Nurturing Joyful Relationships in Young Children and their Families (650) 703-3288
Child-Centered Play Therapy
Play is your child's language
- Play is the best way for your toddler, preschooler or school age child to express worries, struggles and frustrations, and it is a wonderful language for you to re-learn so that you can communicate better with your child.
- Play therapy reduces symptoms related to behavioral and emotional problems, and contributes to wellness and healthy development. Through play therapy your child will increase self-esteem and self confidence, will decrease stress induced behaviors and will develop better impulse control.
- As the most important person in you child's life, you will be involved in therapy sessions to the extent that you and your child's therapist think best, and you will meet regularly to discuss the treatment, review treatment goals and think about how your child is progressing at school and at home.
Play is healing
In child-centered play therapy free play has a healing effect as it allows children to work through significant stories that have impacted their lives. For young children the issues might be things that feel big even to adults, such as:
- witnessing violent events
- divorce or separation
- grief and loss
For other young children problems might stem from a simple, natural, developmental stage that is presenting challenges for you or your child. Even in this situation child therapy can be helpful.
Your child can feel and behave much better
Play therapy can be a magical intervention. The opportunity for your child to use play to work through their struggles in their own way and at their own pace will result in positive behavioral and emotional changes.
You will be by your child's side throughout the process and your whole family will benefit from the growth and joy that comes with positive change. Just imagine your child:
- treating friends with kindness
- showing empathy for a sibling
- laughing spontaneously with joy
- crying at appropriate moments