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»» Youthpsych.com Article: The Importance of Play
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The Importance of Play!
Yvette Saeugling, LISW
Many say that children are resilient. And they are, as long as we tend to their emotional needs. This is not always easy, as children express feelings behaviorally instead of verbally. They often appear resilient because they do not say anything. However, when they are aggressive, they are telling us they are angry. If they are clingy they may be telling us they are scared, if they become withdrawn or agitated they may be telling us they are sad. Granted, some of these behaviors are part of normal developmental phases, but it is when we see these behaviors consistently over a period of time that we may want to delve a little deeper with our children.
As parents we try our best, but sometimes we cannot control what life hands us to deal with: a death, a divorce, an illness, an accident, a learning disability, financial stress, etc. Emotions can be very complex, as adults can attest to this. Imagine a child who hasn’t reached the developmental stage to be able to identify mixed feelings, let alone state them. Also, adults have more power to try to handle their situations. A child whose parents are going through a divorce, for example, does not have the power to keep their parents together and are just left to handle the grief that comes from the situation without exactly understanding what just happened to them.
There are many ways a parent can help their child through emotional struggles. But before you try asking your child a bunch of questions and they make the universal reply of “I don’t know”, play with your child. Even in counseling, we cannot directly ask children questions, we would get shut down as well. That is why we use play therapy and Theraplay.
Not only does play provide the parent an opportunity to understand how your child thinks and feels about their world: it also increases a child’s self-esteem, builds their foundation of security and decreases oppositional/defiant behavior.
Adults talk to process their feelings, children play to process theirs. So, we need to enter their world instead of forcing them into ours. And if you really want to understand your child, play with them. Let them lead and even if they want you take control of the play, have them make the decision of who is who when you are playing with the dollhouse, for example. Do they have one parent running the household or a sibling? Who takes care of whom? Who goes to work? Are they yelling at each other or getting along? It gives you an idea about how they view the world and what they are feeling.
Sometimes we may never know exactly what is troubling a child but we can still help them by adding to their sense of security. The kind of play I am referring to is highly engaging play. Board games are nice but not real high engaging because often you are looking down at the board or get caught up in the pieces, rules and competition. Highly engaging games for example are the airplane rides, thumb wrestling, rubbing lotion on each other, blowing bubbles to each other, trying to make the other person laugh through funny faces, trying not to blink, rolling over one another as if you were a steamrollered. Any game which requires a lot of eye contact and/or touch is considered highly engaging. And don’t forget to do this with your teenager as well! They need you just as much as they did before, don’t let them fool you. They are leaving and that is a very frightening step to take, so they need that sense of security even more (they may not want to talk to you, but they want you there in the house to know they can access you if they need you!!) Engaging play with a teenager would be more along the lines of doing hair, makeup, special handshakes, playful wrestling, or the up/down game at the supper table (you tell one good thing that happened and one down thing that happened during the day) etc.
This engaging play, allows a parent and child to reconnect with one another. Whether it’s from being away from each other because of work or a child returning from the other parent’s home or very serious problems affecting the parent child bond, playing allows once again the message to be delivered we are there to take care of them.
Again, if we are unsure of their problems, we can help empower them by focusing on their self-esteem using the same kind of high engaging play. A child’s self-esteem is developed not by saying “good job” it is developed through our physical reaction to our children.
Self-worth begins developing when our children are infants. From the moment their eyes connect with our eyes, and they see our eyes sparkling with excitement with a bright smile, they instantly feel they are important in this big scary world. Infants do not understand words; they only understand touch and what they see. There is much research on parent child interactions stating that this simple early parent child interaction is actually neurologically wiring the babies brain. This has so many implications, especially if a child has experienced trauma, separation, etc. It means that we still have a chance influence the brain development to increase their self-esteem.
What does this mean for home? The next time your child comes in and is proud of something they have done, instead of saying “good job” while you are busy getting dinner on the table , stop, look them in the eye, give them a hug and then say “good job”. The impact of the latter is tenfold and will motivate them to continue working hard. Sometimes, taking the a few seconds can save a lot of problems down the road.
And last but not least, playing with your child often decreases continuous opposition, (does not eliminate the normal developmental testing of independence!). By giving the child the message that you enjoy them through play, it is very hard for a child to be continuously angry with you, when you make them feel good about themselves. They respect you because they feel you respect them. And before you jump to say, “We are the adults, they should respect us first!” Be careful that you are not disciplining from the old school that most of us grew up with, in that we responded to our parents out of fear. And frankly, whether we want to admit it or not, our children are human and sometimes we lose their respect when we make poor choices in our lives. Our role modeling is crucial to their development. Some old sayings ring true, “the apple does not fall far from the tree…” There are truly more effective ways to parent and ones that allow our children to enjoy us and we enjoy them.
There is a time to allow them to play and there is a time to take control of the play. There is a fine balance. If you want to increase their self-esteem and sense of security, you initiate and lead the play. How many times do we say “Come here and give mom a hug?” Who is the hug for? Next time go to them and say “Mom wants to give you a hug!” You will have much more of an impact on your child. If you are seeking to understand your child, still be involved but sit back and watch a little instead of trying to ask them a bunch of questions.
Counseling operates in a somewhat similar fashion. Play therapy helps the counselor understand the child’s world and then be able to help the child accordingly. Theraplay on the other hand, helps bring the parents and child close together again and build upon their foundation of security and self-esteem. Play therapy is more individual based and Theraplay requires parental involvement. This type of therapy allows us to restore the parental authority in a fun and safe manner, allows the child to build trust with the parent, and most of all helps the child believe they are worthwhile and lovable.
So, the bottomline, put action behind your words at home! Instead of retiring to the couch after dinner, turn off the TV for awhile, play with your child (which doesn’t cost anything) and you will be on your way to developing a strong, loving, and responsible young person. And in turn, you will enjoy your child and yourself.
Yvette Cook Saeugling, LISW
Outpatient Therapist
Hillcrest Family Services
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