How Play Therapy Can Reach Your Child In Their Own Way

Few things are worse than the worry parents feel when they can see their child is struggling. Their tantrums may have become more frequent or become more unmanageable, or maybe they’ve retreated into a shell you can’t seem to reach. When you try to reach them, you’re met with a shrug, silence, or a meltdown.

Frustrated parents often wonder if there’s anything that can reach their child. There is something: a form of therapy called “play therapy”.

I’ve been a therapist in Kansas City for some time now, working primarily with families, including children ages 3 and up. When play therapy is proposed, I often hear parents say, “I don’t need them to come here and play, they can do that at home. I need them to get better.”

I hear you. It sounds a little strange. But here is the secret to play therapy: For children, play is not just a pastime. It is their language. It’s actually a form of communication.

While adults process their world by talking, children process their world by playing. Expecting a 5-year-old to sit on a couch and explain their anxiety is like expecting an adult to fluently speak a language they’ve never learned.

In order to reach children, we need to speak the language they are already familiar with. In the playroom, toys become their words, and play becomes their conversation.

If you are considering play therapy in Kansas City for your child, here is what you need to know about how play therapy can help and how we approach play therapy at Armstrong Family Counseling.

Is Play Therapy Right for My Child?

Before we look at how play therapy can help, let’s first identify some signs that professional support might be needed. Children rarely come to us and say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed by my parents’ divorce.” Instead, they demonstrate their feelings through their behavior.

Signs your child may need professional therapy:

• Regression: Your previously potty-trained child is having accidents, or they have reverted to “baby talk.”
• Intense Emotional Outbursts: Tantrums that seem disproportionate to the situation or last longer than usual.
• Withdrawal: A loss of interest in activities they used to love, or preferring to be alone excessively.
• Separation Anxiety: Excessive clinginess or distress when leaving a parent.
• Acting Out: Aggression toward siblings, pets, or peers, or destruction of property.
• Life Transitions: Recent upheavals such as divorce, a move, a new sibling, or the loss of a loved one.

If these sound familiar, your child may be struggling to process big feelings and having difficulty expressing themselves appropriately. Play therapy can be that outlet to help them understand and process these emotions.

Here are five ways play therapy can help your child regain their footing:

1. Developing Emotional Literacy and Vocabulary

One of the primary outcomes of play therapy is bridging the gap between feeling and speaking. When a child comes into our playroom, they might not be able to say, “I feel angry because I have no control over my life.”

However, they can act out a scene where a dinosaur smashes a city because the other dinosaurs wouldn’t listen.

Through the therapeutic process, I act as a translator. I might narrate their play, saying, “That dinosaur looks really frustrated that no one is listening.” Over time, the child connects the feeling in their body to the word for the emotion. This reduces the need to act out behaviorally because they can finally express themselves verbally. They learn that feelings are mentionable and manageable.

2. Processing Trauma and Stress at a Safe Distance

Directly talking about scary or painful events can be re-traumatizing for a child. Their brains often shut down when forced to confront a difficult reality head-on. Play provides a psychological “safe distance.”

A child whose parents are going through a messy divorce might not want to talk about Mom and Dad fighting. But, they will play out a story with us where two dolls live in different houses and the baby doll has to pack a bag.

By projecting their internal conflict onto the toys, the child can process the event without being overwhelmed by it. They can replay the scary scenario again and again until it loses its power over them, moving the memory from a place of active trauma to a place of narrative history.

3. Increased Self-Regulation and Impulse Control

Many parents seek therapy because their child is “out of control.” Play therapy serves as a useful practice ground for self-regulation.

In the playroom, limits are set, but they are set differently than at home. I might say, “The wall is not for kicking, but you can kick this bop bag as hard as you want.” This teaches the child a vital lesson: All feelings are acceptable, but not all behaviors are acceptable.

Children learn that they can feel a surge of rage without destroying the room. They practice the pause between feeling an impulse and acting on it. As they master this in the playroom, you will start to see it translate to their behavior at home and school.

4. Creative Problem-Solving and Coping Skills

When a child is stuck in a pattern of anxiety or defiance, they often feel helpless. They don’t know another way to be. Play therapy allows them to experiment with different roles and solutions without encountering real-world consequences.

For example, a child who is bullied at school might use puppets to enact a bullying scene. Initially, the puppet might run away. In the next session, the puppet might fight back. In a later session, the puppet might use a clever assertive phrase to stop the bully.

Through this trial and error, the child builds a toolkit of coping strategies. They internalize a sense of agency. They stop seeing themselves as a victim of their circumstances and start seeing themselves as a problem-solver. This cognitive flexibility is a skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

5. Enhanced Self-Esteem and Mastery

Perhaps the most satsifying outcome of play therapy is the rise in self-confidence. In the playroom, the child leads. They choose the toys; they direct the play. For a child who spends most of their life being told what to do by adults (teachers, parents, coaches), this autonomy is incredibly empowering.

During sessions, we celebrate small victories. If a child builds a tall tower that falls, and they choose to rebuild it rather than give up, they are building resilience. As they master the environment of the playroom and process their internal struggles, their self-concept shifts. They begin to view themselves as capable, worthy, and important.

Play Therapy in Kansas City at Armstrong Family Counseling

If you are seeing signs that your child needs support, play therapy can be an excellent option. It is designed to help children understand and process big emotions using the language of play that they are already fluent in.

In Kansas City, Armstong Family Counseling provides excellent play therapy options for children. Our licensed play therapists undergo extensive training which enables them to achieve impressive results, even with young children or with children who are reluctant.

To see if play therapy is right for your child, please contact Armstrong Family Counseling at 913-204-0582 or request an appointment online.

Armstrong Family Counseling has two offices in the Kansas City metro area, in Overland Park, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.