161 | Safe Play: What It Means When a Child Picks the Same Toys Every Time

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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 and 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 Katie in Florida.

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Hello, fellow Floridian

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and other coast though, but still Floridian nonetheless.

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And her question is about kids that at a certain point

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in the process seem unsure of what they want to do

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and they tend to gravitate toward the same type of play

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and she's wondering about how to handle that. She's a little bit unsure of it.

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So I'll read parts of her email and then we'll dive in

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before I do huge. Thank you to all of you who have been a part of the Collective

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attending the Zoom calls.

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It has just been so much fun to share

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that with you and the passion and the excitement and

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the collaboration and the support.

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It's just been so fun for me and I'm so grateful for

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each and every one of you if you haven't checked that out,

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I would love to have you join us.

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You can check it out for free and get a two week free trial

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just to see if it's going to be something that is helpful for you.

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If you would like to check it out. Go to ccptcollective.com

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and you can get your free trial and see what it's like.

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Ask me questions live twice a week

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and hang out with a whole bunch of other CCPTs.

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So just wanted to say thank you to all the Collective members. You all make my

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week fun and special. So I appreciate you all.

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Thank you to all of you podcast listeners as well.

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I know that is a much broader group and that is very,

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very spread out all over the world.

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So super grateful for each and every one of you

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for the time that you listen to me each week.

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I've had so many people in the last few weeks on calls or,

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you know, during the Discovery call process for the coaching program, whatever,

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I've been talking to a whole bunch of you

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and you keep saying that

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I am in your ears all the time and you constantly hear my voice. So

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thank you that you take me with you and that you spend time

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with me and I'm glad that you feel like we have a connection because

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I love the intimacy of podcasting. I really do think

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of each and every one of you when I do these.

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Like, I feel like I'm just talking to my friends

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and I,

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I hope that you feel that way and I love

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being able to just connect on that very personal level.

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So

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thank you to all of you, all my coaching participants, my Collective people,

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my podcast listeners,

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you all are special to me. And I'm very grateful to be on this journey with you.

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All right, back to the question.

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So let me read parts of this and then we'll dive into some thoughts. So the question is

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I've been honing my craft toward using

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only child-centered play therapy with my child clients

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as I was originally trained in more directive methods.

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Surprise surprise.

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Lately, I've been struggling with the same thing amongst two different clients.

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I noticed that after 15 or so sessions, they seem unsure of what they wanna do

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and eventually they play the same game.

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So when they come in,

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they tend to get bored after a few passes and I find myself

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getting anxious that they aren't using miniatures or figurines to play house.

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Make a battle, expand into other toys that they haven't tried, et cetera.

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I feel these clients are past the warm up stage

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and of the clients, I'm referencing, one always gravitates toward kinetic sand

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and one goes for the game heads up.

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I like that game.

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I share a playroom with multiple therapists and the

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owner prefers to keep all the toys in bins.

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So most things have a lid on them with labels.

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I'm wondering if this is stopping their process

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though.

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The lids and bins don't seem to prevent other

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clients from moving through the model stages and phases.

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Thank you.

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All right, Katie. Thanks for the email and thanks for asking this question.

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I think this is something that all of us struggle with

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until we get to a point where

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we are fully

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trusting of the entire process.

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And sometimes it's easy to trust parts of the process but not others.

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And I think when we get to a point where

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we have achieved full trust and complete trust,

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it eliminates that pressure from us and we're able to just

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kind of be patient enough for kids to do their work,

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but

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we'll kind of unpack some thoughts that I have together just so that

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it gives a little bit more specificity to what this issue is discussing.

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So

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we really can't assume why a child

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is

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seeming to not engage

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at the beginning and then gravitates toward the same thing, but it's usually

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one of a few options so it can be resistance.

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Now,

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granted 15 sessions in that's a little bit late

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in the process for it to be resistance,

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but it is not impossible.

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I guess my question or my curiosity would be,

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has there been evidence of already going through resistance?

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And if so then this is likely not resistance.

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But if there's been no evidence of it, it could be.

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So we'll throw out resistance as an option.

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It can also be avoidance.

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And what I mean by that is

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sometimes even though kids have gone through the initial stage

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and phase and then they've hit the resistance phase,

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they might still not be ready to do what they need to do.

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So they are doing safe play,

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they're doing controlled play,

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they're doing predictable play.

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And it's essentially to avoid the deeper work that needs to be tackled.

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So often kids will delay their work.

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It's not that they're necessarily in resistance anymore,

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but it is that they are trying to hold off

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as long as possible because they don't feel ready.

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And that's where that safe type of play comes in.

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And Katie, what you're describing

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sand work and a game,

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those are both very predictable and safe.

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So I suspect that that's probably likely

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that the child feels unwilling or unable

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to dive into what they need to do.

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And so they're trying to buy time

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and when that happens, it's not that they're not doing work.

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It's not that what they're doing is not meaningful.

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It's not that they're not still on the process

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and the journey,

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but what it means is they are stalling

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and hoping that they're going to feel more ready.

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So that is my first thought as to why these kids might be

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kind of what you seem to be avoiding what you seem to be mentioning is

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that they seem unsure of what to do and then going to the same game,

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it's predictable and it's safe.

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Ok. My second thought

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is we have to make sure we don't get ourselves caught in a trap

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of thinking that a child has to play.

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We understand that the child-centered model is predicated on kids will naturally

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play and that's the way that they make sense of their world.

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So of course, in a playroom and in child-centered play therapy,

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it's

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kind of assumed that kids will play.

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However,

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a child does not have to play for this to work.

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A child does not have to play for this to be beneficial. A child does not have to play

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to move through the things that they need to address.

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So we have to be careful that we don't get caught up in our own sense of expectations.

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We don't remember. We don't have expectations. In a child-centered model,

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there's no mandates, there's no requirements, there's no expectations,

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there's no agenda.

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A child is free to do what the child needs to do when they need to do it,

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how they need to do it.

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And we have to be ok with that.

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So

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here's where the trust factor comes in.

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Not only do we have to trust the CCPT process

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it starts there.

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Do we believe this works? Do we believe this is effective?

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Do we believe that the things that are supposed to happen will happen.

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If all of those answers are yes,

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then we can scale back the anxiety, we can scale back the self imposed pressure.

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We can scale back the need to have things go a certain way.

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And, and Katie, I,

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I totally understand what you're saying when I read

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that and you said they're not using miniatures,

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they're not using figurines, they're not playing house,

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they're not making a battle, they're not expanding in other toys.

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Well, I think we all have been in that situation where it's like,

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why aren't you doing

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XYZ? Right.

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Why aren't you

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doing something in the sand? Why aren't you using miniatures?

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Why aren't you doing narrative play?

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Why aren't you engaging in some kind of capacity

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when a child breaks the mold a little bit

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and does not follow what we would consider to be the

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traditional trajectory of therapy.

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It is really difficult to not try to somehow force that

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because we're like,

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but you should be right.

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But a child shouldn't be doing anything.

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If we trust the process,

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we then also trust the child.

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And this is the, the next key of this.

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We have to trust child centered play therapy. We also have to trust the child.

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Do we believe in self actualization or not?

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Do we believe that the child knows their issues and they

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know their struggles and they will address them in their way,

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their time and at their pace,

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do we believe that kids don't want to stay stuck?

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Do we believe kids want to become a better version of themselves?

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Do we believe kids should be the master of their own therapeutic journey?

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If the answers to those are yes,

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then again, burden and pressure are off

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because we're able to sit back and say

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child centered play therapy works.

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I trust this child,

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I trust the process.

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And if all he wants to do is come in and play kinetic sand right now,

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there's a reason for it.

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And let me actually share a really quick story because I think

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this might help illustrate this point a little bit more succinctly.

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So Robert Jason Grant is the founder of the AutPlay

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program or model.

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He specializes in kids on the spectrum and he kind of has

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a unique take on play therapy specifically for children on the spectrum.

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And that's the bulk of his clientele.

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And while his

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play program is not child-centered, and

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I mean, I guess maybe there's a little bit of overlap,

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but it's not a child-centered approach.

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In

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his book.

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He talked about a child with whom he worked

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that came in and vacuumed

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with the little Fisher Price or whatever, you know, brand fake vacuum.

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By the way related aside,

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my, one of my favorite toys was the little

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balls that popped in the clear dome vacuum,

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you would push it and it would make all of

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the colored balls pop like popcorn underneath the little plastic globe

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and you could watch them pop.

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And every time you push the vacuum forward,

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it made everything pop inside like popcorn.

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That was one of my favorite toys. So

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that just brings back nostalgic memories for me.

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But anyway, I digress. So

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all this child did was use the pretend vacuum

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and vacuumed every single session.

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And he talks in the book about

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his struggle with that and the difficulty of that and questioning that and all of it.

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And then the summary to kind of give you, you know, the cliffs notes

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is

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I realized that that child needed to come in and vacuum every week

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and I needed to just allow the child to do what the child needed to do.

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So we have to trust Katie that if a child's

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coming in and playing with kinetic sand every week,

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that's what they need to do.

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If a child comes in and wants to play heads up every week,

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that's what they need to do.

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And sometimes it's because they're unwilling or unable to move forward.

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But that still doesn't mean that they're not doing work.

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It means that they're preparing to do their work.

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Hey, this is all I can do right now.

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This is all I can handle, all I can manage. This is all I've got.

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I can come and play a game with you. I can come and play with sand

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and I'm warming up to the idea

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that I'm going to have to dive in and work through this junk

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and I'm preparing myself and I'm testing if

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I'm brave enough and I'm talking myself into this

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and I know that it's coming. But right now I'm just not able to do that yet.

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But what I can do is come play with sand.

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What I can do is play heads up with you and

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that is still valuable and it's still what the child needs

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because what the child doesn't need is to be forced,

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coerced, bribed,

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convinced,

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you know, guided, directed. That's not what the children need in these cases.

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They need unconditional acceptance,

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they need whole child centeredness

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and eventually they'll go,

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ok, I'm ready to give this a shot.

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But until then

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just because they're not quote playing, which by the way,

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they are kinetic sand and heads up, they are playing.

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We need to reconstruct what we consider to be playful.

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But that aside,

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they, it doesn't mean that they're not

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playing and therefore not working.

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They're doing both

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and we have to reframe that in our own heads.

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And then finally,

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not really related to your specific question.

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But since you mentioned that the owner prefers to keep all the toys and bins,

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I just wanna make this as kind of a public service announcement to everyone out there

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because I'm sure there are lots and lots

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of you that don't have full autonomy over your

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spaces you don't have control over all of your toys or the way that they're set up or

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you know what, whatever your play rooms are not always your own.

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And I understand that

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the CCPT way

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is that toys are visible inviting and accessible.

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So, Katie,

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I understand the dilemma of not being able to necessarily

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create the playroom that you wish you could have.

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But I do encourage you to speak to the owner

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and help the owner understand

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why they need to be out, why they need to be visible, why they need to be accessible.

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It's really, really important that a child can see what they can play with

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because sometimes they don't know what they're going to play with.

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But when they look at something,

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it, they're drawn to it,

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they see it and it sparks a creative storyline or it sparks

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an imaginative play or it reminds them of something and they are,

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you know, they gravitate toward it.

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If it's in a bin,

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they have a whole different process,

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they actually have to go explore and you know what,

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sometimes kids don't have the wherewithal to explore

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if they're really burdened and heavy and stressed and emotional and overwhelmed.

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The last thing they wanna do is dig through bins.

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So just as a general rule,

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toys need to be visible accessible and

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inviting.

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So

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just be mindful as much as possible,

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keep things out

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and the less contained,

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the less put away, the less boxed, whatever, the better.

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So that's just my final thought.

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But

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I wanna give a little bit of encouragement for those of you going. Oh, no.

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You know, this is terrible. I'm not gonna be able to do that.

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And now that basically means that my playroom isn't effective.

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Don't do that to yourself. Let me give you a little bit of encouragement.

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The good news is kids don't know that it could be different.

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So it's not like they're comparing your playroom to the vast

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number of other playrooms they've been in. Right.

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So kids will make do with what they have to play with and how it's arranged.

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So they don't know that in my playroom,

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everything is out on shelves and visible to the naked eye.

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All right.

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So don't feel defeated or frustrated in some way that you can't

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have the play room that you want do as much as you can

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to make it as closely aligned with CCPT as possible. And then beyond that,

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it's ok and kids will work with what they have.

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They don't know any better, they don't know it could be different.

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So they're not pining away every day that they have to go through bins.

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They just think that that's how the playroom works.

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So it's ok in whatever state it is.

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But as much as you have control over that

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work to make it as child-centered as possible.

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All right, y'all, thank you for your time this week.

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Sorry that it was a little bit late. We had a very busy week and I'm a little bit behind.

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But thanks for your patience

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for those of you in the States. Happy Memorial Day. This is Memorial Day weekend.

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So I hope that you have a wonderful time

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and I look forward to being with you next week

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and again,

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check out the Collective if you're not already in there. it's an awesome place.

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If you're interested in the coaching program, there's a couple of spots left.

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playtherapypro.com. We'll get you information about that.

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All right, 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.