Episode 150: How to Enjoy Play More with Sarah Scott Dooling
/We are nearing the end of my 30 Days of Play Challenge. And with that, I would like to thank those who have joined. I want you to know that I am proud of everyone who put in the work to know more about their children through play and made the effort to make independent play better. I am also proud of every parent in this community who committed to becoming balanced.
Alright, now for this week on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to talk about how to enjoy play more, not just with our kids but for ourselves too! We are so focused on parenthood and other responsibilities that sometimes we forget to have fun. And so, to help me in this conversation, I have invited Sarah Dooling.
Sarah is a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor. She provides supervision and consultation to clinicians who work with children and maintains a small private practice. She also created the Kinship Club, an online membership community where clinicians can learn and experience comfort, connection, and FUN. As the creator of the Parenting Power Hour, a program that harnesses kid wisdom, she explores the restorative powers of play and offers doses of comfort and kinship to parents navigating life in the trenches. Co-experiencing joy, delight, and curiosity with like-minded & like-hearted kid therapists nourish her in the best way.
She will help us learn
Play Therapy: What it is, what makes it different from talk therapy, and when to know your family or kiddo could benefit from a play therapist
Understanding why it's hard for us to enjoy playing with our kids
Deepening connection: How playing less but in a deeper way can help us enjoy "play" more
To connect with Sarah, follow her on Instagram @healwithplay and visit her website www.sarahscottdooling.com.
RESOURCES:
Association for Play Therapy - promote the value of play, play therapy, and credentialed play therapists and advance the psychosocial development and mental health of all people through play (this is a good place to find play therapists when you need them)
GoodTherapy - is another place where you can find therapists and counselors, rehab and residential treatment centers, and mental health resources
Playful Healing - a program that will help you build deeper connections with your child through play and help them process big feelings during hard times
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody! Welcome back to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. We are in the midst of our 30 Days of Play Challenge and I'm so excited to have our guest on today. We're gonna be talking about how to enjoy play more, not just with our kids but for ourselves too. To help me with this conversation I'm inviting in Sarah Dooling. She has her master's degree in social work and she is a registered play therapist. Sarah, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here.
Sarah: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've been so looking forward to this chat.
Laura: Yes, me too. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Sarah: Oh my God, I'm always like flooded with nervousness when I hear that question and then once I start, I'm like, oh, this feels great, right? Like in the therapy world we don't, we don't talk about ourselves a lot. Hello, I am Sarah, I am yes, I'm a licensed social worker. I currently reside in massachusetts but had been in California for many years. So I held an active license in both states, so still have this awesome chance to work with people in both states, which is lovely. I always say first and foremost I'm, I was a school social worker for 14 years and that I really feel like working in that community with parents and school personnel and kids and is one of my most favorite things is to be on a school campus and just to see the way all those systems interact.
Families and schools, classrooms. Yeah. And then I noticed when I was working at school, it seems like kids don't get to play that much. I started to notice we gave them a lot. Yes, but in their long school days, they had 20 minutes of recess and even then a lot of times it was structured. I have this memory that stands out of kids playing jump rope and making up this song. That was lovely and a teacher, a great teacher coming up and saying, let's teach them another way to play this. And I just remember thinking, wow, even people with the best intentions were really looking to like micromanaged. Kids play a lot.
Anyhow, that led me to discover really the field of play therapy in the field of play and how rich and robust it was to learn about play. So I guess kind of did all the requisite credentials and things like that and yeah, I get to kind of make plays my work now. So I work with kids in play therapy. I work with people who are working on becoming play therapist. I love love, love getting to spend time with parents coaching, supporting. Yeah. So I do a little bit of all of that now. But hopefully that answers your question.
Laura: Oh yeah, for sure, Sarah and you know, I didn't prep you for this. So I hope that that's okay. But I just felt a hit like that, you know, I think lots of our listeners at some point or another are going to consider and think about like does my kid or does my family need play therapy? And so can I ask a couple of those questions before we dive into like the play content just because I feel like that's such a you know, we have you here and so it's such a hard thing to know too. What are some of the things that would let you know that your child could benefit from a play therapist or that your family could benefit from a play therapist?
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Okay, so of course I'm biased because I am a quite therapist. But I would say, you know, you know, it's such a hard time answering these broad questions right in the mental health world. But I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna give it my best. I would say if you feel that your child is would benefit from is, in need of therapy and I can talk more about, you know, a variety of reasons. Absolutely. It should be a play therapist. Are my thoughts, is that it should be someone if your child is 12 or under and that's of course biased. Still play therapists and you know. A hundred and fifty additional hours learning about play and working under someone who's trained as a play therapist supervisor. So to me that just, it just makes sense developmentally.
Laura: What's the difference between talk therapy and play therapy? And why would it be better especially for kids 12 and under?
Sarah: We are really getting into it now.
Laura: Let's do it. I feel like this might be a separate episode. I don't know, but we're doing it. Yeah.
Sarah: Okay,we make two. So the difference is everything I think. So sometimes when I'm talking about initially with parents or you know, newer therapist or school personnel. I'll say like if I was, if I was in the airport and I was, you know, my daughter was a six, a newly six year old daughter, but, and I had like a 50 pound bag we were taking, I wouldn't ask my child to carry it for me. It's just not appropriate. Right? Like we just wouldn't think of it. So to me, when I hear that question ever of like we'll just sit and have them talk in therapy, like it just isn't developmentally appropriate, right? Like the way your brain grows, right? The prefrontal cortex, it's all the stuff, you know, and I know like a tiny, tiny bit about it.
I'm certainly not like a neuroscience person, but you know, to me asking a child to go into a room and talk about what is causing distress, pain, suffering is maybe also I'm going to really just like dive into like analogies and metaphors here as much. Then we'll keep mixing them in it. If I was seeing someone as an adult in therapy and I asked them to come into my room and they start with my preferred language is spanish. And I said, well, I'm sorry, I'm gonna speak to you in english, like I would never do that. We wouldn't dream of that. It's just, it's not appropriate. It's not the language they prefer.
And so play, you know, we say it's a child's first language from the time they're so little right? If you can all remember when her baby's discovered peekaboo and right? Even before then right there they're playing. That's how they come into the world. And that's how they communicate with us, right? If we have a child who recently, you know, witnessed a car accident, like we would be sure we had played cards out and things right, that they could choose to kind of play out and show us how they as adults. What we do is we might go in and want to talk through it. And…
Laura: What's so abstract? Right? So talk, like talk therapy is so abstract. You know, like meta cognitive process where you're talking about, you're thinking. You're talking about your cognition and children just don't have access to that type of processing. They don't, it's too abstract for them abstract thought kind of really comes online around 13 is when we start seeing it come. And so it makes complete sense that you said 12 and under should be going to play therapy just because they need a more concrete opportunity for processing. And that's what play is right? In the form of play therapist too.
I mean this is I know it's so much fun and it makes so much sense, right? So, I hear that you're saying if you're thinking your child needs a therapist might need some support, mental health support, And they're 12 and under definitely seek out a play therapist. And I feel like I have to kind of follow up questions to that. One is how do we go about finding the right play therapist? And one hopefully that's covered by insurance. And then the other question is, Okay. So just in general, how do we know it's time for our kids to get more support? What is that moment in time where we're like, okay, I think it's time to start calling around trying to find someone for that?
Sarah: Gosh, million dollar questions here. But yeah, let's do it. Your part one is I was making that face. I know people can't see faces in the podcast, but they're like, oh, it's so hard right now with managed care and insurance, Right? Like I feel that and I know, you know, more and more therapists are accepting insurance and so I just, I recognize there's a lot of stress that comes with that. So if you, I don't know if there's a way we could link it somehow for your listeners. But in the Association for Play Therapy, it's A4pt.org. That to me is the best website to go to. You can put in your zip code and they will, they kind of track all of us who are right.
Laura: Okay. It's a A4. Like the letter four, sorry, the number four, A4pt.org. Okay. I’ll make sure it's in the show notes.
Sarah: Yes. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So they have like a pretty user friendly site and you can pop in and see who's in your area. It's not like stature cities are saturated with play therapist. So, that's also a challenge. I think the way to find out, you know, should you be calling around just like finding an adult therapist, right, is calling a few and really noticing how you feel on the phone and that consultation. Right. Do you feel safe? You feel connected? But yes. And okay.
There's also a wonderful therapist out there who are not officially registered by therapist. I should say there are lots of therapists who are beyond the journey to becoming a registered play therapist. I see many of them for supervision and they're brilliant and wonderful. So the ideal I would say is seeing someone who's a registered play therapist. But certainly, you know, if you're shopping around, I love goodtherapy.org is my favorite site. I think they do that.
Laura: I think they have the best.
Sarah: Yes. No, not review so much. But like if you're searching in your zip code in your area, I prefer it to psychology today for lots of reasons. So if you're looking around and then I think, they allow you to. Therapists can share more about themselves. You can really get a feel for the therapist. So you'll find people on there who will say they work with kids and I would say of course, call them to be curious. Do you… have you.. Do use play therapy in your work. I would ask if you're looking for a therapist for your child. I would absolutely encourage you to ask that question. Hopefully that's helpful.
Laura: Yeah. And I just want to mention to you that I know that for folks who aren't in the therapy world, the letters behind names can be confusing, but they're…
Sarah: So confusing.
Laura: So there's a lot of like there's a variety of people with certain degrees who can go on and become place therapist. So you might find someone with, I see staff has licensed clinical social worker, a licensed clinical psychologist, licensed clinical or licensed counselor, licensed psychologist and a licensed american family therapist and LMFT. And so there's a variety of letters behind names for people who can go and get a kind of a certification in play therapy. Okay. Okay. And so then now the big question of what is it enough of a red flag? What is enough of a struggle? I know how I would answer this question, but I’m just curious.
Sarah: Oh gosh, now I feel like there's a right answer because I think you're so smart and you're gonna know the right answer and that
Laura: There isn’t really a right answer, but there isn't, it's really not the right answer.
Sarah: There isn't really a right answer, everybody. There never is, right? When it comes to our kids, especially. I mean the first thing that comes to mind, as you asked, it was always found in all of my work and in my personal life, parents know their child the best. You know your child better than anyone else. Sometimes I think we have a gut feeling and we need to listen to that. So I would just put that out there right. Like maybe there's not a measurable or quantifiable experience, but you're like a consultation with a therapist and initial session doesn't mean you're locked in, you know, to any kind of long term treatment. I would say if it's impacting functioning right? Like if it's impacting function, if you, if your child is having a really difficult time isn't able to go to school, you know, sleeping deeply impacted. Of course you're also maybe consulting with the pediatrician, but I would say like the, is it impacting family functioning in a way that's causing significant distress that's like so ambiguous, I recognize, but also like each family unit, I think just knows their unit the best. Tell me what you would say.
Laura: No, no, I completely agree with you. And then the only thing I would add is that when it comes down to it, you know, what would be so wrong with your child having positive experiences with a mental health professional early on? You know, most of us grow up and end up needing to go to therapy at some point in our lives or another, and there's barriers to that in stigma. And wouldn't it be so lovely if we raised a generation of kids without that stigma who didn't already have it by the time they were 10.
Because, you know, they went through a hard time transitioning and had access to support, you know? And I mean, and during a particular time in their lives, you know, like it just, I think it could go, I think that there's just, you know, there's this… I think that in the world of folks who aren't in therapy and even some of us who are therapists, because I know I've actually been caught up in that kind of that thing. Well, it's not bad enough to go to, you know, I've had that thought before and I know the truth, you know? You're having that thought, that probably is an indication that it actually is time.
Sarah: Yeah, that's beautifully said, and, you know, it's just what popped into my mind, as you said, it was this reminder that we are all, well not even coming off of still kind of living through, especially in these winter months, the effects of the global pandemic, you know? Our nervous systems have been hyper aroused for years at this point. Our kids are and have been deeply impacted by that, you know, from the top of their head to the tips of their toes, you know, like mind body spirit, all of it. So I absolutely, yes, I think this is the time where it's hard to think of yes, how it wouldn't benefit, you know, I think especially in play therapy, the focus just yes, on emotional literacy, right?
Like, yes, we wouldn't it be great to just have a generation of kids who can talk about their feelings and you know, it kind of expressed some of what they've been living through. You know, they've been witnessing the adults in their lives also be really unsettled and scared at times and I think that's really left them shook. And that will manifest in different ways. So I love that. And I think we played especially another plug or just all gifted child therapist is you will be such a part of that, you know, adventure that it isn't like your kid goes in the office, the door closes, they come out 15 minutes later and you're really not sure what happened. Like find a therapist who wants, like you are the most important intervention as a parent, you know, find a therapist who you feel really good with and who, you know, you're such an important collaborator in there.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely something that I teach in my, my program playful healing is that ultimately parents are very well positioned to provide a lot of healing opportunity for play, like a lot of healing play for their kids. They have something already built. They have a relationship and attachment relationship with the child that's already there. And as the prime context for healing. Parents have just a lot of power. Yes in that way. Yes I love that about when play therapists involved families. It's so important.
Sarah: Yes and if you're not involved you can ask to be more involved. You are a vital part of that experience.
Laura: Absolutely. Okay so after that detour Sarah I appreciate you kind of going there with me…
Sarah: I like doing that together.
Laura: Well, so I do want to, I'm kind of what we were thinking about talking about today then it was about kind of enjoying play. And so I think that there, I hear from a lot of people that they just don't like playing with their kids. That it's mind numbingly boring that it's just not enjoyable. They have things they'd rather do if they were gonna sit and relax. It would not their idea of a fun time would not to be played with their kids. And I feel like I would love to just dig into that. Like why do you think that is? Why is it so hard for some of us to really enjoy playing with our kids? And I also I also feel like anyway go ahead we'll go we'll maybe go a different direction in a second. My ADHD brain is bouncing around right now.
Sarah: It's hard and it's hard not to when play comes up. Okay. Yes oh my goodness I just want to really empathize with that. I know you, I was sharing with you earlier when we were talking that I have all the stream and guilt I carry because I, you know like endorse play and promote it and it's you know my instagram account to deal with play. And my six year old still wants to play with me at the end of my work day when all I've done is talk about how important play is. And I can feel myself like irritated and like not wanting to, right? And like this is what I do. So yes I feel this, I do. Part of it is you if you're listening to this and you're a parent, a caregiver you're exhausted like your bones are tired, brain is tired. Like think of what you've lived through the last few years, you know you're working your caregiving full time but whatever it is, you're exhausted.
Laura: So many roles, so many roles that were carrying and juggling right?
Sarah: Exhausted doesn't do it justice right? So then yeah and then it's time maybe you've worked 10 hour, you know our work day, we're all working too many hours a day and you sit down and your kid is you know making you full of like pretend pasta and hands it to you like an actual memory I have and you're like pretend to take a bite and you're like oh that's delicious right? And your kids like, no, it's hot, it burns you and you're like, oh, I can't get anything right. It's like, this happens a lot too. Is your kids are correcting your right? Like you're not playing like to play and I would love it if we can tag that goes back to at some point cause there's like some really easy tricks to work with that. But I think after a long workday and just like this huge level of exhaustion that's frustrating, right? And that's hard. You can't even get that right, right? You've been giving all day. There's so many reasons that.
Laura: Yeah, well, so the, we, I actually covered a lot of that piece of it in the episode that will come out right before. So if you missed that episode, go back and listen to it because it is a big learning how to play in a way that's enjoyable for your kids will actually make things more enjoyable for you because we don't like being corrected all the time. And what's beautiful that is, if you're playing in the right way, you can just release any of that and they'll just tell you exactly what to play and it's so much easier, right? I do dig into kind of the tracking and reflective listening and stuff in that episode.
Yeah, yeah, I want to just highlight this kind of this shame and go, I want to like pull it out there because I think people get the idea that there are some people who are just good at playing and who just like it and then there's some people who aren't and I don't think that that's necessarily true. So when I was a babysitter, you know as a teenager, when I was an aunt before I was a mom myself, I loved playing with kids. I also had way less responsibility, way less attachment to the person I was playing with, way way less response, perceived responsibility for that those beings happiness, you know and you know there was no social pressure like if the kid I was babysitting had a tantrum.
No one was gonna lay me for it or you know look down on me, there's just there's just so much less on us before we become parents, you know what I mean? And then there's also this like there's just this social pressure out there that we are supposed to just love playing with our kids and play with them a lot and I think that that's really new. I'm kind of curious Sarah, do you remember playing with your family? Like your family growing up, remember like playing with you?
Sarah: Oh that just gave me like a wave of some kind of feeling. I'm not sure how to name it. It felt something there. Funny. The memory that's popping into my mind as you asked that, is that my dad would take my sisters and I, there's three of us up to the high school in our small town where all the busses were parked and just like left open and just let us like run on the busses, like wild people, which of course is like so much liability, right?
Laura: I loved that though.
Sarah: They're great memories, right? But now to me as a mom, it makes so much sense that like at the end of the day, my mom was like, hey come, you know, I can conceptualize it differently. So that memory stands out. I think early early childhood memories, but I had an older one sibling I was really, really close with. So no, most of my memories are my sister and I have an only child which someday if we could ever, I would love to like the pressure of playing if you haven't only anymore. I don't mean to at all. You know?
Laura: It definitely is. My friends who have only like the pandemic was living a nightmare for them.
Sarah: Yes. And how you, like how do I how do I teach independent play? Right? Only child anyway, another another time. But no, so I have great childhood memories. But no, I do not have and I hope my parents don't listen to this. You know, massive amounts of memories of this like super engaged play. And I had a great childhood.
Laura: Yeah. So where do you think that this pressure comes from for us to play with our kids so much?
Sarah: Oh my goodness, what a great question, because we do. I feel it all the time. I mean, I don't know if it's within the I don't know what would that be so curious if your listeners were able to like jump in and share here. But I think as someone in the field, if there's a ton of it, so I think as in like if you're in the childhood, early childhood world. I don't know that we shame each other. I think we try to support, but it's there like it's like I know too much, like I know how helpful play is and I'm like, great now, I know she really needs it. So I gotta keep doing it.
Laura: I know, like the ignorance is bliss kind of thing that, I think that if you are in any realm, like if you're attempting to improve your parenting at all. One of the very first earliest interventions that any parenting coach or educator out there is teaching you is to play with your kids. And of course that's wise because play is where connection happens places. Where emotionally processing happens, places where kids feel seen and heard and valued. Of course play is valuable. But I do, I agree there's a lot of pressure to be playing with their kids and I'm kind of curious about as a play expert, what is your like, do we need to be playing with our kids all the time?
Sarah: No, because we know I don't believe, right, parents are the most important intervention in the child, you know, healing and growth and development. Parents need to have their oxygen mask on first. Right? So parents, and if there's this massive amount of pressure to be playing all day and not rest. I know that there's so little resting happen, but not restore and not space out. Maybe looking at your phone for a few minutes, right? Or whatever it takes that's going to impact your ability to show up. So I, I think as a child therapist, I would certainly rather and I know we're looking to a different direction with you, but like I try to work with parents on like a robust shorter amount of time.
Could we commit to like a 10 minutes? Where you're just all in because you were just like killing that bank account in a different way. So it doesn't have to be. And I think to work on some sound bites that you can use when your child asks because I think it pushes, pushes such a button for me, right? When I hear those sweet words like, will you play with me right? And it just stirs up so much like of course I want to and oh my gosh, like am I ruining her if I don't, but I really want to get dinner done and so like how to lie spot that. You know, take a breath. Like some ideas of what you could say that are, you know, like restorative and supportive of your child. Anyways, the answer is no. I do not think we need to be and I need to hear that advice because I also am a victim of putting that pressure on myself.
Laura: Okay, so listener, dear listener, you have to play experts in your ears right now, telling you, you actually don't need to play more with your kids. In fact, we're advocating spending less time playing with your kids, but making that play time that you do spend with your kids really deeply nourishing to your relationship and to their mental health and their emotional health and their physical health too. You're roughhousing, it's good, right? So, we're advocating is that you not play more, but you play deeper, smarter, better in a way that's really restorative to them.
Sarah: I love that. Yes.
Laura: Okay. And so those are I think that those are things that we've talked about elsewhere, how to do that? But I wanna talk about for a second, why this idea of playing less, but in a deeper way, can actually help you enjoy it more. Why do you think it could ? Can you see it helping you enjoy those 10 minutes more? Why? Why would it be more enjoyable from your perspective?
Sarah: I mean, initially, I think it's like, you know, going into it. So, if you have, you know, a visual timer, however you're doing it, it's contained right. It's not like how am I going about this? It's like, I know that it's this amount of time, but I just think there's like relief that comes in knowing that I also think the same way, I think this is just as human that's based on no research, strictly anecdotal, that like we can get into a place, we see kids do it all the time and we try to pull them out of it, right? Like you've seen your kid and I don't know, like take a minute here, hopefully you can call upon this if you're listening, like when your kid is in the zone.
Laura: Hopefully they've seen it a lot because that's what they're doing this play challenge. So hopefully they've seen that zone a lot with their kids.
Sarah: So they're in that zone, right? And so we try to really like, okay, we have to go right now. Yes, I think we can get in that zone with them so we can get into it. And so I think it becomes enjoyable because, you know, like I'm dipping into this and I'm staying in it, you know, for this many minutes, it's not that like one foot in one foot out, right? That often, like, yes, like your phone is not there, nothing there. And so it's it's so hard to get into that zone with all that distraction and I felt myself doing it this morning and my daughter was so happy. We were looking at this book and I just kept checking my phone.
My sister called me back yet has this right? Until like, so I had to like move it physically and I knew like, okay, this is like a 15 minute dose that we're doing right now. I had to remove it, but it was like one foot in, one foot out. So if you know, you're just diving in with both feet, you know, it's contained in that way. I think there's some awesome inner child stuff comes up, especially if you're using the skills that you had talked about right of like, I don't have to guide this. I don't have to leave this. I'm just a participant. My child is the director.
Laura: Yeah, Yeah. And I think too, if we come from that place of, okay, so we've minimized distractions. Our goal here is not to entertain our child, but to connect with our child. So we're gonna come and come in with full presence. And then coming from that place of really like marveling at them or really understanding, like I'm going to get to know something new about them right now kind of bringing that beginner's mind to the way we're going to be with them.
That curiosity that just that delight, that kind of reveling in them. That makes it so much more fun and that like that, learning to delight to savor. That's a skill you can learn, right? That's a cognitive perspective you can put on with effort, you know, it's not something that people are just naturally good at it. I mean, I think some people are more naturally inclined to that, but it's definitely a skill you can practice, right? Yeah.
Sarah: I think yeah, if you’re naturally good at, if you, if you receive it like if you're an adult who received it as a child, like all the way through, right? But that's just not the case for all of us. But yes, I absolutely believe, Yes, we can learn to do that. Just I love delighting in them. Yes. What that feels like as an adult? I feel like someone who delights in you or that you just light up the room the whole time you're with them? Yes.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Short first. Yes. So I feel like there's a few things I don't know about you, but there's a few things that when I'm struggling to kind of get into that mindset with my kids that I do, that allows me to kind of drop into that space. Is there anything that you do as a therapist that helps you like, you know, because we face that we have to kind of shift to a new client and are there things you do in your head to kind of get you there?
Sarah: With my child, not with client?
Laura: With your child or with a client, whatever, you know?
Sarah: Yes, clients thinking about them before leading up to it. So like, really, I think I heard speak about this on a podcast, like the brilliant about like just really spending time thinking about and picturing like how does it feel to be with this person? So you can, with your child.
Laura: … with your child too. You can be thinking about, okay, so today we're gonna have, you know, my kids on their way home from school, the other parent is bringing them home there. And when they get home, we're gonna sit down and have our special playtime and just be thinking about them. What were they doing all day today when they get home? I'm gonna see their little smile, you know, really like kind of preparing yourself for their presence.
Sarah: Yeah, I love the way you translated it to our kids. I'm gonna use that. Yes, I do it so often with work. Yeah. So just, yeah, exactly. Like kind of daydreaming, I think I have a couple of answers for this, but more is starting to notice what type of play helps you come alive a little more as like a parent and a caregiver because there's certain things that my daughter picks. I'm like, like puzzles just aren't my thing. I mean, I'll do, I'll do it because it's great for executive function, right? And I see all the benefits, but it doesn't, but like last night her grandparents brought her the old old muppet dolls.
I was like, oh, you couldn't, they couldn't see them anyway, but that they, that my husband had had from when he was a kid. I know there's like, right? Like it was like Kermit 40 years old, like amazing with all the clothes we could dress them up in and I as soon as I saw them was like, I just felt something like we're going to dive into that later. Yes, thank you. Right? So I I would say notice. not, not that your child only right needs to play what lights you up, but just start to be curious about it and be transparent with your child about it. Like, I mean, I think it's fun for them to see like, oh, I just love when we did our together that day. Something that just felt so good if you, you know, that's just like a lovely like loving comment to make and but your child is gonna like that seed is planted and they want to do things that you can both enjoy, right? Like co experiencing that joy and delight.
So I think you have to kind of be in it. I think I say the same thing to play therapist, like if there's a toy that drives you bananas and you just like dread it when the kid picks it. Like get it out of your playroom like it's probably not gonna be, you know, great work is not going to come out of it. So start to, you know, like I know something different happens with my daughter and my husband are using like, mastery toys and they're building blocks, like something really beautiful is happening. So I would say pay attention and just be curious about that. And so if you feel like maybe it's a struggle because you just like, really don't enjoy art, like maybe make a suggestion. Like, hey, I've been really thinking, I want to try, you know, that new, then we just got Candy Land, let's give it a try. Like, I think, I also think it shows like a different level of investment that kids can get excited about and I think it's just easier for you to show up and be present when it's something that you are genuinely enjoying playing.
Laura: Yeah, I like I really like that and appreciate that it's okay to, you know, you saying that it's okay for us to decline playing with certain things. Like it's okay for us to have boundaries. I think it's important for us to recognize like, who is this play for? What is the purpose of this play? Is it for my enjoyment? Is it for our, you know, our relationship. I know that this comes up a lot when when we're thinking about, so some folks in our community, a lot of their kids play happens on screens and parents aren't interested in Roblox or Minecraft.
And there's a play, there is room of course for you having your own interest. There's also room for you setting aside kind of that what really, you know, and learning how to delight in something that delights your child, learning, learning, getting just really curious at what is, what is my kids so into this? Like what is lighting him up or her up about this? You know, just really just getting curious about, like, so even if it's not something that you that lights you up.
Being really interested in what they're clearly doing, you know, if they want to play roblox, you know, five hours a day. There's something happening in there, but beyond just the psychological design of the game, you know what I mean? But there's something happening there, what is it? Get dig in there with them, get really curious, sit next to them and watch them. And still take on that marveling quality of like, wow! You know, when you, they first started playing roblox, they don't know how to do these things. I don't know how roblox is played because my kids don't play it.
So I have, I have no idea how, what it is, but you know, but just I'm sure that there's improvement over time and you can marvel at those things with your kids, you know, when they can teach you how to do it. I think that it's really important to have a balance between those boundaries around like I have 20 minutes of roblox in me a day. You can't do it for an hour. You know, but for 20 you know, or for 10 minutes maybe it's 10 minutes I can really listen to you talk about roblox, you know? It's okay to have that balance of boundaries for yourself and just understanding that you don't have to be interested in the thing, you just need to be interested in the child.
Sarah: Oh, I love that's such an important point. My goodness. That is so beautifully said. Yeah. And I just like imagining now like if you're consulting with a parent about that, right? Like and who is this? This burst of play for and I love like having like a nice balance of that, like this is for us to co experience joy and delight and you know, we're gonna, let's have a list on the fridge. I think we both love playing and let's pick one and right, but then yes, here's this other window where hey, I recognize this is something that you really dig. This really, you know, fires you up and I want to be curious about it. Oh, I love that, I love that. It's just like clean and like discreet, like think of it in these two ways. Yes, parents, that is great.
Laura: Another thing that helps me kind of drop into that kind of, that marvel that delight with my kids is thinking about to, like two years ago, how would they have played with this object and how are they playing with it now. So like when my kids get out something like magnet tiles that they played with since they were 18 months old, you know, and now they're 10 and seven they played with them in such different ways. They use them in such and it really allows me to marvel like it's no, you know when they were three, it was when they got them out, it was near constant tears as they collapsed and when it stand up and they tried to build things that were physically impossible, you know, and now they don't do the physically impossible things.
Or they, you know, they have creative ways of using other materials to get their creations to stay up. It's just it's beautiful. And so really like tuning into their growth helps me a lot because I find child development fascinating. You know, I have a friend and a client who's in my membership who feels that way about their art and so she's always able to find marvel and wonder and delight in kind of thinking about the progression of their art development. She's an artist, you know, I mean, so there's a I think that there's a way in for each of us, we just have to find it, you know?
Sarah: Oh I love that and there's all these different suggestions now I'm picturing this all written on it like a nice list can help you when it's time. Yes. And as you were talking I just had this thought because my child, told my child just turned six yesterday, so I'm like flooded with nostalgia right? And like remembering like six years ago today and I kept thinking, oh my goodness, she couldn't hold her head up this human, right? They can't even hold their heads up and then they do. And then like yeah, really? It's such a beautiful suggestion. I'm going to use that as soon as my child returns for adventure today. And like, yes, and when you use the word marvel, it really does that like what their bodies and brains have been able to accomplish right in this short amount of time. Yeah. And to see how that plays out. That's lovely. I was thinking of the other one that I have to use, this is just not as beautiful as yours, but it's very concrete and it's what I use when I'm like last night I was gonzo.
And I was like pretty, you know, pretty into what we were doing. But I felt a thought come up because it was we had had a birthday party that day, so it was like really messy, right? I'm like I'll just get up and clean this. And I have to say to myself, not now thoughts, not now thoughts and I just have to do it every time it comes in right? Like the spirit of mindfulness. But it helps me when I know this is a protected time. Right now I'm in the middle of a protected. I picture like unzipped, right, like another world and we've like been like for this long but not now thought? When you know that I'm committing, you know, to 15 minutes here, I'm committing to whatever it is. Just not now thoughts. Doesn't matter if the President of the United States calls like we're busy.
Laura: Unavailable. I love that. I think being having really good internal boundaries, boundaries, good, healthy self talk, you know, with us, being able to be kind like it makes sense that you would want to be cleaning up because you know. I mean and there's some of us who can't get into deep play if the tidying, you know, things haven't been checked off the list and there's that's okay too. That's like that's you know, I feel like there's so much, you know, it feels sometimes as parents, there's like no matter what we do, someone's gonna be critical of it, you know? And so then there's this place of just kind of accepting yourself, you know, I'm just slowing down saying it's okay for me to like to have a tidy home before I play. I'm going to give myself five minutes of tidying and then 10 minutes of playing and then five minutes, you know, and just okay to have those boundaries and flexibility.
Sarah: And I know you're learning the, you know key phrases that work for yourself about how. Because I think that guilt comes up again, right? Like I should be playing, I should be of like ways that you can help your child to like, oh I'm struggling. You know, I really want to get this done first. So I'm gonna, you know, set the timer and do this or you know that it's just I think if we're just, if we're, I find, you know when we're like transparent with our kids, right? And that like loving, you know, respectful, authentic way they're pretty awesome. Not I think they tried. They're almost yeah. So well,
Laura: I mean especially if you are really honest and authentic and say, you know, look, sweetie, I really want to have that tea party with you. But if I do the tea party right now, I'm going to be thinking about that dish full of, you know, that sink full of dishes over there, and I want to enjoy the tea party. So let's get the dishes done, you can help me And then once it's done then I can be fully in the tea party and I think like that's beautiful modeling for our kids is really important to model that sort of thing for our children.
Sarah: Yeah. And like some of that inner conflict, right? Like to name that like I feel so torn right now because I want to do this and I also feel like I need to do this and take a breath. We can work together.
Lauren: Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much Sarah, I feel like we covered a huge range of topics here. If the listeners want to find you and learn more, where should they go?
Sarah: Oh please do. I would love that. You can find me on Instagram @healwithplay. I would love to see you there. Yeah, that's the one stop.
Luara: Okay, I'll make sure that that's linked in our show notes. I so appreciate this and I hope that we can have more conversations in the future. All about play. It's so fun to geek out.
Sarah: Well, thank you. Same to you.
Laura: Okay, so that was such a good interview and I so appreciate the opportunity to discuss how we can go about enjoying our kids play more. And if you were curious about those skills that you can bring to your children's play, that not only allow you to enjoy it more but allow them to get more out of the play so that it's more restorative and more connecting So that they can feel seen heard and valued in those kind of short snippets, I would really recommend you checking out Playful Healing. Playful Heaing is an eight-week course that teaches you how to hold 20 minutes healing play sessions with your children.
And it's not even 20 minutes play sessions a day, it's just 20 minutes a week. I teach you all of the basic play therapy skills that we mentioned today in this episode and the episode last week. It's included in My Balancing New Membership. So the membership is available to you when you join, you get all of my courses, you can choose to work through them at the pace. That's right for you and you can ask questions in our weekly office hours. So if you are wanting to learn more about this, about Playful Healing, you can check that out at laurafroyen.com/playfulhealing. or you can just join the membership.com, membership and get started today. Right? Right.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!