231 | How to Overcome Parental Doubts as a Non-Parent Child-Centered Play Therapist

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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,

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I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,

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The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get

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a master class in 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,

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I am answering a question from Malley in Texas.

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And Malley's question

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is about being a play therapist without

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your own children,

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and how that might influence parent's perceptions

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and just the dynamic of not being a parent yourself,

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but working with parent's children.

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Your client's parents,

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and how to best navigate that.

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So,

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Malley,

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thank you so much for this question.

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This is really helpful and I,

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I have a couple of personal anecdotal stories that

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I'll throw in as a result of your question.

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So

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you'll see that you're not alone in this is the point of that.

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And so

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I'll read parts of her email and then we'll talk about it together.

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So she said,

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thanks so much for all the work that you do to advocate for CCPT and train competent,

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compassionate professionals.

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Yes,

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thank you for all of you for wanting to be competent,

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compassionate professionals.

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I can't do this without you wanting to be the best clinicians you can be,

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so

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I'm very happy to do it and thank you for saying that.

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I have been working my way through your podcast.

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I will be starting my internship this spring,

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and I can't wait to start applying my knowledge to practical skills in the playroom.

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My question for you is,

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when it comes to communicating with a client's parents,

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do you have any advice for a therapist who doesn't have

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children of their own and doesn't plan to have any?

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Like many others,

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my biggest fear right now is working with parents.

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Yes,

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so many people fear that.

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I imagine there will be some parents who are hesitant to trust me

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or utilize any skills I suggest simply because I'm not a parent.

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While this is somewhat understandable,

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it's also disheartening for me to think about.

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I really do delight in children and their experiences,

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and I'm so passionate about working with them,

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but having kids of my own is not part of the plan for my life.

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Is contempt from parents just going to be something

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I'll have to learn to completely shrug off?

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That seems like a recipe for burnout.

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I've asked several different professors this question and received as,

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and received as many different answers,

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but I'd really love to hear your thoughts if you have the time.

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Yes,

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I'm happy to share my thoughts.

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So Malley,

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again,

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thanks so much for this email.

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All right,

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here's a funny story.

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So I was without children.

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I was

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relatively new out of grad school.

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I want to say I was probably 25

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and had gotten my master's.

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Actually,

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I must have been 26 because I had gotten my graduate certificate by that point.

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So I'd finished my master's and I had my graduate certificate in play therapy,

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so I had to have been 26.

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And I,

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I will never forget this.

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I'm sitting down with this mom

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and she wanted me to work with her,

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I want to say maybe 3 or 4 year old son.

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And she was very,

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very anxious

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and very high strung and just,

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I,

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I mean,

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I could just,

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it was like oozing out of her.

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And

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we had been maybe 30 minutes into the initial parent consultation,

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and she pauses and says,

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I,

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I,

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I just have a question to ask you,

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do you have children?

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And I said,

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no,

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not yet.

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And

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she goes,

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because I mean,

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I,

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I mean no disrespect,

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but like you look really young.

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I,

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I,

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I mean,

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I kind of nodded my head like,

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well,

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yeah,

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I mean,

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I guess,

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and I don't even think she was really that much older than me.

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I mean,

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she was maybe mid-30s,

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so it wasn't like we're talking,

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you know,

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like 25 to 50 range here.

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But anyway,

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so she was older than me,

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but I don't consider her to be that much older and

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she's like,

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you just look really young.

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And so I kind of smiled and acknowledged what she said and then she goes,

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I mean,

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you don't even have wrinkles.

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And so I've always thought about that moving forward.

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So

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in my head,

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and ever since I've gone

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so clearly,

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you can't be a competent play therapist if you

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don't have children and you don't have wrinkles.

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So,

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I remember even thinking at the time,

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what does this have to do with me being able to help your kid?

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So Malley,

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you're not alone,

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that that's the moral of that story.

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And

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here's another

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Thought

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I have often

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gone back to that conversation in my head.

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And

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I don't know if you all do this.

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OK,

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I'm I'm gonna go on a tangent for a second.

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I don't know if you all do this,

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but I do it all the time and my husband

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finds it funny because he does not do this whatsoever.

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So I don't know if it's a female thing.

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I don't know if it's a Brenna thing.

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I don't know what it is.

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Maybe you all can email me and say,

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yes,

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Brenna,

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you're not crazy.

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I do the same thing.

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Or you can say,

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yeah,

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it is 100% you're crazy.

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But

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here,

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here's the story.

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I always replay

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prior conversations in my head.

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And I come up with things that would have been more effective to say or

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things I wish I would have said or different ways in which I would have responded

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or

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when they said this,

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you know,

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man,

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it would have been so much better if you would have said this.

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So I

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will reconstruct

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past conversations.

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and think through things that I might have used as an illustration or told as a story,

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or,

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well,

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that probably would have helped them better understand

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that if you would have said that.

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I do this all the time.

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And he goes,

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no,

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that conversation is over and you're never going to be able to have it again.

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So why would you think through it?

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I think it's normal to do that.

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I don't know,

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weigh in brenna@thekidcounselor.com.

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OK,

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so now I'm back to,

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I've often thought if I had that conversation to do over again,

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here's what I would have said,

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and maybe this will help all of you

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if you don't have children and you don't have wrinkles and

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someone is questioning your competence as a result.

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I've often wanted to say.

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Just because

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I don't have cancer

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doesn't mean that I can't be a doctor that treats a patient with cancer.

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Or just because I don't have a cavity

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doesn't mean that I can't be a dentist that can treat and fill the cavity.

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This this notion that you have to have a child of your own

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to be able to provide play therapy to a child,

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that doesn't extend to any other field.

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Oncologists don't have cancer themselves.

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Dentists don't necessarily have cavities.

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But they're still competent and they're able to help people

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and provide services for people because of their training,

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because of their education,

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their knowledge,

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their background.

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So I don't think that it even makes sense for anyone to

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say if you don't have children you can't work with children.

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Just because it doesn't make sense,

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doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

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So,

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May,

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I think this is a valid question.

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And I think

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here are the,

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the strategies,

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or,

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or my thoughts at least,

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let's put it that way.

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You have to meet with parents

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and you have to be confident.

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Now

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So many of you in the Collective

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that listen to the podcast,

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that they're in my coaching programs,

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so many of you constantly talk about,

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I want to be more confident.

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I want to feel more confident.

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I want to be able to confidently communicate.

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I want to be able to confidently explain what's going on.

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So I think pervasively,

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we kind of as a field and as clinicians,

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we feel a lack of confidence often.

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But here's the thing.

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You

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are trained.

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To do this work,

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even if you're only training is listening to the podcast,

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I know it's hard to get solid CCPT training,

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which is why this Play Therapy Podcast exists.

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This is why my coaching program exists.

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This is why the Collective exists.

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Why?

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Because it's hard to get solid CCPT training.

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However,

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You have the training

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to

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do clinical work.

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Even if you're still in grad school,

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you still have been trained

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in how to do clinical work.

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And then even if the only training you have in CCPT is listening to the podcast,

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you understand the fundamentals.

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So you have to take that knowledge and you have to confidently present

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that you are

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capable of helping.

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And way back when I talked about a confidence

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competence loop that's a very valid factor here.

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So if you have no idea what I'm talking about,

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go back and listen,

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but

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confidence and competence are intertwined.

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So when we sit down with parents,

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we have to believe in our competency

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and therefore we are more confident we have to

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believe in our confidence and we become more competent

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and.

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Ideally,

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the number one factor

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in meeting with parents.

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Is never

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about your credentials.

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It's never about

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what

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training you've had specifically.

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It's never about your degree.

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It's never about how many letters you have after your name.

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We have a lot of alphabet soup in our industry.

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Parents don't care about any of that.

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They care

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about whether or not you can help their child.

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And so

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what you're going to do when you meet with parents,

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Malley,

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whether you have children or not,

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you don't.

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We know that,

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right?

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But

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if they question that,

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if they're worried about that.

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You make sure that they know like and trust you.

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those are the factors

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of why someone will commit to bring their kid to you.

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They know I can trust you.

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And you're confident in what you're going to do,

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why you're going to do it.

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You trust the model,

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you trust the process,

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you trust yourself.

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And you effectively communicate

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that CCPT works,

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and all of that

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says,

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we know

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that this will help

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get you to the outcome that you want.

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What we're really communicating to parents is that there's hope.

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So

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the goal when we meet with parents is not

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convince them

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of anything.

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It's they have to know that you can help,

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and they have to know like and trust you.

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So that's why articulation matters.

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That's why communication matters.

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That's why understanding how to convey the model and all of that.

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And

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whether you have kids or not,

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that becomes irrelevant at that point.

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Whether you have wrinkles or not,

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it becomes irrelevant.

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All parents care about

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is,

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are you able to support us in getting us closer to where we want to be as a family,

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closer to having a happy,

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healthy child.

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If the answer is yes,

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they will not care that you are not a parent.

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So Malley,

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really,

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thanks so much for this.

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I hope this is encouraging to all of you,

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especially those of you who

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have been second guessed or doubted for a variety of reasons.

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It,

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it really is about communicating with confidence

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that people can trust you

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00:11:05,059 --> 00:11:05,650
and

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they need,

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they need to know and like you too,

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but,

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but really it's about trusting in the process

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and trusting you to help them get there.

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So thanks a lot for the question.

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Hope you find that helpful.

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Love y'all.

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We'll talk again soon.

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Bye.

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

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Brenna Hicks.

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For more episodes and resources,

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please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.