Spring is officially here! April brought many showers (including snow!) so hopefully everyone can start enjoying May weather and get ready for summer fun. This time of year is incredibly busy for families, school teachers, kids, and therapists! It is very common to see a rise in anxiety in the children and teen clients you work with, especially those who have experienced trauma and poor attachment. This happens as their secure base (typically school) is changing and for many kids, summer brings more of the unknown as their place of stability, structure, nurture, and consistency shuts down for the summer weeks.
A few play therapy ideas to help kids navigate this transition:
Make a memory book documenting all of the coping skills they have learned throughout the year, as well as important and special people they have at school as well as in their world (think teacher, principle, therapist, clergy, friend, family, neighbor, pet, etc)
Make a Calm Down Jar to take home with them (be sure to use a plastic bottle!)
By doing a few of these simple things, you can help reassure the kids you work with that they matter, they are important, and most of all- you SEE them and care about them too!
A lot of clinicians have questions about attachment and what to do when they have clients who struggle with connection and bonding. I would love to extend a personal invitation to come join me for a 5-day intensive retreat in Attachment Centered Play Therapy in gorgeous Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina from August 26-30, 2018! Click here for a full event brochure.
What’s included you ask?
23 hours of CEU’s and APT hours (and spending 5 days hanging out with ME!)
THE BEACH (Did I fail to mention we are spending 1 DAY ON THE BEACH DOING SAND TRAY??)
All food, lodging, and continuing education are included in the price of the retreat
