225 | Session Savvy: Avoiding Value-Laden Language & Reflecting Without Owning

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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 doctor 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 your

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work with children and their families.

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In today's episode. We are continuing in the Session Savvy series

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and we are talking about saying things like

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I got that wrong. I made a mistake. I messed up

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in sessions with kids.

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So we're gonna dive into that in just a second

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couple of housekeeping notes.

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If you have not yet registered for Australia's conference. APPTA November 22nd

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and 23rd. Also the 21st. If you're gonna come on Friday,

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please do so. And also make sure that you sign up for the meet up.

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If you're going to be there, www.playtherapypodcast.com/meetup. Also,

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if you are interested in coaching with me,

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please go to www.playtherapypro.com

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and you can sign up for a discovery call with me.

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I would love to have that 30 minute chance to get to know you find out what

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your goals are and see if one of the coaching programs would be right for you.

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So you can do that at www.playtherapypro.com.

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All right. So in

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this Session Savvy Series, we've been talking through

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things that happen in the playroom a lot,

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usually without our awareness or knowledge

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that we don't necessarily connect

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as anti

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theoretical or a deviation from the model.

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And it's kind of catching these little nuanced things so that we

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can make sure that what we're saying is not going to interfere.

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So I see on

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play session videos quite frequently

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that the therapist will say things like,

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oh, I got that wrong. If a child argues with us

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or a therapist might say, oops, I made a mistake

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if they say no, I'm not angry,

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which, you know, they probably are, but that's for a different podcast episode

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or oops, I messed up something, some kind of acknowledgment that

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the child has corrected us, argued with us,

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disagreed with us.

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And then our response is to validate that the child does not agree.

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And we typically tend to respond in one of those ways.

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Here are my thoughts on that. The first is

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these are

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usually value

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laden words.

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So I got that wrong

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or I made a mistake.

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Those are pretty strong words

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and we're always trying to remain neutral.

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In other words,

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if we're trying to validate and we're trying to

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acknowledge that the child disagrees or doesn't think so.

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Our neutral response would be,

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oh, you're telling me that that's not what it was.

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So we still absolutely want to reflect content.

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We want to validate, we want the child to feel heard,

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but we don't want there to be any value laden commentary in there.

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So you're telling me that that isn't what happened or you're telling

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me that that's not how you feel or you don't think so.

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Those are very neutral factual responses

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which allow us to stay more adherent.

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My second thought is that

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often a child will disagree with us or say something.

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Let's go back to the be-with attitudes.

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Pop quiz. What are the five?

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Thank you.

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I'm here. I hear you. I understand. I care and I delight in you.

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So

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when we understand the be-with attitudes can always be conveyed,

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we also understand that there are three things that the be-with attitudes do not do,

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which are what

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that one might have been trickier, but I, I'm going to assume the best.

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So

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they are, I can't always make you happy.

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I can't always fix your problems and we're not always going to agree.

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So just because the child does not agree,

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just because we have a difference of opinion,

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that is first of all healthy and appropriate,

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we can still communicate the be-with attitudes in the midst of it all.

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But we absolutely want to make sure

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that our commentary does not assume responsibility.

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And here's what I mean by that. If we say I got that wrong,

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we're basically saying that we did something

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that we shouldn't have or we interpreted it in a way that we shouldn't have or oh,

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that, I, that was a mistake.

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I made a mistake or I messed up.

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We didn't do any of those things.

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If we reflect a child's feeling,

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it's because that was the cue that the child was giving off.

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We're not grasping in mid air for what the child is feeling.

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If we say,

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oh, you're irritated and they go, no, I'm not.

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Ok if we go, oh, I got that wrong. Well,

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we probably weren't wrong.

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It was probably pretty accurate actually.

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But the child disagrees.

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That's a very different reflective commentary back.

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Hm. You don't think that you're irritated.

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Notice that we're not assuming responsibility

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and notice that there's no blame placed on

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us because here's another scenario that will happen.

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A child will say I'm gonna actually going,

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I'm going to give you a legit story from my playroom.

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One of my kids,

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he hated coming,

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hated the fact that his parents forced him to come.

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And so as a general rule, he thought of every accusation that he could

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conceive of

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to

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talk about how much he thought it was stupid to be there.

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So his running dialogue for a while

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was,

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well, if all your stores weren't, if all your toys weren't from the dollar store.

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Well, if you didn't have such cheap toys.

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Well, you know, if you would ever spend any money on some of the stuff in here,

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it might actually be fun.

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Well, you just get everything for a dollar. So, of course they're terrible.

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And I mean, this went on for weeks y'all. Like, it was every single session.

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I had dollar store toys and it got to a point where

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he would start to complain about something

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and I would smirk and I'd go,

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but I have dollar store toys and he'd be like, exactly. It was,

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oh, it was so fun. Anyway.

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So notice he's accusing me of, I mean,

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not to account for the thousands of dollars of stuff that I have in my room,

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but I have dollar store toys.

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So let's, let's kind of play this out

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if I would have said.

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Oh,

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yeah.

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You think that I'm,

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I'm cheap?

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Ok.

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That's maybe an enlargement. That's maybe a narrative commentary,

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but

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there was no ownership or blame.

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I'm not owning the fact that I've spent all my toys at

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dollar at the dollar store that I bought all of them there.

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I'm not owning that. I have cheap toys. I'm not owning.

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You think

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that all of my toys are cheap?

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That's an acknowledgment of his feelings, but it's not an acknowledge.

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It's not, oh my gosh,

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it's not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing

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and it's not blame or ownership

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similarly,

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if a child comes in and there is a toy that is not in the room that they usually play with

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because it's

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in the, needs to be sanitized bucket

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or because it got broken and you have to replace it

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and a child will go. What happened to the crossbow?

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Oh, you're wondering where the crossbow is? Yeah. Where is it?

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Oh,

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you're noticing that it's not where it normally is. So, what happened to it?

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And then you go down this road and eventually you end up saying

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it actually needs to be fixed because it got broken

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almost without fail. Power and control kids

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blame you.

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It's either your fault that it got broken,

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meaning they'll just flat out say you broke it

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or they'll blame you for letting a child break it.

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Well, if you wouldn't have let someone break it,

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ok? So

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oh I messed up.

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No, I didn't.

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Accidents happen.

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Toys get broken.

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So we might say,

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oh,

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you really wish that you had that toy, you're angry. It's not here.

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Or I might say

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you think that I let a kid break it

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but sometimes accidents happen,

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we validate, we acknowledge we understand we meet the child where they are,

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but we don't own it

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and we don't claim responsibility for it.

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And then my final thought is

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we try to be really aware of what the interpretation can

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be and what the extension can be for a child.

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So if I in a playroom say things like I got that wrong, I made a mistake. I messed up

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to carry that further. The child could interpret and internalize

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that. They can get things wrong, they can mess up and they can make mistakes

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and those things are true.

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But in a playroom,

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there really is not ever any accusation.

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Sometimes there are limits that are necessary.

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Sometimes there are disagreements,

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sometimes they have problems that can't be solved

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or they have moments where they can't be made happy,

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but there's never an assumption or an, an awareness

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that they can mess up and make mistakes and get things wrong.

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They might say that about themselves,

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but that would never be communicated from our end.

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So we wouldn't also want to say that about ourselves because there's a carryover.

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So I hope that you find that really helpful.

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It's something that I notice a lot so wanted to

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make sure that it was at least in your awareness.

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And if you find yourself saying things like that,

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know that the antidote is just to neutrally acknowledge what's happening.

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So

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you don't think so, you think this

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and you always validate that it's the child's thoughts or feelings or words.

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You're telling me this,

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you feel this, you think this

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but you're not owning it.

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You think that I broke the toys?

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Yeah, you did.

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Hm. You're convinced that I broke them.

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But notice that I'm never saying that I did,

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that's a really helpful strategy. Just stay really neutral

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and acknowledge what the child's thoughts feelings or words are

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rather than the outcome that

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they're moving toward.

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All right y'all, I love y'all so much. 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

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Brenna Hicks. For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.