206 | When Kids Don't Play: Screen Time or Something Else?

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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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

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a master class and child-centered play therapy

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and practical support and application for your

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work with children and their families.

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In today's episode. I am answering an email from Kira in Texas

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and her question is about kids not playing in the playroom

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and her hypothesis is that it's related to excessive screen use,

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which obviously, you know,

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if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time,

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that's a topic near and dear to my heart.

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So

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definitely a subject that I'd love to dive into.

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By the way, if you are new to the podcast,

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I am truly so glad you're here. Thank you for listening.

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Thank you for taking me with you wherever you happen to be

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and you will not find a more dedicated, committed invested group of listeners

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anywhere in the world. I would argue that my Play Therapy Podcast listeners

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are among the

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most committed to hone their craft

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of any podcast

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audience that is out there.

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So you have found your tribe,

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you found your people we're so glad you're here

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for those of you that have been around forever.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if you all saw or heard.

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I know we posted it several places

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but 300,000

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almost probably 360,000 downloads at this point

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of episodes. And that is just, that's incredible.

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I mean, think about the amount of time

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that you all have invested in doing this work

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and it's just, it's mind boggling to me.

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Truly, I'm so grateful and I'm so humbled by it.

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If you're new,

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please enjoy this episode and then go back and start at episode one. So

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sorry to, you know,

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divert you a little bit, but

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you really need to listen to them in numerical order, chronological order

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it builds and, and there's structure and foundation.

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So please go back if you happen to be listening to this episode in the two hundreds,

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you need to start at one and, and go in order.

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But

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let's dive into Kira's question.

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I'm loving your podcast.

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It's so nice to hear you talk about all the topics and it gives me so much insight.

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I studied CCPT and got my master's in Texas,

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studied under professors of Gary Landreth like Linda

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Hoyer.

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Kira.

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Look at you that is, you know, dream scenario. I'm so happy for you.

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I am not back in group private practice and I am, oh, I am now back,

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I think is what she meant to say I am now back

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in group private practice and I'm a huge anti device parent.

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But the issue I'm seeing in my playroom is

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having clients come in after I introduce the room,

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they sit down in my one chair and they sit there and stare at me.

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I'm talking seven and eight year old clients that do not play.

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I'm blown away.

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They just sit there and look around the room and do not engage in any play.

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I reflect this and wonder if their parents have told them to go in and talk

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to me or if they're nervous and afraid to play in front of a stranger,

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et cetera.

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But my theory is that this generation is on video games too much.

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Yes, and Amen. TV

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Streaming 24/7 or cell phones or parents don't encourage play at home.

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I know a lot of mom friends who discourage play in their young kids because they want

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them to be mini adults and didn't want a bunch of junky toys in their house.

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Oh, it hurts my heart as a child in the eighties. I am a child of the eighties.

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Born in 81.

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We had Nintendo. Oh my gosh.

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Did I ever love Nintendo Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers? Amazing.

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We played for maybe 30 minutes

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and kids shows were not on TV that often.

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It was either at 8 a.m. for an hour in the morning or after school. For 30 minutes tops.

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I agree with you. That was my experience. 30 minutes on Nintendo.

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And you hardly ever saw kids shows.

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Any thoughts on what to do with children who don't play or don't know how to play.

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All right, Kira, thank you so much for this question.

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So, here are my thoughts.

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There are all kinds of reasons why a child will come in and not play.

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So, I think we can't lump all kids that don't play

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into the, they've had too much screen

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issue or category

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are many of them in that boat. Absolutely. 100%.

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But I don't think we can universally say that

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every child that comes in and doesn't play.

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It's a screen issue is that a contributing factor likely.

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But we know that sometimes kids come in

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and they have extremely high levels of anxiety.

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So therefore, they are paralyzed in fear and they don't play because of anxiety.

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We also know that we have kids that come

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in with really high levels of learned helplessness.

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They've never been given responsibility, they've never been given

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the opportunity to be in charge.

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So they truly don't know how and it's a learned helplessness issue.

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We also have kids that lack creativity and imagination now is

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that tied to too much video game use most likely.

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But it could truly just be they're not creative imaginative players and

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if that's the case they are drawn toward and they gravitate to

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more structured

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safe games and play. So they will draw, they will color, they will do a board game.

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That is the kid that doesn't really

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understand what creative imaginative play looks like.

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Now, eventually kids will get there.

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But especially early on, there can be all kinds of reasons why a child doesn't play.

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And you actually mentioned a couple of possibilities.

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Did their parents say you need to go in and

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talk and then when you don't force them to talk,

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they are confused or

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they are afraid to play because they haven't built a relationship with you.

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Absolutely.

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The first up to five sessions are initiation and warm up.

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So

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some kids are not going to be comfortable getting vulnerable and diving into

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their issues and their stuff when they don't really have a relationship,

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rapport, trust connection yet.

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So

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sometimes we kind of have to wait for the play

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because they have to build that relationship first.

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So all kinds of considerations there.

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But what do we do if a child chooses not to play for any of those reasons?

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So, is it too much screen time probably?

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Are there other factors as well? Yes. So what do we do?

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We

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continue to reflect their feelings?

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You're unsure of what you wanna do.

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You're a little bit uncomfortable. This is new. You're not really sure.

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We're always going to try to get to the root emotion

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of what is driving the refusal to play.

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Now, it could be just as simple as they're unsure,

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then that's the only feeling that we need to acknowledge.

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But if we see something more going on on their face,

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then we could acknowledge nervous,

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we could acknowledge uncomfortable,

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we could acknowledge concerned.

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There's all kinds of other options, but that would come from

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looking into their eyes, their facial expressions, et cetera.

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But we absolutely want to validate whatever feeling we think they are expressing,

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we also return responsibility.

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So after we reflect the feeling, we just continue to say,

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but when you're here, you're in charge. So you get to choose what we do

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and then when they sit, we're going to track behavior.

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Hm.

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You've decided that you're just going to look around for a little while longer,

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you're not quite sure what you're going to choose.

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So you're waiting before you make up your mind.

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So we're going to give that narrative commentary and that tracking

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of behavior because the goal is to normalize what's going on.

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This is a completely foreign concept to so many kids for a variety of reasons, right?

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Is it that they've never been able to just have free

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play and all they ever do is stare at a screen.

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Well,

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if that's the case or if they're highly

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anxious or if it's a learned helplessness issue,

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I mean, fill in the blank.

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This is a whole new, brave new world. Aldous Huxley, right?

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I mean, what in the world? Is happening. What do you mean?

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I'm in charge for 50 minutes when I come in here. This is crazy.

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You're not gonna tell me what to do. You're not gonna ask me questions.

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You don't have a worksheet for me.

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You, you aren't going to tell me that I have to do XY and Z I don't like this feeling.

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This is uncomfortable. This is crazy. No.

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So all of this is going on, We're going to normalize.

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Hmm

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Sometimes when something's new, it's a little bit uncomfortable.

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You've never been here before. So you're not really sure.

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Hm. You're just looking around, you're checking things out.

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You're not, you haven't really decided what you are choosing yet.

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We want to normalize it.

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Sometimes when kids come in here,

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they don't play with anything and then sometimes kids

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play with lots of things but you're in charge.

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So you get to decide

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we want to normalize as much as possible while reflecting feelings,

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while returning responsibility.

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Ok. And if, if we can, we're going to enlarge.

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So and I already did some of those in those examples that I threw out. But

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sometimes when things are new, it can feel a little bit awkward.

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That's an enlargement

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because we're trying to say

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I understand what's going on

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and this is an expected reaction because this is new.

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This is different, this is a change.

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And then above all, we have to be patient

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there. I have never had one child

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in,

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gosh, in a couple of months, it's gonna be 20 years. Yikes, I'm old.

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So,

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in a couple of months I'm hitting the 20 year mark doing this.

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And when,

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you know, I look back on all of the kids,

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I have never

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absolute on purpose.

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Have a kid

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that did not eventually play

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no matter how long they fought it,

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no matter how long they resisted,

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no matter how lacking they were in creativity or imagination

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or the ability to spontaneously and freely play.

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Not one kid refused

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indefinitely,

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kids will always

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find something

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and they will choose to play in some way, shape or form.

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Now, sometimes

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a kid playing is throwing a ball at

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one spot on the wall for 50 minutes straight.

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But that's that child's version of play.

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Sometimes it's

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a child vacuuming

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with the little Fisher Price vacuum cleaner for 50 minutes straight.

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That's

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that child's version of play.

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So we can't have expectations of what playing looks like.

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But I've never had a kid that did not play in some capacity.

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So we have to be patient. It has to be their way, their time, their pace,

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they will eventually build up whatever they need.

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Do they need more imagination? Do they need more creativity?

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Do they need a reduction of anxiety?

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Do they need more opportunities to test

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and prove that they're capable of doing things

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whatever they need,

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they will build it so that they can do the work that they need to do.

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So, it's about trusting them, trusting the process

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and being patient.

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So, Kira, thank you so much for the question and I hope that's helpful for all of you

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there.

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I,

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I feel like one of the reasons why I

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was actually talking about this with my staff at the

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center not too long ago and I think I brought it up on one of the coaching calls,

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maybe one of the Collective calls.

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I don't know, they all blend together. But

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at some point recently, I was talking to some group of people

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and

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I was discussing my hypothesis that I think it actually warrants study. But

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that's something that I've talked about as well.

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But I don't really know the practicality of it,

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but I genuinely believe the increase in the amount of sessions that CCPT requires

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nationwide.

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I would argue it's excessive screen use.

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I,

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I think that that is a very valid explanation for why it's

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taking kids longer to work through their stuff on a national average.

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So I think it definitely is worthy of study.

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I think it warrants someone looking into it and trying to

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pinpoint if that is one of the major catalysts for

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the extension of time that the average kid requires.

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But

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that's for another day.

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All right, Kira. Thank you for all the rest of you.

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Thanks so much for being a part of The Kid Counselor

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family, the Play Therapy Podcast, family.

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Y'all mean a lot to me. Love you 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.