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In this video you will find information about what play therapy is and how this form of psychotherapy can benefit children. I also describe some of the elements that can be included in a playroom and some examples of how play therapy can become a healing avenue that can alleviate the problems that bring children to therapy.

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This video includes playful strategies that you can use to help children cooperate with you. You will have the opportunity to learn different ways to incorporate play in your life with children so that daily activities can be full of joy and free of power struggles. You will also be able to watch demonstrations of some of the strategies.

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In this video you will find information about strategies to help children calm down when they are experiencing an intense emotion, such as anger or frustration. You will learn about an empathetic model that promotes the acceptance and validation of the child’s feelings while also providing guidance and redirecting the child’s behavior.

References

1. “No-Drama Discipline” (Siegel & Payne Bryson, 2015): https://amzn.to/3rhapu2

2. “Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child” (Gottman, 1998): https://amzn.to/3K1s2Xc

3. “Emotional Agility” (David, 2016): https://amzn.to/3K5lxCA

4. “What I’m Feeling Is Ok” (Shiff, 2021): https://amzn.to/3r8Ugqq

5. “When Sadness Is At Your Door” (Eland, 2019): https://amzn.to/3K6UkQe

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This video is part of the series “Developing Self-regulation Skills”. In this video I will talk about the importance of helping children name their emotions, and how this helps integrate both sides of the brain in order to develop a more self-regulated response. I will describe how to use “The Color Monster” book and game from the author Anna Llenas to help children learn about feelings, and different free printables that you can use to explore the content of the book and to help children learn more about emotions.

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In this video you will find playful activities to encourage children to practice gratitude. It also includes some information about research that has shown the benefits of practicing gratitude, including how this impacts joyfulness in people’s lives. At the end, you will find a short video clip demonstrating one of the activities.

PLAYFUL ACTIVITIES TO TEACH CHILDREN ABOUT GRATITUDE:

1. Choose a rock that you can call “The Magic Rock” and have the children say something that they are grateful for at the end of each day. This can be something that you do at the dinner table. You can word the question in several ways:
   1. What is something that happened today that you are grateful for?
   2. What was the best thing about your day that made you feel grateful?

2. Make a Gratitude Wheel with your children: For younger children, you can use this printable where children name things that they feel grateful for in different areas of their life. You can have them put toys that represent those things that they are grateful for or you can just use the wheel to assist the children in thinking and sharing. And for older children and teens, you can make an art project where they include all these elements inside a circle. Whether you are a professional working with children or a parent or family member, this can be an activity that helps in identifying positive things in the child’s life. If the child is going through a hard time emotionally for whatever reason or if they are low income, this can be a great opportunity to identify things that money can’t buy and that are important or it can also be eye-opening to the child to see that there are things to be grateful for even in the midst of a hard time or a lack of wealth. If they can’t find anything that they are grateful for, then it could be a good opportunity to help the child express how they are hurting and accompanying them in their pain.

3. Play “The Thanksgiving Game”: I created this game to help my children learn about the feeling of gratitude and I have updated it this year to make it more reflective. You give each person a few charms or it can be game chips, and you put a set of charms or chips next to the turkey found on the board game (I bought a separate turkey but you definitely don’t have to do that). Each person takes a turn rolling the die, moving through the board game and drawing a card to talk about different things that they are grateful for. Each person gets a charm or chip each time they answer a question. The winner is the one who makes it first to the finish star. If the game goes too fast, you can play it again as many times as you would like. I included things in the game cards that are related to hugging and giving kisses but you can leave those out depending on what is appropriate in your context. So definitely go through the cards and choose the ones you want to include.

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