Parents/Carers

Parents/Carers

For some children, it can feel impossible for them to identify when they find things difficult, as they try to manage their difficult feelings by ‘bottling it all up,’ while other children’s behaviour can be described as very ‘challenging’ or ‘explosive.’

Whether your child has internalized (withdrawn, quiet, lacks confidence) or externalized their behaviour (aggressive, confrontational, hyper-vigilant), all behaviour is communication. Play therapy can be a way of helping children to process and understand the feelings and emotions that drive their behaviour, which may be drawn from past traumatic experiences or maladaptive ways of responding to their emotional world. In addition, play therapy can help children to find healthier and more enriching ways of responding to the challenges of the world around them and equip them with an emotional awareness that will guide them through childhood to adolescence and then onto adulthood.

Click Here for a Parent & Carers guide to play therapy

Parents / Carers involvement within Play Therapy

At Symphysis, we focus on understanding a child’s behaviour and also helping parents and carers to understand it too so that they can learn how to help and respond to their child’s needs in a more therapeutic way.

At Symphysis, we value the relationship that you as parents and carers have with your children, as well as how vital these relationships are for children to begin addressing their difficulties. As part of our work within play therapy, we regularly invite parents/carers to meet with the therapist. This not only gives you the opportunity to regularly review the progress of play therapy but also provides parents/carers with a chance to discuss with the therapist the things they find difficult and to talk through strategies that may be used to approach the areas of the child’s behaviour that they find challenging. Although this is not a counselling session, parents can often find these meetings therapeutic in nature and an opportunity to explore and evaluate how they are responding to their children’s behaviour and whether it can be developed to reflect a more therapeutic approach.

Initial consultation

Symphysis offers a free half-hour consultation, which can either be held over the phone, via video conferencing (Microsoft Teams), or in the clinic. This gives you and the therapist some time to understand your child’s difficulties and decide together on the best course of action. The therapist will also be able to give you more information about fees and how they can be paid. Please remember, at this stage, there is no obligation to commit to your child attending therapy or any other service suggested by the clinician.

Next steps

If you decide that play therapy is the right support for your child and this is agreed upon by the clinician who conducted the initial consultation, then you should contact the therapist using the provided contact details. The therapist will invite you to attend a parent/carer and therapist meeting, where you will have the opportunity to discuss your child’s difficulties in more detail and ask any questions you may have about play therapy. This meeting between you and the therapist may last up to an hour and a half, depending on the complexities around your child’s behaviours.