Ask Dr. Barb: What is Play Therapy?

• Helps kids feel better (& grown-ups, too!)
• Improves self-esteem
• Teaches coping skills
• Fosters feeling expression
• Promotes socially appropriate behaviors
• Teaches creative problem-solving]

Dear Parents & Colleagues,

As adults, sometimes we have certain feelings inside… and we just don’t have the words to express them.

Sometimes, we have certain feelings inside that we don’t even want to face… and they interfere with our lives in unpleasant ways.

For our children, who have less sophisticated language skills, less mature developmental capacities, and less life experiences from which to draw wisdom, expressing feelings about internal conflicts is much more difficult.

This is why play therapy is so effective with children… it is their language!

It also provides an avenue for the play therapist to help parents better understand their children and learn more effective parenting strategies.

After all, we adults want to provide the best child rearing we can by loving our children, giving them structure, allowing them to learn from their mistakes, and guiding them to become capable, responsible citizens with good self-esteem.