Play Therapy and managing behaviour

Children are often taught strategies to manage their emotions and behaviour.  Sometimes this works well and at other times, the results are variable.

What may be happening is that strong, underlying emotions may be, for instance, (1) preventing the child from applying strategies they already know, (2) or may be preventing them from being receptive to behaviour management by adults.

Remember that when children are flooded by strong emotion, they become reactive (just like adults).  Their rational brains are not able to inhibit their emotional reactivity.

So many times, when children are having trouble behaving acceptably, it is also true that they do actually know how they should behave…..but, to the frustration of their parents and teachers, they just can’t manage it.

Play Therapy does not teach children how to use strategies to deal with their thoughts and emotions.  Instead, Play Therapy helps to clear the underlying emotions that may be preventing them from behaving appropriately and/or applying strategies they know.

With Play Therapy, children become more receptive to behaviour management.  They are more able to be use strategies to manage their emotions and behaviour since Play Therapy teaches children how to have more control over themselves through experiences in Play Therapy.