Hands on Learning: Play Therapy for Children

Young minds are just beginning to develop executive functioning skills, and talking with a child doesn’t always plant a seed of understanding and reasoning. When you ask a child to create something you are sparking the child’s right side of the brain. All children are skillful with their right side of the brain, and you are entering their dominant form of communication. You are then setting the stage for more retention and more collaboration.

Through my years of working with children the best learning approach is  “playing with a purpose”.

Playing with a purpose is simply having intentions linked with your child’s interests and strengths. Of course, this comes from a child-centred and attunement lens. But once the child feels welcomed and interested, they become empowered. Creations have meaning because it’s loaded with intent and mindful actions. It’s natural for children to be creative, expressive, emotional, messy and playful!

Creative play can help children find their understanding of anxiety and be comfortable to play with its mixed bag of feelings.

Anxiety can be a painful part in all of us and things get easier once you get to know it very well. Sometimes in order to get close to something you need to literally ‘dance around’, and dip your toes in before you know what you’re dealing with. Playing with a purpose can do just that.

 

 

Jennifer Povoledo RSW, CCC
Jennifer is a Child and Family Counsellor specializing in working with children and youth and providing parent coaching. She proudly works and humbly lives on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx Nation and peoples, where she has resided for the last nine years. With a wealth of knowledge about early years, preteen, and teen parenting, Jennifer is also a parent herself and aims to live a simple, beautiful life.

Monarch Child and Family Counselling
Penticton, BC
(250) 550-1101
monarchchildandfamily@gmail.com
www.monarchcounselling.org

 

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