What is Play Therapy?
When a child is struggling, their behavior is often communicating a need. What may look like difficult, big, or extreme behavior can sometimes be a sign of nervous system dysregulation, anxiety, trauma, or difficulty processing emotions and experiences.
Viewing behavior through this lens allows us to approach children with empathy, validation, and curiosity rather than simply trying to change the behavior.
This is where play therapy can be especially helpful.
For children, play is a natural form of communication. Through child-centered play therapy, children can express experiences and emotions that may be difficult—or impossible—to put into words. Play gives the therapist a way to understand what a child may be experiencing while providing a safe environment for the child to process, develop coping skills, and work toward change.
What Is Play Therapy?
Children often communicate through play in ways that reflect the emotional experiences they are currently working through. Experiences that cannot be easily expressed verbally may instead show up through behavior, play themes, relationships, and emotional reactions.
During play therapy, children are given the opportunity to use toys, creativity, movement, and imagination to explore these experiences in a safe and supportive environment.
Children may choose toys or create play scenarios that help them recreate or work through difficult experiences. Over time, their play can evolve as they gain greater understanding, confidence, and a sense of empowerment around their emotions and experiences.
Play therapy can help children:
Communicate feelings and experiences
Develop emotional regulation and coping skills
Build self-esteem and resilience
Better understand their emotions and behaviors
Strengthen social and relational skills
Process trauma and difficult experiences
Develop problem-solving and decision-making skills
Build a greater sense of confidence and mastery
These benefits are reflected in what are known as the Therapeutic Powers of Play.
The Therapeutic Powers of Play
Facilitates Communication
Play becomes the child’s language and toys become their words. Play therapy helps therapists better understand a child’s internal world and communicate that understanding back to parents and caregivers.
Fosters Emotional Wellness
Children can safely express emotions through play while creating distance from experiences that may feel overwhelming. This can support emotional regulation and the development of healthy coping skills.
Enhances Social Relationships
The therapeutic relationship provides an opportunity to experience and model healthy attachment and relational patterns while strengthening social and emotional skills.
Promotes Self-Efficacy and Mastery
Play allows children to experience a sense of control, competence, and accomplishment. These experiences can support self-esteem and resilience.
Fosters Self-Understanding
Through play, children can begin to develop insight into their emotions and behaviors and make greater sense of their experiences.
Promotes Healing and Growth
Play therapy provides a safe way for children to process trauma, unresolved conflict, and difficult experiences while supporting healing and growth.
Increases Personal Strengths
Play encourages flexibility, creativity, cognitive development, problem-solving, cause-and-effect learning, and decision-making.
The Role of the Play Therapist
The therapist's role during play therapy is to support the child's process with grounded reflection and careful observation as the child leads us toward the places where they may feel “stuck.”
Through the therapeutic relationship and play, therapists help facilitate change within the child's emotional and nervous system experiences.
Play therapists observe themes in a child's play, their internal state, their ability to regulate emotions, and how they understand themselves and the world around them.
The therapist also provides parents and caregivers with insight into what they are seeing and helps families develop skills that can support the child's progress outside of therapy.
The Family's Role in Play Therapy
Parents and caregivers are an important part of a child's healing process.
Regular participation in therapy, collaboration with the therapist, and practicing recommended skills at home can help support a child's progress.
We encourage families to create space for children to express emotions—including difficult emotions—and to meet both the child and themselves with grace and compassion as the therapy process unfolds.
How Is Play Therapy Different From Playing at Home?
In many ways, the play you see in play therapy may look similar to the play you see at home.
The difference is the therapeutic environment and the purpose behind the play.
A play therapy environment provides children with opportunities to explore experiences and emotions in ways that may not be possible in everyday settings. With appropriate therapeutic boundaries, children can use play to express and process experiences that may otherwise feel difficult to communicate.
The therapist is there to observe, understand, and therapeutically respond to the child's play rather than simply directing or entertaining the child.
When Behavior Is Communicating a Need
The nervous system regulates many of the body's basic functions. When the body perceives a threat, the brain can shift into a protective state, making it more difficult to access the parts of the brain responsible for thinking, problem-solving, and emotional regulation.
The nervous system does not always distinguish between a real and perceived threat. When a child feels unsafe or overwhelmed, their body may respond with fight, flight, freeze, or other protective responses.
These responses can be influenced by past experiences and may show up through emotional, behavioral, or physical symptoms.
The good news is that children can learn ways to regulate their nervous systems and develop new coping strategies. Play therapy and other sensory-based therapeutic strategies can provide opportunities for children to build these skills in a safe, supportive environment.
Signs of Emotional Dysregulation in Children
Emotional dysregulation can look different from child to child. Some possible signs include:
Difficulty calming down after becoming upset
Negative thoughts about themselves or others
Emotional reactions that seem intense compared to the situation
Feeling out of control
Difficulty using coping skills
Feeling overwhelmed by emotions
Difficulty transitioning or adapting to changes
Sleep disruption
Stomachaches or headaches
Disordered eating
Behaviors that seem out of place for the environment
Risk-taking or other concerning behaviors
Substance use
Thoughts of suicide or self-harm
If you're concerned about your child's behavior or emotional well-being, you don't have to figure it out on your own. A mental health professional can help you understand what may be underneath the behavior and determine what type of support may be appropriate.
Play Therapy in Brookings, SD
At The Growth Collective, play therapy is one of the ways we support children as they work through emotions, relationships, difficult experiences, and big changes.
Our therapists provide a warm, welcoming environment where children can feel safe being themselves while parents and caregivers receive support along the way.
If you're looking for play therapy in Brookings, SD, or aren't sure whether play therapy is the right fit for your child, we're happy to help you determine where to start.
References
Wetterlund, M. A., LP, LMFT, RPT-S. (n.d.). Parents and Play. Watershed Psychological Services.
Peabody, M. A., & Schaefer, C. (2019). The Therapeutic Powers of Play: The Heart and Soul of Play Therapy. Play Therapy.
Porges, S. W. (2007). The Polyvagal Perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.06.009
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2015). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services (TIP 57). SAMHSA.
