5 Reasons Why Your Child Needs Play Therapy
As a parent, caretaker, or educator, it can be incredibly hard to manage every aspect of your child’s wants and needs. Every child is unique, and based on their emotions, surroundings, and individual likes, it can be hard to balance all of it. Luckily, it’s not up to you to cover every single element of raising children to be functional and happy adults. There are forms of therapy you can pursue right now that are based on nothing but the simplicity of playing.
Here are 5 reasons why your child needs play therapy:
- Emotional Processing:
Children are not equipped with the mental awareness to recognize their emotions and process them. They have emotions like the rest of us, and need outlets to work through these emotions in a way that is healthy and supportive. With play therapy, the language of play enables kids to communicate their feelings and emotions so they can work through their individual hardships or problems.
- Behavioral Management:
Many children struggle to manage their behavior, outbursts, tantrums, etc. With play, there is a decrease in unwanted behavior as children are allowed to physically explore their creativity, while creating play environments that they love the most. While they play, they will learn about the consequences of their actions, taking this awareness into everything they see and do.
- Builds Self-Esteem:
When children are never provided with the freedom to make their own decisions and feel pride in their own creations, they end up as adults with little to no self-esteem. That’s why it’s so important to let your kid go play, on their own, doing what they want to do and how they want to do it. They’ll learn that they can take that same mindset into school and other activities, providing an unspoken confidence that is needed to be successful.
- Encourages Creativity:
When children play together, they get to come up with rules, games, and little tricks that were entirely created inside their brains. Seeing their ideas and imagination come to life encourages their creativity and provides them with an artistic confidence that they will feel more inclined to pursue. Enhanced creativity will help them with school, socialization, and present happiness.
- Improved Communication:
As part of the emotional processing for children, when they play, they are communicating in a new kind of way with the therapist or children around them. If they are not strong verbal communicators, play will provide them with an avenue to communicate in a clear and effective manner, which might be something woefully missing in their lives.
Center4PlayTherapy
Our private play therapy practice located in Brooklyn provides play therapy programs and sessions that address a wide range of issues, including anxiety, ADHD, behavioral difficulties, depress, conflict, grief, and more. We work with children ages 3 to 11, helping them to process emotions, improve communication, harness their creativity, build self-esteem, and manage their outbreaks or unwanted behavior. It all starts with a little play!