Latest / Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist / S3E22 - Parent Companion for Play Therapy: Why Kids' Brains Work Differently in Therapy

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S3E22 - Parent Companion for Play Therapy: Why Kids' Brains Work Differently in Therapy · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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  You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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  with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  Hi,
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  I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
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  The Kid Counselor.
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  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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  where I give you insight,
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  awareness,
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  and enlightenment about your parenting
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  and your relationship with your kids.
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  In today's episode,
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  we are continuing the Parent Companion series
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  and we are talking about
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  the way a child's brain works in therapy
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  versus the way an adult brain works in therapy.
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  Very different.
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  You might think,
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  well,
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  therapy is therapy.
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  Yes,
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  brains are brains,
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  yes,
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  no.
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  So,
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  we're going to look at the different way
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  That therapy
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  works for
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  different ages of people
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  and hopefully,
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  it will give you some perspective on why
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  child-centered play therapy is so effective and appropriate
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  as children's brains are very different.
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  So when we think about therapy for adults.
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  We often think about,
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  most often actually think about going in,
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  sitting down on a couch and talking to someone.
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  All right,
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  that makes sense because
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  we are rational
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  and cognitive
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  and logical
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  and we have abstract reasoning.
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  Our brains are fully developed after 25.
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  So if we sit down,
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  a therapist can give us a verbal prompt.
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  And that's almost always how therapy begins.
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  So if it's it's the first session,
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  it would be.
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  So what brings you here?
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  Or what are some of the things that you'd like to process?
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  If you've been
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  with a therapist for a while,
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  the prompt shifts to something more like,
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  so how's your week been?
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  Or what's on your mind today?
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  But in either scenario,
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  early on in the process or later on in the process,
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  the therapist gives a verbal cue.
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  And you have a decision to make as an adult.
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  What am I going to bring up?
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  There are all kinds of options.
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  So,
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  what
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  is going to be processed in this moment today?
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  And the reason why we have that ability is
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  because we're using our brain to decide first,
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  but second of all,
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  we categorize everything
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  into
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  boxes.
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  You can think of adult brains like a waffle.
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  And essentially what happens is all of those little crannies and nooks in the waffle
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  is our storage box.
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  So therapist says,
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  What's on your mind,
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  and you have an immediate decision to make out of
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  which box am I going to extract the topic.
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  So we have
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  work,
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  we have
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  marriage,
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  we have parenting,
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  we have childhood,
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  we have anger,
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  we have anxiety,
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  we have
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  fluff because we don't want to deal with any of that deeper stuff.
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  But every single option.
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  It's going to come from a categorized box.
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  Because
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  that's the way that our brains work.
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  It's like a waffle.
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  Kids' brains
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  are more like spaghetti,
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  cooked spaghetti.
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  Let me make it clear,
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  not the rigid,
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  hard kind that haven't been in boiling water yet.
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  The very flimsy,
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  loosey goosey
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  spaghetti noodles.
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  And here's what this looks like.
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  They are not cognitive,
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  rational,
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  logical.
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  They don't have abstract reasoning,
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  and they're not verbal.
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  So
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  an adult saying,
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  What do you want to talk about?
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  What's wrong?
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  Why did you do that?
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  What happened?
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  What were you thinking?
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  All of the prompts that adults tend to give children.
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  It's met with a shrug.
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  Or an I don't know
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  or nothing.
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  Because
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  that's not the way their brain works.
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  Their brains are more like cooked spaghetti noodles.
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  So here's what happens.
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  They're experiential.
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  They're emotional
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  Everything is here and now.
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  And the way that they process things is experientially.
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  So in play therapy,
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  Child comes in
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  child-centered approach says
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  we know that the child is going to work on what they
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  need to work on when they need to work on it.
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  So the prompt
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  isn't really a prompt at all.
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  It's more of,
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  here's what's going to happen.
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  You can play with all the toys in most of the ways that you want.
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  And the child will then
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  naturally gravitate toward the things that they need to work on,
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  but here's where the spaghetti comes in.
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  As a child realizes,
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  you know what,
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  I really need to work on my self-control,
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  and they don't have the thought that they need to work on it.
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  They feel that they need to work on it.
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  Let me be really clear,
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  they're not thinking through that.
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  But they know,
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  they instinctively understand,
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  I really get disregulated.
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  I really get out of control.
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  I need to work to work on this,
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  address this.
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  So they decide,
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  I'm going to
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  start working on this
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  aggression.
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  They experience the need
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  to process it,
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  and they begin.
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  So they pull one spaghetti noodle,
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  the aggression noodle.
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  And with that aggression noodle comes a tangle of some other noodles.
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  So as they start to work on their aggression,
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  because they're pulling on that noodle,
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  there's this little tangle of these other noodles.
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  And so self-esteem's going to come along with that
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  because as they
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  become less aggressive,
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  they feel better about themselves.
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  So now they've got the self-esteem noodle too.
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  And then as they feel better about themselves,
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  they're going to have more self-control
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  because kids behave in self-enhancing ways
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  when
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  they
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  are in a relationship and an environment that allows
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  them to become a better version of themselves.
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  So they started with aggression.
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  That noodle came first.
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  It kind of dragged this self-esteem noodle with it.
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  Well then,
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  It
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  is now pulling self-control and self-regulation with it.
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  And then as they become more self-controlled and more self-regulated.
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  Then
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  they
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  are able to control their emotions more.
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  So now here's the 4th noodle
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  of the emotions and the emotional vocabulary that they're going to work on,
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  and so on and so on.
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  So the beauty of child-centered play therapy
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  is that
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  every single issue that gets addressed
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  often begets other issues to get addressed.
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  Now,
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  let me go back to my
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  waffle
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  analogy.
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  An adult
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  can choose to focus on one box in that waffle for years.
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  You can go to therapy for years.
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  On a side note.
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  I think most of the time.
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  Unless you are really truly gaining momentum and actually having huge
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  influence
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  in your life
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  and you feel like you're just growing leaps and bounds,
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  you don't really need to be in therapy for years.
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  But that's related aside.
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  OK.
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  So,
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  You can work on the same thing.
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  You can say I'm going to work on.
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  My anger issue
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  You can make that decision every single time you go to therapy
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  forever.
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  And there are all those other boxes full of stuff that
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  you need to work on.
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  But you could choose to stay only in the anger box.
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  You could choose to stay only in the anxiety box.
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  But those boxes are surrounded by other boxes
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  that are related
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  your childhood,
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  your marriage,
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  your parenting,
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  your work,
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  your friendships,
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  your film,
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  all of it.
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  It is all related,
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  but because we can categorize it like waffle boxes.
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  It's easier to extract out of only one box and stay there for a really long time.
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  children don't have that luxury.
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  So as they're working on one thing,
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  it brings up other stuff.
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  And because of the nature of cooked spaghetti noodles,
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  they're kind of in a little tangly ball.
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  And one thing is working on another thing is working on another thing,
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  is working on another thing,
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  and it
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  snowballs.
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  So my hope is that you can see it's a very different process.
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  But it is a very powerful process
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  because
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  one thing.
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  Naturally kind of lends itself toward other things
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  and the child continues to become better versions of
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  him or herself through all of these avenues,
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  one at a time,
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  yes,
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  but they all are working in conjunction with each other.
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  So hopefully it gives you a little bit of
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  insight about how kids' brains are very different,
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  and that's why
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  talk therapy does not work with young kids.
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  That's why cognitive therapy does not work with young kids.
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  That's why play therapy is so powerful,
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  because they're not able to think about it.
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  They're not able to talk about it,
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  but they can experience and feel it.
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  And that's what CCPT allows kids to do.
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  Let me pause really quickly before I sign off.
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  I hope that if you are celebrating Christmas,
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  that you have a wonderful time with your family and your friends,
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  and you're able to
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  give yourself a second to think about the year
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  and all of the things that have,
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  have been given to you,
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  the things for which you're grateful.
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  From my family to yours,
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  I hope that you have a lovely Christmas,
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  and I'm looking forward to continuing to hang out in the new year.
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  Love y'all.
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  We'll talk again soon.
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  Bye.
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  Thank you for listening to
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  the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
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  please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.