199 | Session Savvy: Why We Don't Say 'Thank You' in Child-Centered Play Therapy

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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

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

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get

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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, we are continuing in the Session Savvy series.

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We are going to be talking through

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saying thank you to a child in the playroom.

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And many of these that we're going to be talking through in this series

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are what we would consider

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socially and culturally and

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politely acceptable mannerly. I don't know what you want to call it,

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but they are things that have a little bit of a different feel in a child-centered

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playroom.

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So I know many of you are like, what do you mean? I shouldn't say thank you.

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That's polite and mannerly and appropriate. Yes.

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And many of these in conversation would be,

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but they will be received differently potentially

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in a child-centered playroom.

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And so we're talking through some of these considerations

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so that we at least are aware of the potential pitfalls of saying things like this,

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even if some of these happen to slip out

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because it's just the way you would normally speak.

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But when we get into a playroom,

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we change our normal speech.

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That is the goal of a child-centered playroom

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while we want it to feel conversational and while we want it to feel natural,

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we are speaking a new language.

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I was actually just talking about that on a coaching call yesterday,

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we were discussing the fact that it's a new language.

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And therefore

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just like if you were to speak in English

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to someone from the States and then switch to

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speaking Spanish to someone from Central or South America,

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you would switch your language to accommodate

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the audience.

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And we do that exact same thing

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when we're in the playroom because the child in our playrooms during play sessions,

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they are receiving a completely different

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interaction and different language than outside of

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the playroom when we would be speaking in general terms and conversations.

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So we're going to be talking through saying thank you

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and we'll see how that unfolds. So my first thought is

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as children do things for us in the playroom,

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we will often say thank you because they

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gave us something.

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So let's let's talk through different scenarios where we might do this.

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So the first might be

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they come over and they say

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we're going to sword fight and here's your sword

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and then we say, oh thank you.

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All right, here's the potential outcome there

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when we say thank you.

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When a child gives us something while in a traditional setting,

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that would make sense

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in the playroom,

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we are communicating

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that

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we are pleased

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that they gave us a sword.

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But notice if we were to be fully child-centered, in our response,

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you chose that sword for you and you chose this sword for me.

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Look at how it's very clear, there's ownership,

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there's responsibility and we were able to acknowledge a choice that was made

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that is far more therapeutically helpful.

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Then thank you,

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which

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we're glad you

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gave us the sword,

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but

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it has no therapeutic value to the child.

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Whereas you chose this sword for me and that sword for yourself

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that has value therapeutically.

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Another scenario is the child is

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finishing their block tower

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and after their block tower is constructed, they put all of the blocks away.

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So they're sitting there putting all of the blocks back in the bin

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and we remind them that it's not their job to clean up and they choose to do it anyway.

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And we say

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you put all the blocks away. Thank you

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again, we're satisfied

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with

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their choice

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and it made us happy

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yet

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there's nothing therapeutically helpful there. However, if we said

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you chose to put the blocks away, even though you know that that's my job

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that is far more powerful for the child

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because

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let's face it.

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We hope that at some point, the child will not feel compelled to clean up

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if they're cleaning up. That's

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something that we're hoping to see them not do in the future.

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So to say, thank you, that reinforces that we liked the fact that they cleaned up.

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But you chose to clean up even though you know, that that's my job

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has far more weight.

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Another scenario, child is working on a craft project

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and

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they have scissors and tape and construction paper

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and at the end of their craft project,

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they crumple up all of their unused stuff and they throw it in the garbage.

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Well, maybe they ask you where the garbage can is first.

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So they're like, where's the garbage can?

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And

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we don't answer them right.

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So let's be really clear on that before I move on.

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You're wondering where the garbage can is? There's one in here.

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Ok. So we don't point, we don't tell them where it is.

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Never do for a child that which they can do for themselves,

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they can look and find a garbage can.

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But as they walk over to the garbage can and throw away their garbage,

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we might say,

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oh, you threw all that away. Thank you

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again. You've made me happy. You've pleased me, I'm satisfied with your behavior,

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which

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let's pause on that note just for a second.

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That has the tone of conditional acceptance

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because you threw that away. Now I'm happy

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because you cleaned up the blocks.

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I'm happy.

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That's not the child-centered way.

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The child-centered way is you can make the biggest

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mess in here that you could ever imagine.

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And I will still unconditionally love and accept you.

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I will still hold space for that. I will still meet you where you are

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because I trust the process.

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So while in normal conversation, if someone cleaned up something for us,

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if they threw something away to make our job easier,

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or if they gave us something,

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we would absolutely say, thank you. That's just polite.

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But in a child-centered playroom,

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we do not. So they throw something away

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and we

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would either say, oh, you chose to throw that away

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and just leave it as a tracking of behavior

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or we might acknowledge a personality trait in that

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as part of the encouragement and esteem building work. So we might say

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that was thoughtful

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or that was helpful because we're pointing out

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characteristics and personality traits that the child possesses,

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that would be another option there and that would be therapeutically important.

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But do you see the difference in if we just say thank you,

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we never ever want the child to think

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that, oh,

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I just made the therapist really happy by doing that.

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So I'm going to keep doing things like that because

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I want the therapist to be happy with me.

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The people pleasing, perfectionistic, highly anxious type of kids

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are going to be extremely compelled

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to quote, make us happy.

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And if we say thank you,

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it makes them feel like they did what they were supposed to.

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This is very similar to

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the kids who have been praised so much

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that they seek constant validation.

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Did I do a good job? Do you like this? Is this pretty? Isn't this the best?

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Do you think that this is amazing?

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Why do kids ask us questions like that in the playroom?

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Because they're so conditioned for external validation

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that they have no intrinsic motivation and they have

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no sense of what they think about anything.

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Similarly,

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kids that are constantly trying to please others,

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they're going to do things like I just described, throw stuff away,

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clean up after themselves, give you things.

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And if we say thank you innocently,

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we say thank you.

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It can take the child down that road where

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they're never stopping to evaluate from their own perspective

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what things are and they're never letting themselves do the work that they need to do

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because they feel compelled to do something different

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for a different outcome.

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I could never not throw away my garbage.

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That's not the right thing to do.

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I know I wouldn't want you to have to clean up that mess.

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I know you've had kids say things like that to you.

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I have all the time.

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No, we're supposed to clean up our messes. I would never want you to have to clean up.

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That's not fair. If I make the mess, I have to clean it up,

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they're parroting what they've already experienced

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with other people in their lives,

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in different relationships.

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But our language, our environment and our relationship with kids,

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they're all different than what kids are used to.

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So be mindful instead of saying thank you,

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focus on what the child is choosing to do

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as a factual tracking.

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You chose to throw that away, you chose to clean up, you chose to give me the sword.

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That's your go to antidote to saying thank you when

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we might normally have the inclination to do so.

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All right, y'all super grateful for you.

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Reminder

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for October's coming conference in Georgia, make plans to be there.

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We're gonna have a great time.

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If you wanna reach out to me, please do brenna@thekidcounselor.com

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and thanks for all the feedback about the Session Savvy series.

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I know I've only had one episode so far in this series,

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but I've already gotten a lot of positive feedback from you all.

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So

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I'm really happy that this is settling appropriately with

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you and that you feel like this is helpful.

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So we're probably going to maybe

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2.5 or three months worth of Session Savvy series.

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So I'm looking forward to diving into some more topics with y'all.

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Love y'all 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.