way. High five.
Huge win, Sarah. You accurately identified the child's feeling and the child validated and confirmed that he does in fact feel that way. That's a huge moment for both of you.
You understood him. You validated him. He felt heard.
He felt seen. He said, "Yeah, I do feel that way. " That's a massive achievement.
Huge celebration moment. And yes, you don't need to say anything or do anything after that. You might reflect another feeling afterwards.
So you might have said, "Gh, you're so annoyed. I am annoyed. Gh, it's hard being annoyed.
It's frustrating when we feel that way. " Okay, now we've just acknowledged another feeling that he's probably feeling. And the goal is that the child learns to self-regulate and the child learns to solve the problem.
Because if we try to swoop in, if we try to redirect, if we try to help them feel something different, if we try to teach them a lesson, they don't learn to do any of those things for themselves. They rely on you to do those things. And they'll never have self- responsibility.
They'll never have self-control. They they'll never have self-regulation. So we sit, we call it sitting in the pocket of the feeling.
And it's not pleasant to do that at all. It's not pleasant for your child. It's not pleasant for you.
But we do it intentionally and we do it with outcome in mind. Because when the child is really annoyed, when your son is annoyed and he is throwing a fit, when you don't swoop in, when you don't regulate for him, when you don't redirect, when you don't help him feel better, when you don't do anything except validate how he feels, he's going to very quickly go, "Well, she's not going to get me out of this mess, so I better figure out how to get myself out of this mess. " and he's going to stop pouting, stop tantruming, stop crying, and he's going to regulate.
Kids learn that if no one's going to regulate for them, they're going to do it themselves. And that's why we don't do anything else. It's not that we're insensitive.
It's not that we're dismissive. It's not that we don't care. It's actually the opposite.
We care so much that we want our children to build coping. We want our children to build problem solving. We want our children to build resilience.
And that's exactly what happens when we just reflect feelings and we just acknowledge that we get it. It naturally diffuses the intensity. And then they're like, hm, well, I don't like this feeling.
I better do something about it. And they regulate. That's the goal.
So Sarah, thank you so much for the questions. I appreciate you emailing and I hope that that was helpful for all of you. It is tricky to implement something new and it takes a while.
And so be gracious with yourselves. Be patient with yourselves. Be understanding of yourselves.
And know that with time and with practice and with patience, as Sarah mentioned, it will naturally start getting easier. So I really appreciate the email. If you would like to email me, I would love to hear from you.
Brenathekidcounselor. com. And I hope you all have a wonderful week.
Thanks for hanging out with me. We'll talk again soon. Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Parenting podcast with Dr Brena Hicks. For more episodes and to subscribe to our newsletter, please go to www. play theapy parenting.
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