Through play, children discover the world around them and their feelings about it. Play is also how children communicate these often-complex feelings. This is what makes play therapy services such a powerful treatment. Pretending offers children the opportunity to “finally” be in charge and express what if feels like to be them.
Below are some more reasons why play therapy services are so effective.
Play Reveals the Child’s Emotional Life
Though the characters of the real world and play world may be different, the storylines tend to be the same. A young girl may walk into a San Diego therapy office, spot the plethora of toys, grab a stuffed horse and kitten, and make the horse hit the kitten repeatedly. All the while the kitten begs the horse to stop. While some adults might watch and perceive this young girl to be aggressive, a trained play therapist recognizes this child is revealing a world of pain. The pain of living in a home where one parent routinely abuses the other.
Feelings can overwhelm children. Add to this their lack of a developed vocabulary to express these feelings and you have a young person with pent up emotions and nowhere to put them. Play therapy services help children reveal their inner emotional world.
Play Therapy Services Explore Other Options
Children are instinctual and impulsive. They haven’t yet developed the ability to stop, reason, and determine the best courses of action.
Play therapy services allow young people to explore different options, behaviors, and ways of feeling and thinking about things. Through play, a child may learn, for example, that aggression isn’t the only reaction, or even the best reaction, to a particular situation they are facing in home or at school. Understanding this is an area the child needs to work on, the play therapist can assume a role or character. Then they can guide the dialogue and action of play toward a beneficial resolve and lesson.
Play Therapy Services Help Children Feel They Will Be Okay
Children are often sent to therapy because they have been acting out at home or at school. By helping them work through their complex emotions, as well as making them feel heard and respected, play therapy helps children feel safe and okay, which results in the development of acceptable social behavior.
If you feel play therapy services might be right for your child and would like to explore treatment options, please be in touch.
Start Play Therapy Services for Your Child in San Diego, CA
Play therapy services can help reveal your child’s emotional life, guide them in exploring different behaviors, give them comfort so they feel okay, and more. Family Connections Therapy is here for you if you want to start your child in play therapy. Our trained and caring play therapists will provide support for both you and your child. In order to get started follow these steps:
- Reach out to speak with a San Diego play therapist.
- Schedule your first appointment for your play therapy services
- Start watching them heal, grow, and thrive.
Other Services At Family Connections Therapy in California
There are a lot of counseling services offered at our San Diego-based therapy practice to support your mental health. Additionally, we offer children’s therapy, therapy for ADHD, and attachment and healthy development counseling. As well as LGBTQIA+ therapy for both children and teens and a social skills course. Our caring and understanding therapists also offer online therapy, family therapy, and couples therapy. While we provide individual therapy, depression treatment, and more for adults! Contact us to learn more about our therapy services!
