170 | Understanding the Foundation: Landreth's 10 Tenets of Child-Centered Play Therapy

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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 a master class in child-centered,

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play therapy 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, we are in the summer school series.

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So I am reading another section out of the Art of the Relationship by Garry Landreth.

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And this is specifically the fourth edition I've mentioned it before.

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It's the newest one. I actually own the first edition, but

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the newest is the fourth.

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So if you're interested in picking up a copy,

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that is the one that is the most up to date and

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has a couple of additional things that the earlier editions did not,

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but really kind of a foundational text.

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And that's what this summer school series is all about. So that's what we're doing.

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But before we dive into

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this section, I wanted to share a little bit of an update for you.

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I don't know if you all listen to the

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episode where I shared Gabby from South Africa's story,

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but she is the art teacher in South Africa.

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And so I was talking about how important it is to

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have child-centered principles that use in the schools.

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She actually sent me a recent follow up email.

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And so I wanted to share this little story because,

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oh my gosh, it just makes my heart happy. So

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she says, hi Brenna. I have to share this with you.

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A little boy, walked into my art room, looked at me and said, Gabby,

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every week I come here, you've been giving me choices.

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Why are you doing that?

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Me?

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You're wondering why I'm giving you choices. I'm wondering why you think I am.

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He looks at me, gives me the biggest smile and says,

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oh, yes, I forgot.

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It's because I've been talking too much and I need to work more quietly.

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He worked quietly for the rest of the session.

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I'm also proud of him and so happy about how well this works. He did it.

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He worked it out for himself and

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we've shifted from external to internal regulation.

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Oh my gosh. Isn't that

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the beauty of what we do

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and why we do it?

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He can't quite make sense of the fact that he's continually given choices.

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And so he's wondering about it,

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brings it up

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and then Gabby returned responsibility

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and gave him an opportunity to ponder it for himself

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and

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it's self actualization in front of your eyes.

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He knows what he's struggling with,

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he knows what he needs to do

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and he associated the fact that she was constantly giving him

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choices with the returning of responsibility to control his own behavior.

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So his response so insightful. So astute.

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Oh, yes, I forgot.

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It's because I've been talking too much and I need to work more quietly.

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And then he did.

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That is why we provide choices.

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That is why we do everything that we do

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in the playroom because there is a beneficial outcome.

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And so Gabby, thank you for the update and oh my gosh,

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that just makes me so happy and good for him.

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I'm, I'm so excited for him as well.

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And this is why child-centered play therapy needs to

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be in every environment where there are children.

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It doesn't matter what the environment is. If kids are there,

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the adults need to know child centered play therapy. So let's make that happen, Y'all

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pipe dream, I know, but one starfish thrown back into the ocean at the time, right?

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Ok.

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So let's get back to summer school series. Art of the Relationship.

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I am reading from, let me see what chapter this is. I don't even know

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I'm reading from

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chapter four

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and I want to

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go through the 10 tenets of relating to children

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and why are these so powerful?

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I just get your seatbelts on your therapeutic seatbelts on

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because these really,

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if we get this,

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we have the stage set for everything we need to do afterward,

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all the skill work, all the clinical work all the technique,

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everything that we need to learn

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it all hinges back to these 10 tenants.

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So I'm really looking forward to going over these

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and I think these are going to make such

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an impact on your work and your understanding of what we're doing

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straight out of Garry Landreth s mouth.

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Ok.

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So

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he opens this entire section with this is the process

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of relating to children from a child-centered frame of reference.

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OK.

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So as we are

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in play sessions and as we are interacting with kids,

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we have a process.

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This is one of the things that you all have been.

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I'm, I'm going on a side turn for a second, but I promise I'll regroup.

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This is one of the things you all have been saying

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to me in communication with me all the time lately.

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And you know,

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I track

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threads that are woven together through everyone's stories.

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And I'm constantly looking for the connections and,

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and where everything kind of comes back to.

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So many of you have been reaching out to me or talking to me or whatever.

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And

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so many of you are saying

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I'm just,

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it's

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child centered play therapy

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just resonates with me.

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There's a resounding yes, because

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I get the framework now

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because I see that there is a system because I get that there's a process

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you've helped me understand that there actually is a template to all of this.

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And gosh, y'all like, it didn't even dawn on me that that's what was missing

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in the training until so many of you started saying that to me and that's it.

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If we look at child-centered play therapy as this willy nilly,

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we're just doing whatever we happen to think is

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best in the moment because the kid is leading

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that is not child

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centeredness. We very clearly and distinctly

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have a framework

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and

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the framework is what supports the work that we do.

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We absolutely have a system for this.

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So these 10 tenants are actually part of that system and framework.

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So we have to get these as well. All right.

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So the first one,

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children are not miniature adults.

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Wow, I could just stop right there.

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The, the podcast is over, that's enough for today.

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Children are not miniature adults.

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We do not respond to kids

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as if they were on our level as an adult. They're not

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and how many parents and how many other adults in their lives,

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not only respond to them that way but expect them to be.

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And child-centered play therapists do not.

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We do not think that they're miniature adults

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ever

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developmentally, emotionally, physically, psychologically, socially,

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academically, none of it.

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They're not miniature adults.

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So it starts there.

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Number two

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children are people,

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they're not just small things,

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they're people,

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they are capable of deep emotions,

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they're capable of the same experiences that we have. They have joy and pain

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and sorrow and excitement and pride,

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everything

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that is involved in existing in the world,

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they experience it and feel it.

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They are people.

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Number three,

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they are unique and worthy of respect.

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We recognize the uniqueness of every child

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and we respect them for it.

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They have their own special thing, every single one of them.

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And we honor that we celebrate that we recognize their unique and worthy of respect.

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Kids aren't given hardly any respect from anyone anywhere at any time.

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And as tragic as that is

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honestly, like, sorrowfully hurts my heart,

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how disrespected kids are.

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They're not when they interact with us

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and what a gift that is.

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Unconditional acceptance, unconditional love,

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you're unique and you're worthy of respect

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and we treat them accordingly.

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Number four, children are resilient.

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How often do we talk about this with parents?

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I mean, this one I think is probably one of the easier ones to express to parents.

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The first three, that might be a tough sell for a lot of moms and dads, but

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children are resilient.

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We kind of have an entire approach that

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honors the resiliency of children.

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They possess a tremendous capacity

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to overcome all kinds of things,

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situations, obstacles,

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experiences circumstances,

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they are resilient

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and they can

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move past

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anything that they need to.

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Number five children have an inherent tendency toward growth and maturity

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that self actualization in a different

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explanation.

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They have an inner

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innate

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sense of what's going on.

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They possess wisdom, they possess insight.

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They possess knowledge.

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They have an inherent tendency toward growth and maturity.

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We just need to get out of their way.

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We don't force them to come in our direction.

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We just move and give them the lane and we

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serve as the therapeutic guide rails on the road.

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Number six, children are capable of positive self direction.

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Hm.

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That's an interesting one.

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They are capable of figuring things out and dealing with their lives

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in creative ways.

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Kids rarely

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do things, think things feel things behave

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in ways that we expect them to.

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But they figure things out in their own creative way.

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If given the time, the tools and the opportunity

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they will positively self direct.

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Number seven,

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children's natural language is play

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and

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OK, I'm gonna go on a brief tangent here

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in my coaching program. I

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ask all of my participants to write a "what is play therapy"

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A little mini essay if you will

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and I forbid them from using

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"play is the child's language and toys are their

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words" in their explanation for so many reasons.

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But as, as far as one of the tenets go,

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we will not use that as an explanation for what is play therapy. OK.

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However,

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children's natural language is play.

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This is the way that they self express

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and this is the way that they communicate

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in a most comfortable state.

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We wouldn't need to play with children.

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We wouldn't even have play therapy

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if they didn't naturally communicate through their play.

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So while I don't

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value that as an explanation for what is play therapy.

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I absolutely value it as one of the tenets for relating to children.

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We don't force them to come into our intellectual cognitive world.

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We allow them to stay in their natural, playful emotional state and we go to them

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because that's their natural medium of self expression.

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OK. Number eight.

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Oh my goodness, y'all,

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Here we go.

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I told you to put on your seatbelt. Children have a right to remain silent.

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I cannot count the number of conversations I've had

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in the last month with therapists asking me,

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what do I do when the kids says nothing, the whole session,

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how am I supposed to reflectively respond when they

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literally just do not say a word to me?

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I have no idea what they're thinking. I have no idea what they're feeling.

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Oh my gosh, this is the worst session I've ever had

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and they're hard.

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I don't mean to undermine how difficult a session is when a child is not talking.

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However,

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tenets for relating to children from a child-centered frame of reference

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is they have the

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right to remain silent

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and we respect their decision not to talk,

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whether they're unwilling to talk, whether they're unable to talk,

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whether they are too anxious to talk, whether they are too angry to talk,

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whether they're resisting and they have no desire to talk

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regardless of the reason

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we respect their decision

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not to talk and they have a right to remain silent.

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Play therapy does not not work. If a child is silent,

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we have to

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get our own preconceived notions out of the way of what a play session should look

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like because a child does not have to talk for play therapy to be effective.

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Does it make it easier on us when a child talks? Heck yes,

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but it does not mean

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that we need to be concerned if a child is not talking, we respect that decision.

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Number nine,

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children will take the therapeutic experience to where they need to be.

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We do not

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determine

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when or how or why a child should play.

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They will take their experience to where they need to be.

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They know

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how to guide themselves,

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they know what they need to do.

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They will get themselves where they need to be.

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They will take their experience exactly where it should go.

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So we do not ever attempt to determine what that looks like.

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And then finally,

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children's growth cannot be sped up.

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Oh, boy,

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there's another doozy, right?

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How many times do we really, really question

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30 sessions in if we need to do something to force things to go a little bit faster?

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Or we feel pressure from the school or mom emails us and says,

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how many more is this gonna take?

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Because I just do not see the progress that we

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have wanted to see and we're like 20 sessions in

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or whatever the reason. Sometimes it's within ourselves.

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Why in the world is this kid not XYZ?

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Why has this kid not

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done such and such yet?

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We have little mental timelines for ourselves too.

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Parents have them teachers, have them, principals, have them pediatricians,

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have them.

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We all have preconceived notions of a time frame

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and not that they're always the same,

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but everyone possesses one.

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And so when we recognize children's growth cannot be sped up,

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we recognize that this is an individual process

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and we're patient

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with the child's process.

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We don't rush it,

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certainly don't force it.

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We're not constantly pushing,

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we honor the child's process, we're patient

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and we recognize that the child grows as the child grows.

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All right.

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And to wrap this up,

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Doctor Landreth says, children are persons in their own right.

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They do not become persons upon the attainment of

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some predetermined age or after having met certain criteria.

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Each child is a unique personality

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and that uniqueness is not dependent on any significant person in the child's life.

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Neither is personal significance limited to or a function of the child's behavior.

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Therefore, children are worthy of respect

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because they have worth and dignity.

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And we appreciate

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that uniqueness

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and we respond to them as people,

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they don't have to earn the distinction of being a person

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they already are.

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And so we treat them with the honor and the dignity and respect

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of being a person.

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And that changes the entire relationship.

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And as we've mentioned so many times,

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the entire premise of child-centered play therapy

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is founded on the relationship.

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So we cultivate a relationship that honors those 10 tenants.

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And through that relationship,

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children are able to do the work that they need.

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Oh, my gosh. Such great stuff.

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I hope that you're liking this summer school series.

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I'd love to get some feedback from you. I know. Oh my gosh,

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resoundingly. Every one of you said. Yes. Yes. Yes.

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Read from some of the seminal work. So I hope that you're enjoying this.

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I hope that it's grounding you. I hope that it's centering you.

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I hope that if you've not read these or you haven't read these in a long time,

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you're starting to see that

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everything that child-centered is

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all has a foundation

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and we start there

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and that's what these Seminal texts are doing. They're providing a foundation so

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hopeful that this is meaningful to you all.

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I'd love to hear from you, brenna@thekidcounselor.com.

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And hopefully

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we'll continue this for the rest of the summer and, you know,

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we'll continue to dive into more texts and

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more works and more important information for all of you.

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All right. I hope that you all have had a great week. Thanks for hanging out with me.

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Thank you for the time that you spend with me each week.

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I love spending time with you all. Love you, talk to you 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.