220 | Repetitive Play and/or Self-Soothing in Early Sessions

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

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Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get

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a master class 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. I am answering a question from Suzanne in Maryland

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and her question is about a six year

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old client that has been dressing and undressing Barbies

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in each of his sessions.

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So we're going to talk through that. She's curious about

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the behavior, the theme, how to

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understand what's going on.

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So we're going to talk through that.

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But before we get into that, I just wanted to share with you all what I consider to be,

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a celebration, happy joy moment.

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I looked at the emails that I've received in

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a very recent amount of time.

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I don't know the exact time frame but know that it's been quite recent

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that I pulled all of these from. And I just wanted to give you the list of countries

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from whom I've received emails

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and

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this says several things

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to me. Number one,

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there are

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CCPT practitioners literally all over the world, which makes my heart so happy.

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Number two,

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there are

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people working with children, therapists, counselors, clinicians,

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working with children

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and wanting to do right by them in countries all over the world.

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And there are people listening to this podcast all over the world.

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So I'm just gonna read you in this recent amount of time,

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the emails or the countries from whom I've

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received emails and I just want you to celebrate

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how CCPT is literally becoming something that every child

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my hope is that every child will have access to.

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That is really one of my greatest ambitions

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is that no matter where a child is in the world,

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that they will have access to a CCPT practitioner.

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So here are the countries Taiwan,

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Iraq,

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Afghanistan,

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Singapore,

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Iran,

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South Africa,

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the Virgin Islands,

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India,

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Scotland,

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and New Zealand.

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And that's not comprehensive.

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That's not every country I've ever received an email from.

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That's just in a recent time span.

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The people that have reached out to me from those countries,

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listening to this podcast,

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fully engaged in CCPT and helping children all over the world.

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And many of these are countries that

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do not value children, they don't value freedom, they don't value autonomy.

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If you remember the question that I answered from

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India a

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couple of weeks ago,

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she actually said in the email, culturally,

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this goes against everything that is normal. CCPT is something totally foreign

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culturally in India

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because they value obedience and compliance and structure and all of those things.

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So the freedom and autonomy that CCPT affords

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in some of these countries,

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children are not valued,

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independence and freedom are not valued.

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But yet there are practitioners that are providing this

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for kids because this is what kids need.

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It just makes me so happy. So I wanted to share that.

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Hopefully, that makes you celebrate and makes you smile like it does me.

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Ok.

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So let me read parts of Suzanne's email and then I can

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dive into this a little bit and we'll talk through this together.

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She says, hi, Doctor Brenna. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

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You're helping so many children and families with what you do.

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Thank you for that Suzanne.

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I have a question about a child that's six years old that I've been working with.

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I've had three sessions with him

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and he plays with my Barbies, both male and female.

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And the only thing he does with them is dress and undress them from head to toe.

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He takes their clothes off and their shoes.

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He says he wants to find different clothes or outfits for them,

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but then puts on the same clothing.

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He does this with about four or five dolls while doing this.

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He asks me to play popular music and we

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sing together while he dresses and undresses the dolls.

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He's excited to come to the playroom each week,

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but I don't understand this behavior and the theme that it falls under,

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I was thinking nurturing and caregiving, but I'm just not sure.

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Ok, so Suzanne in Maryland, thank you so much for the email

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and

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let's talk through this because obviously three sessions in it's very new.

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We're still in initiation,

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we're still in warm up and there's likely a lot

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going on just because this is a new experience.

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So I'm going to process that a little bit first

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and then I'll dive into some other thoughts.

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So we know that when a child is in the initiation and warm up,

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they are needing to build rapport and trust and relationship, connection,

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bond all of those things.

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And often that means early on in the process, kids are not ready, willing or able

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to dive into true work yet

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because they still are trying to sort out what this is all about.

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And can I trust this person and can I

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understand what this environment is all about?

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What do I actually need to work on? What do I inherently understand is an issue?

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Am I ready to do that all of that? So there's all of these layers

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of insecurity and curiosity

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sometimes also confusion

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when we know that we're that early into the process. So three sessions in,

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we recognize that often if a child does

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this kind of behavior, not necessarily dressing and undressing, but repetitive,

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very consistent play,

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it's safe

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and

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it's a way of avoiding,

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not in a negative way,

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but it's a way of avoiding work because if I

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can undress and dress a doll for 50 minutes straight,

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three sessions in a row,

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I'm not forced to face anything else. I'm not forced to dive in deeper.

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I'm not forced to do anything that I'm going to be uncomfortable with.

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So early on before a child goes through resistance,

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we know that they will sometimes do that kind of repetitive play

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because it's safe.

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We see this when kids come in and they gravitate toward art or drawing,

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we see this when kids come in and gravitate toward board games,

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these are safe types of play

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and it makes sense because they need to feel secure and comfortable

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in a new environment with a new person and they're not

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really sure what this whole playroom thing is all about.

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So we recognize three sessions in that's likely part of it.

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It's just the stage and the phase in which he finds himself.

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However, I absolutely think

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that the fact that he is dressing and undressing

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dolls that very much aligns with nurturing and caregiving.

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So I think you were on target with that hypothesis.

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But I also think that this is very ritualistic

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because think about

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it, if over 50 minutes,

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he is taking clothes off, putting them on, taking clothes off, putting them on,

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taking clothes off, putting them on,

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that's ritualistic in nature.

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It's repetitive over and over. Same type of action.

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We almost always can see that as self soothing.

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This would be very similar to a child that lines up cars over and over and over again,

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or

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wiggles their fingers through the sand

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making patterns zigzags over and over and over again.

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That very consistent ritualistic type of behavior is almost always self soothing.

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And you didn't indicate why this child

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is in therapy in the first place.

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But my gut based on what you've told me

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is there's probably really high levels of anxiety.

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And so self soothing also makes sense because if I

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can just do the same thing over and over again,

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there's some comfort in that,

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that ritualistic kinesthetic action

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that just goes and goes and goes.

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It kind of is a grounding and self soothing

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final thought, not related to your question specifically, but you mentioned that

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he asks me to play popular music.

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OK?

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As a general rule,

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the playroom is a screen free zone,

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which means we don't have phones, TV, speakers,

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ipads, ipods,

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you name it if it has a screen or if it's technologically driven,

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we don't have that in the playroom.

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So while I suppose maybe one could argue, well,

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if I'm child-centered and a child says I want to listen to music,

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I need to comply with that request

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to a degree. But within boundaries and a child-centered playroom is screen free.

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Every time a child asks to bring a device back every

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time a child asks for me to do something on my phone

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or play something on my phone or watch a video

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with them on my phone or any of those things.

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My response is always, absolute on purpose,

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You really wish that we could blah, blah, blah or you would really like to blah, blah,

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blah.

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But the playroom is a screen free zone.

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And here's why

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this is also another reason why I think there's probably high levels of anxiety.

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I think even the music is self soothing and it's grounding for this child.

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But

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music is distraction.

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Music is directive because there's lyrics and there's

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a beat and they can focus on that.

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There's all kinds of stuff that gets in the way

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of the work that the child truly needs to do.

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We want playrooms to be as neutral as possible

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and anything prescriptive, including

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movies or TV, shows or videos or songs or any of those things

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that can be a hindrance to the child actually doing the work.

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Now,

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I would argue that that is probably also self soothing

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and avoidant just like the dressing and undressing of the Barbie

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and session three, it all aligns so we can understand the behavior.

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But Suzanne, just as a general rule, I would make sure that you let children know

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that screen free zone means that music is not an option,

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but you can always give them the choice that they can choose

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to listen to music on the way home or on the way there

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or in the lobby

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or whatever the other options are because we

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wanna make sure that we honor the child's request

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but that we adhere to the CCPT tenants

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and therefore the limits that are aligned with CCPT.

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All right, Suzanne, thank you so much for the email.

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I hope that that was helpful and I hope that for all of you

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as we go through these questions,

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I hope that it starts to give you insight and perspective

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when something very similarly happens in your playroom

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that you're able to go. Oh OK.

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Yeah,

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we talked about that on that one episode when so

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and so answered that question or asked that question,

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that's always the goal is that there's some connection that's drawn

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from these questions to your own practice with your own kids.

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There's only so many things that happen in play sessions.

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There's only so many things that are going to emerge

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with kids in a playroom.

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So I think that the more questions that we're able to process together,

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the more you'll be able to start connecting things

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and make sense of what's going on because

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we've already had discussions about similar topics.

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All right, love you all so much.

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

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If you want to leave a voicemail question

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in the States call 813-812-5525. 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.