Working with Parents in Play Therapy: When Understanding Emotional Regulation Isn't Enough
Understanding regulation is one thing. Knowing how to use that understanding when a child is struggling is another.
So I’ve been thinking about working with parents in play therapy. We liaise with them at mid-point. And I remember on the play therapy course, it was difficult to comprehend that actually, we could tell parents very little about their child’s experiences in play therapy due to confidentiality. And I remember everyone on my course having a chat almost about “well whats the point of this meeting?!”
But having done this for several years now, I've realised these meetings don't have to be about reporting what's happening in the child's sessions.
They can be an opportunity for parents to share their experiences, ask questions and explore what might help at home. It’s actually an opportunity for the parent to ‘pick our brains’ and to tell us their experiences.
They might tell us things that are going on at home “it takes them forever to get their shoes on in a morning, they never listen, she hides away in her room and I can’t get her to move, he’s constantly throwing things around the house”.
And in our therapeutic way, we sit and listen. We take it all in. But we have this knowledge and the parents want to know – what can I do at home?
And we tell them. We might explain to a parent that a child becomes overwhelmed when their nervous system detects threat (even if the ‘threat’ seems minor) and how they need to regulate their nervous system by connecting first.
The parent understands.
But when their child refuses to put their shoes on the next morning, that explanation might feel a million miles away.
And then, the following week, you hear:
"We've tried everything, but he just won't calm down."
Or perhaps:
"She knows what she's supposed to do. We've talked about it so many times!"
And I get it. I really do.
Because understanding something when we're sitting calmly, having a conversation, is very different from remembering that understanding when we're trying to get three children out of the house at 8:30 in the morning!
But what does the parent actually do with that information when things start going wrong at 8:30 the following morning?
The parent sees the refusal and shouting in the morning, the teacher sees the same child struggling in the noisy dinner hall. From the outside, these situations can look like defiance, frustration or a child simply choosing not to listen.
And when we're in the middle of them ourselves, it's not always easy to remember everything we know about emotional regulation.
Knowing the theory doesn't automatically mean we can recognise what's happening in the moment.
So where do we fit in as Play Therapists?
This is something I keep coming back to.
As Play Therapists, we spend so much time helping children explore their experiences through play, creativity, metaphor and relationship.
But we also have opportunities, within the boundaries of our role, to help the important adults around them develop a better understanding of children's emotions and behaviour.
And I'm not talking about turning parents and teachers into therapists.
Goodness knows they've got enough on their plates already!
Nor am I suggesting we share what a child has said, played out or explored in their therapy sessions. Their therapeutic space needs to remain protected.
What if we helped the adults around a child understand some of the same therapeutic concepts, using language that's actually useful in their everyday lives?
Because sometimes I think we can spend a lot of time explaining why something happens, without giving people a way of recognising it when it does.
What if everyone understood the same language?
Take the Guard Dog metaphor I use when helping children understand their brain.
The Guard Dog represents the part of our brain that's always looking out for possible danger. Sometimes he's really helpful. Other times, he gets a little overprotective and starts barking when things feel overwhelming.
He’s always ‘sniffing around’, just like my Cocker Spaniel when I take him for a walk! And just like my Cocker Spaniel, Beau - yes this is him right here!
We need to make sure we look after our Guard Dogs all the time and not just when they’ve barking loudly.
But most importantly, we need to learn what our Guard Dog likes and doesn’t like. Some love a tickle behind the ears or talking to with love. Others just want a treat and a good stretch!
For a child, having a Guard Dog can offer a way of making sense of something that's otherwise quite difficult to explain. We can explore how they notice when their Guard Dog is getting a little louder and what they need to settle.
But imagine if their parent understood the Guard Dog too.
Instead of another conversation about "Why are you getting so angry?", there might be an opportunity, when the moment is right, to say:
"I wonder if your Guard Dog is finding this a bit much today?"
Not only does this make it an easy language for everyone. But it does another very important thing that I haven’t talked about yet.
And perhaps one of the most important things it can do is help reduce shame.
Instead of thinking “I'm a bad child because I get angry”, they may begin to think “Something is happening inside me, and I can learn to understand it.””. They start to translate this to “My Guard Dog is getting on high alert, he needs to have some space”.
And it removes the self-blame and shame.
Now, this ideas isn’t a magic wand. Unfortunately, we don’t live at Hogwarts! But it does give everyone something familiar to work from.
A shared understanding. A shared language.
Not just knowing what emotional regulation is, but beginning to recognise it and respond to it in ways that make sense to the child.
And of course, the language needs to be meaningful to the individual child. Not every child will relate to a Guard Dog, and we shouldn't expect them to. Sometimes a different metaphor, image or phrase will make much more sense.
For example, one little boy drew his Guard Dog for me in a session but then decided that when his Guard Dog barks loudly, he turns into Godzilla! And we needed to work out what Godzilla needed to take him back to dog form.
It was different. But it was his idea. His metaphor.
And now a shared language between him and his teaching assistant and parent.
And imagine how useful that can be for the teaching assistant who's supporting him through a tricky moment in the classroom. They don't need to know what happened in his therapy sessions. But, where it's appropriate and agreed, they can understand what Godzilla represents and begin to recognise what might help when he appears.
So perhaps the next time you're having a conversation with a parent or teacher, rather than starting with another explanation of emotional regulation, you could begin by exploring what overwhelm actually looks like for that child. What do the adults notice?
What might the child be experiencing? And is there a simple phrase, image or metaphor that might help them make sense of it together?
It doesn't have to be complicated. Sometimes one familiar idea is a really good place to start.
Want to try using shared language in your own practice?
I've created a free Conversations About the Brain Starter Kit to show how one simple brain metaphor can be explored with children and shared appropriately with parents, carers and school staff.
It's a practical starting point if you're thinking about how to help therapeutic understanding travel beyond the therapy room.
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