223 | Preparing Children for Therapist Absences: Maternity Leave and Vacation

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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Brenna Hicks. Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get a master class in child-centered,

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play therapy

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and practical support and application for

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your work with children and their families

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in today's episode. I am

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bring a question from Melissa in Colorado

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and her question is about when and how to tell kids and their parents

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that you are going on vacation or you're going on maternity leave,

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any kind of leave of absence from the office, how to handle that discussion.

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And she was asking for some guidance and tips.

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So we're going to dive into that

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couple of housekeeping scenarios, please.

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If you are in Australia, make sure that you sign up for the APPTA conference.

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It's coming up in two weeks, give or take.

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please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com/meetup

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and you can get signed up for that. It's free.

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It's just so that we know how many people are coming.

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All righty. So let's dive into this and the email was actually quite so short. So

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I really kind of already covered it, but I'll read a little bit of it.

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I'm wondering when and how you tell kids and parents

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that you'll be going on maternity leave or vacation?

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That is more than one week. I would love any tips that you have.

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So, Melissa. Thank you in Colorado for listening. Thanks for reaching out.

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By the way, if you are a new listener to the podcast, we're so glad you're here.

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Welcome

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and to celebrate with you all. I wanna let you know

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we just crossed the 400,000 download mark yesterday.

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So congrats to all of you, pat yourselves on the back.

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Give yourself a high five whatever you need to do to

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acknowledge your commitment to CCPT across the world.

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Really, really excited about that.

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When we hit 500,000, we're gonna do something big.

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I don't know what that looks like, but

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we hit 300,000 not too long ago.

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So I feel like it's actually gonna come quicker than I think

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so. I better get brainstorming if you have an idea.

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Oh my gosh. If you all are like avid podcast listeners to

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other people, I know you're all avid podcast listeners to me.

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If you listen to other people and you have ideas that you've seen or

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heard that people have done when they kind of hit milestones in the podcast.

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Shoot me an email. I'd love to know what your thoughts are because

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I'm not a podcast listener. I know shame on me, but I'm not.

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So let me know if you have an idea what we can do for the 500,000th download.

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That's a big deal. So let me know brenna@thekidcounselor.com.

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You can also send me questions for the podcast if you want to do that as well,

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or you can just say hello or you can shoot me a picture of your dog.

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I don't care.

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I like to hear from y'all. So reach out brenna@thekidcounselor.com.

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Now, I'm literally,

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I should not have said that my inbox is going to be flooded with pictures of dogs now,

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but it's ok.

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All right.

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So Melissa in Colorado, thank you for this. So here are my thoughts.

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You're kind of asking two separate questions and I want to

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handle them a little bit differently.

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So the maternity leave scenario is different than vacation.

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And here are my thoughts on vacation first

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because that's obviously going to be a shorter

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skip in amount of time and therefore we can handle it a little bit differently.

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So the week before you go on vacation, in other words,

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the final session that you're going to have with the child

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before you go on vacation

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at the end of the session,

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you let child know first.

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So typically parent is already there because you're,

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you would assume you'd be in the lobby at that point.

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So a parent is probably going to overhear, but you always start with the child first.

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So you get down on their eye level.

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If that means you bend over, you squat, you kneel whatever you have to do,

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you get down on the child's level

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and you just very clearly and concisely say

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I wanted to let you know I'm going on vacation next week.

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So I won't play with you next Wednesday or whatever their normal day is.

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But I will see you the week after and then I'll be able

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to tell you all about what I did when I was gone.

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So it's just that simple. It's,

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I won't see you next week because I'm going on vacation,

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but I'll be able to tell you about it when

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I come back and I'll see you the following week.

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So as long as they understand that they're skipping a week,

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taking a week off and why

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that eliminates any confusion.

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It makes it easy for the child to understand.

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If they ask questions, you can answer them. Sometimes they say, where are you going?

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Are you going on an airplane? What are you going to do? Are you going to take pictures?

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So

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sometimes they're curious and you can engage in that conversation.

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But other times they just go ok. And then other times they go, oh,

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and then you reflect, oh, you really wish that you could see me next week.

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But we're only going to take one week off and then

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I'll get to play with you the Wednesday after that.

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So you just make it really clear.

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Now, if mom and dad were not present for that conversation,

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then you make sure as you say goodbye to mom and dad

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that you let them know.

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Hey,

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I just want to let you know I won't be here next week because I'm going on vacation.

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So we'll skip a week.

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But you always make sure that you share that with

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the child first because your allegiance is to the child,

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first and foremost,

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ok, maternity leave a little bit of a different scenario.

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So most often maternity leave is going to be at least six weeks.

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My therapists have gone on maternity leave for three months.

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So

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I understand that

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that's a much longer break.

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So we handle it a little bit differently

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as soon as you are about five weeks out from your maternity leave.

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That's when you want to inform parents

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and that's when you want to inform children because

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you are essentially going to do a pseudo termination.

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In other words, if you're going to be gone for six weeks or more,

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the child is going to interpret that as an eternity.

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So even if they're going to wait for you and many people will,

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some will drop off and not come back. And that's just the nature of taking a,

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a

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longer extended break.

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Some will wait for you.

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But in either scenario, you want to have a proper termination process,

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even if it's just for maternity leave and they'll return.

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So you might not do to the extent that you would normally do the termination, meaning

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the giveaways and the certificate and all that stuff.

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But you still want to do the countdown

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and you still want to help the child process the

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fact that you are going to be taking a break.

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So that conversation is a little bit different.

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So I'm not going to be working for a little bit after I have the baby.

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But when I

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am,

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you know, six weeks after having the baby or eight weeks after having the baby,

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I'm going to come back. So I'll get to play with you in X number of weeks.

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But that is

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after you've already done the 54321 countdown. So that conversation is

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so I'm gonna be having a baby soon.

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So I'm going to see you five more times and we're going to play together five more

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times before I take a break to stay home with the baby after the baby is born.

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And then you do the same thing for the four week, the three week,

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the two week and the one week mark,

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then you have your final session, it's a termination of sorts,

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even if they intend to come back

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and you let them know that you will reach back out

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as soon as you're able to play with them again.

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And then that will

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reset. So that when they come back, they,

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you know, still have the relationship,

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but they're kind of building up the momentum again.

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And it's really important that

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you let the child know

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why every time you're going to take a break.

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So if it's a vacation, if it's a surgery, if it's, even if you're sick,

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if you are going on maternity leave, whatever the scenario is,

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the child needs to know why you're not going to be there.

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That's really important because that preserves the relationship and the trust

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and you want the child to hear it first.

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You never want child to hear it from a parent or caregiver.

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You want them to hear it directly from you

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because that preserves the relationship and the trust and the bond

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that has been built.

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So I hope that that is helpful to all of you because we inevitably

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go on trips, we take vacations,

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we sometimes have medical procedures or someone in our family

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has medical procedures and we become a caregiver for,

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you know, a week or so for them.

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And it's always important that we handle that appropriately.

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We just wanna make sure that expectations are clear.

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That is the most important thing kids can handle anything

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as long as they know what the expectations are.

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So we wanna be really clear and concise

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when we give the explanation and the expectations

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and then we are able to take that break and start right back up again.

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All right, Melissa in Colorado.

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Thank you so much for the question and I really appreciate you all reaching out

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with the things that you're wondering about and curious about.

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As always, I love y'all. Have a great week. We'll talk again soon. Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr Brenna Hicks.

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For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.