Toys in Play Therapy: What, Where, Why and How

Summary

In this enlightening session, Jodi Mullen discusses the integral role of toys in play therapy and how these tools can foster creativity and communication among children. Through the lens of child-centered play therapy, Mullen underscores the importance of selecting appropriate toys to support aggression, regression, and expression among young clients. With practical insights into toy selection and management, Mullen empowers therapists to create effective therapeutic environments that are safe, nurturing, and expressive for children. From the utility of basic toy lists to the nuanced understanding of child psychology, this session provides a comprehensive guide for both novice and seasoned play therapists.

Highlights

• Book recommendation: 'Not a Stick' by Antonette Portis sets the stage for understanding the imaginative power of simple objects. 📚
• Simplicity in toys aids in creativity and is central to effective play therapy, according to Mullen. 🚀
• Mullen explores the categories of toys—aggressive, expressive, and nurturing—and their roles in therapy sessions. 🧸
• The role of limits: Using toys like foam noodles in place of swords helps manage aggressive play safely. ⚔️
• Diversity in toys, including different cultural representations, is highlighted as crucial for inclusive therapy. 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Jodi Mullen emphasizes the power of simplicity in toy selection for play therapy, highlighting the need for toys that spur creativity. 🎨
• Toys are pivotal for children to express aggression, regression, and expression in child-centered play therapy. 🛝
• Practical advice includes the use of foam blocks and washable markers to minimize risks and encourage safe exploration. 🧩
• Careful consideration of culture and developmental stages in toy selection can enhance the therapeutic experience. 🌏
• Using household items like egg cartons can be as effective as expensive toys, underscoring resourcefulness in therapy environments. 🏠

Overview

Jodi Mullen's discussion showcases the impactful use of toys in child-centered play therapy. She begins by reading 'Not a Stick,' a whimsical book that symbolizes turning ordinary objects into imaginative tools, setting the tone for her session. Mullen connects the dots between simple play tools and profound therapeutic outcomes, much like using a stick to spark imagination.

Throughout the session, she categorizes toys into types that aid children in expressing emotions—aggressive, expressive, and nurturing. Her emphasis on the selection of safe, versatile, and culturally diverse toys reveals the strategic approach required for a harmonious therapeutic environment. Her practical advice, like opting for foam blocks over wooden ones to avoid injuries, resonates clearly with her audience.

Mullen’s insights are not just theoretical but foundational for therapeutic practice. They underline how accessible items like foam noodles can substitute toy weapons while maintaining the integrity of aggressive play. Jodi advocates for a thoughtful configuration of a playroom, ensuring that essential, low-cost tools are available to foster an environment where children feel safe, expressive, and understood.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:30: Introduction to Toys in Play Therapy In this introductory chapter of 'Introduction to Toys in Play Therapy,' Jody Mullen, along with Alton Gooey, begins by discussing the topic of using toys in play therapy. The session kicks off with Jody reading a story titled 'Not a Stick' by Antonette Porous. Jody mentions another book by the same author, 'Not a Box,' which also fits the theme they're exploring in therapy.
• 05:30 - 11:00: Purpose and Philosophy of Play Therapy The chapter titled 'Purpose and Philosophy of Play Therapy' seems to begin with the narrator addressing the audience directly, mentioning the rarity of adults being read stories. This might be a metaphorical approach to emphasize the discussion's direction about creating meaning and connection through play therapy. The opening implies a narrative style while setting the stage for further exploration of the application and benefits of play therapy, particularly in adult contexts.
• 11:00 - 19:30: Basic Toy Recommendations for Play Therapy The chapter discusses the use of basic toys, such as sticks, in play therapy. It highlights a scenario where someone is cautioned to be mindful while handling a stick. The conversation touches on the sensory experience of 'licking fingers' and notes the texture or coating on the stick. The chapter emphasizes the importance of being aware of how toys are used in play therapy sessions.
• 19:30 - 32:00: Types of Toys and Their Uses The chapter titled 'Types of Toys and Their Uses' explores various forms and functions of toys in different contexts. It emphasizes imaginative play with examples such as pretending a stick is more than just a stick, encouraging creativity and resourcefulness in play. The chapter invites readers to look beyond the obvious and consider how ordinary objects, like sticks, can transform into tools of play and imagination, fostering a sense of adventure and discovery.
• 32:00 - 46:00: Aggressive Play and Safety Considerations The chapter discusses the balance between aggressive play and safety considerations in gameplay. It emphasizes the importance of understanding when to engage in aggressive tactics and when to prioritize safety to ensure both effective strategy and player well-being.
• 46:00 - 59:00: Expressive Toys and Art Supplies This chapter discusses the concept of 'expressive toys', introducing the idea with the phrase 'not not not a stick'. This playful approach sets the tone for discussing how toys can be more than they appear, sparking imagination and creativity. The chapter explores the creative possibilities through toys and art supplies, encouraging a deeper appreciation for their potential in imaginative play and artistic expression.
• 59:00 - 68:00: Toys to Avoid in Play Therapy The chapter 'Toys to Avoid in Play Therapy' emphasizes the importance of simplicity in the toys used for play therapy. It argues that toys should allow for creativity and imagination in children. Toys that are overly complex or structured, such as those that dictate specific use or restrict creative play, should be avoided. The chapter highlights that play therapy should promote inventive thinking rather than be limited to conventional play models.
• 68:00 - 80:00: Play Therapy in Different Settings This chapter introduces Jody, who holds a PhD in counselor education and supervision and is a licensed mental health counselor in New York State. Jody is also nationally certified and a registered play therapist at the supervisor level. She is joined by Alison, and they discuss various aspects of play therapy across different settings.
• 80:00 - 93:36: Final Recommendations and Conclusion The chapter discusses an individual who is a child-centered play therapist master associated with the Association for Play Therapy. This certification allows them to train others to become play therapists and also to act as supervisors. The work is being conducted through the counseling and psychological services department at SUNY Oswego. Additionally, a student named Allison, who is focusing on her own child-centered play therapy training, is mentioned as being present in the meeting.

Toys in Play Therapy: What, Where, Why and How Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi everybody I'm Jody Mullen and this is Alton gooey and we're gonna be talking about using toys in play therapy today but first I'm going to read you a story and so this is called not a stick and it's by Antonette porous and I would say that there's another book that Antonette wrote called not a box that also would work for the same kind of theme of what I love why
• 00:30 - 01:00 I'm reading this to you so a meaningless to you one because as adults you don't get read stories nearly enough and number two it's really tied in to what we're gonna be talking about today so for your listening pleasure not a stick hmm here we go I'm gonna do my best here hey be careful with that stick it's not
• 01:00 - 01:30 a stick look where you're going with that stick some of you might be like she's licking her fingers and it's coated look so I just want to see that well stick mm-hmm otherwise they cannot
• 01:30 - 02:00 turn these pages watch where you point that stick this is not a stick now what are you going to do with that stick I recognize this is not very graceful look
• 02:00 - 02:30 it's not a stick that's my favorite one if I'm a stick I'm telling you it's not a stick so standing around like that stick this is
• 02:30 - 03:00 not not not a stick okay then what is it so thank you for bearing with me I just think that's such a perfect way to get started when we're talking about toys in
• 03:00 - 03:30 play therapy I'm gonna pop the PowerPoint up in the background so that you guys can see that and and that's where we're gonna take off from so I wanted to share that book with you will point out lots of reasons why but one of the most important things about the toys in play therapy are I'm just tell me right now simplicity and that they allow for children to be creative so that being said it's not a stick it's not about it's not an egg carton none of
• 03:30 - 04:00 those kinds of things so let's do a little bit of an introduction first so like I said before I'm Jody and I have Alison with me I have a PhD in counselor education and supervision and I'm a licensed mental health counselor in New York State a nationally certified counselor and the last two things I a lot of letters after my name here but the last two are probably most important for this discussion I'm a registered play therapist at the supervisor level
• 04:00 - 04:30 through the Association for play therapy and I'm a child centered play therapist master which means that I can train people to become play service and also train people to become play to be supervisors so we're doing this through the counseling and psychological services department at SUNY Oswego and then I have Allison with me who is one of my students yeah and Alison is working on her child
• 04:30 - 05:00 centered play therapy certification through the national institute of relationship enhanced it that's nara and she is uh school counseling student connelly so anything else you want to say about yourself elfin before we go get further into this um just that there's a lot to play therapy but if you're interested and kind of just looking into it or learning more about it um keep going because there's there's a lot to it and it's great okay you love it yes I do yeah and so do i
• 05:00 - 05:30 and so that's why after like 25 years of doing this I still feel as enthusiastic and have no problems reading a book to adults so it becomes part of who you are so I'm so glad that you're along for this part of the ride Alison so Alison's been really acts as like my sounding board and so she's gonna help me in case I forget to tell you guys certain things or post some questions that maybe beginners would have we really look at this as kind of as an
• 05:30 - 06:00 introductory a beginning piece of the play therapy is just knowing what toys to have in your space so we're gonna talk about that in a number of different ways um through how our time together and well one of the things is is when you're talking about toys and play therapy is you have to talk about some other aspects of the work so when we are talking about some other aspects of the work we're primarily coming from a child centered philosophy so the so some of
• 06:00 - 06:30 the things that we'll be sharing here with you when exactly fit if you were using other forms of play therapy but most of what we talked about today certainly it coincides with child centered play therapy but also with other sort of humanistic forms of play therapy so just so you know that so I'm going to talk start off talking about the why behind what you will need so it's important to know why you're going
• 06:30 - 07:00 to need the toys that you're going to need that's not kind of haphazard where you can just like think about like oh these are the toys on like or these are the toys that are left over from my kids or these are the toys that got donated to me certainly you'll be able to use some of those things but it is a very purposeful endeavor and so I want to talk about that so I'm in play therapy three things are going to happen and this is regardless of why a child is
• 07:00 - 07:30 referred and really what kind of theoretical orientation or approach you use in play therapy and those three things are aggression regression and expression and so because those three things happen regardless of approach and regardless of why a child is referred is you want to have toys that allow children to get connected to that get connected to aggression get connected to regression and get them have toys that
• 07:30 - 08:00 allow for expression so we all show you some of those and talk about that a little bit further the other thing that I another lens that you can look at that through is the five types of toys and you'll see that these comes really could be enveloped in the aggression regression expression part they're just parsed out a little bit more so if you want to look at it through that lens you could have family and nurturing kinds of toys scary toys aggressive toys
• 08:00 - 08:30 expressive two ways and pretend and fantasy toys and so obviously you can see there's some overlap there and we're going to talk about those kind of toys but the why behind what you'll need is that you want kids to be able to communicate right that's what happens in play therapy is they're using I as their communication so you want them to have the necessary tools which are the toys to do that anything any questions or
• 08:30 - 09:00 anything else I should be talking about right now else and now with this I don't think okay because we're just getting started so okay so next up is just this is a very basic toy list and um the like I would say these are it's it's hard to say like this this is all you need or this is like the foundation of what you need but I really wanted to give you some of the basics
• 09:00 - 09:30 and talk about why they're the basics so some of the basics are on blocks and I want to make it I want to make some recommendations here too um I would say wooden blocks are okay but just recognize that what about blocks can be thrown and that that would hurt if you got hit with one or it might destroy something else in the room like a window or a mirror or something like that so I much prefer the foam blocks um the
• 09:30 - 10:00 other thing with foam blocks is they last a really long time and I am not even exaggerating that I've had a set of foam blocks for over 15 years so they last a really long time they hold up and you can get them wet and that's something you can't really deal with wooden blocks but also you'll see on the market they make those cardboard box that you can kind of they're really sturdy and you can put them together but I find that a lot of children are very interested in taking them apart they
• 10:00 - 10:30 almost look like there's something inside and then so they don't use them in the same way that they of course some kids do but the way that they traditionally would use blocks is four blocks I think you want an assorted size assorted colors you know for them really what blocks do is allow them to it's the expressive part right it allows them to create what they need to create and you know one of the things that was on the last slide was you know the aggression
• 10:30 - 11:00 regression expression is that a block that blocks can allow play in any of those realms so a block can be an aggressive toy they can you know pretend it's a gun or a sword or something like that a block can be a regressive to way they can pretend it's a rattle or a baby bottle and obviously I think and in both of those cases an expressive toy so it can be both and so blocks are really an amazing thing to be able to have in your
• 11:00 - 11:30 therapeutic playroom or therapeutic play area or on-the-go therapeutic play behind of things so did that answer your question Alison yeah yeah so just a variety of blacks sighs yeah and here's the other thing is like I don't I don't think you want to overthink you know any of this you can find a basic toyless like on google on pinterest and almost every single plate every book they have one so I just wanted to talk a little bit about
• 11:30 - 12:00 what some of the basics you know traditionally are and why because I think sometimes you'll see these like a playlist type play there retailers but you won't see the why you have it there so so I wanted to talk about that part in particular um but I'll also give you some ideas about the kind because that doesn't matter and the next the next one on our list of all is a perfect example
• 12:00 - 12:30 you want a squishy ball you want to play like a plastic ball that will balance or a Nerf ball you don't want obviously a lacrosse ball or a hard softball or baseball or something like that you want one that even if it's hard is not likely to harm somebody or destroy a property you heard me say that same thing with blocks and part of the reason why I'm teasing that out is because you will have to set limits in play therapy but
• 12:30 - 13:00 you don't want to have to keep setting limit after limit after limit so if you can minimize some of the limits that you would set otherwise you're like don't do this don't do that don't do this is that um that can be connected to the toys that you choose so I and one of the other really cool things about having a ball in your playroom is that it is such a metaphor and symbol for relationships so oftentimes kids are going to want to have a catch with you or I roll a ball
• 13:00 - 13:30 back and forth with you and that's just like I want to be connected to you I want to be doing something with you so a ball is a great thing to have in your home player so there's a couple of things that would fall under the more expressive toys here all washable magic markers I'm really specific eligible ones because I don't want not bunch of opponents because kids will write on lots of things and some and you know you can try to again limit that
• 13:30 - 14:00 behavior but they can be really quick and so you don't want them writing on if you have a traditional chalkboard in your playroom or you don't want them writing on your clothing or your clothing or you know the desk or anything like that so having washable magic markers is a really good idea as well as washable paints what I would say around both of those things is that again I want to be also be thinking about limits and how that could add to the room so washable
• 14:00 - 14:30 magic marker even though it's washable it's not unforced service surfaces so like if a child took a washable magic marker and wrote all over their face that's not going to wash right off they're still gonna have shadow of that and that kind of thing that might not be a huge big deal if you're seeing them in a community practice but if you're seeing them in a school Alyson and they return to the know it would just be disruptive and you you know you
• 14:30 - 15:00 definitely don't want that to happen as far as paints go what I'll say is if you find that paints are too messy even if they're washable don't even have them in your playroom I'd like you to have them in your playroom but if it they don't lend themselves to either the playroom or the setting you're at or if you're traveling or if you're doing a home-based play therapy you don't have to have them as long as you have some other materials that fall under the
• 15:00 - 15:30 expressive and the more art medium style toys you're fine okay a tea party set a traditional Tea Party sets lovely but you do not need a traditional tea party set and like a ball a tea party set is a community lend itself to relationship themes in play therapy but it also has like an that nurturing aspect if you remembered on the five types of play therapy toys the tea party set has that
• 15:30 - 16:00 nerve during peace - it like I said you don't have to have an actual tea party set you can have a couple paper plates and paper cups and some spoons you know like you don't hom have to go out and spend a lot of money the other thing that you should just think of and I might be saying this again later so forgive me but maybe it's worth saying more than once is you don't want toys that are super expensive because toys will break and toys will get dirty and toys will get lost and
• 16:00 - 16:30 toys will get taken from the playroom and so if you know if you're really like this is the T stuff that my grandmother gave me it's been passed down from generations do not bring that into your therapeutic playroom it shouldn't be you shouldn't have so much of a connection to a toy that if it gets broken or dirty um in some way shape or form that that would not allow you to be present in that moment I'm going to group a couple
• 16:30 - 17:00 of these together farm animals dinosaurs yeah farm animals and dinosaurs all put put together you want like little figures that kids can manipulate that you know that are many they could be many of so they can set up communities and that kind of thing families it's nice to have dinosaurs and farm animals or any other kind of jungle animals it doesn't really matter but because that
• 17:00 - 17:30 allows for one degree of separation so maybe the animals are mad at each other and they fight and that's easier for a kid to show you then the parents are mad at each other they fight so have you got one degree of separation with some especially small figures where you can have a whole bunch of them that can be very helpful in the playroom as well I like a dollhouse in my playroom dollhouse isn't one of the more expensive things that you can have in
• 17:30 - 18:00 your playroom but if you're thoughtful about like garage sales and thrift stories and things like that you may be able to find a dollhouse I'm very basic here you don't want anything like too fancy that will get in the way of children playing with it or I have too many parts and pieces that would be cool again get in the way of them playing with it you want them to use the dollhouse one for the family nurturing play and then if
• 18:00 - 18:30 you're looking through the other lens they can untypical II show you what I think the way that I think of it is like they can show you what life is like at home or the way they wish it were at home they can do that through the house so that lends itself to that expressive play I know I've seen a dollhouse often that like flips open so I flipped open you can keep all this stuff in there yeah and that that's really good for being school-based or having to go into kids homes and things like that it
• 18:30 - 19:00 makes it very easier clean up so there's lots of reasons to have a kind like that yeah good tip a telephone um especially if you can have two of them that's really that's really great to be able to do you because a lot of times you know phones are metaphors and symbols of communication and so again you have opportunity for kids to be expressive they can even be regressive or aggressive nurturing all of those kind
• 19:00 - 19:30 of things through the telephone I found like over the years that that has been one of the most important choice in the playroom because of the way that I learn about children's lives so for instance I worked with this little boy who was abandoned by his parents and every single session he would go over to the telephone and be like mom dad and then
• 19:30 - 20:00 he was really little like four and then he'd be like no one's there you know so he was just what you know he really was showing me what that's like to you know be longing for them and grieving for them in his little way I've also had like a sexually traumatic it'd have me she pretended to be on the phone with her dad who was her the person who was perpetrating her and then she was like Joey get on the other phone and pretend like and listen in and put and don't say
• 20:00 - 20:30 anything and then she like confronted her dad on the phone and had an outcry right in the session where she was able to say what was going on and out crying and disclosure so super super cool so having phones come in in your playroom toy phones is great you also want a paper in there obviously if you're gonna have markers or crayons or paints something that they can do with paper even I definitely have had kids
• 20:30 - 21:00 just fall off the paper and I'll use that as a mall again expressive creative play the little army men again you want like different size figures that they can manipulate the army men there are no army women without human characters are again a super basic and they can create all sorts of scenarios with them so they do have you know potentially have an aggressive feel to them but a lot of
• 21:00 - 21:30 times you're just gonna see children use those for expression um and sometimes for like scary play sometimes for protective play so really can stretch the imagination in their family and people kupets I'm gonna just let you know right now I'm not a puppet person so I don't have a ton ton of puppets in my playroom but on lots of my colleagues and people I admire do I find that the
• 21:30 - 22:00 kids don't use them that much with me but I think that that might be me so but some of the best puppets and the moat and the puppets that get the most used in my playroom are puppets that look like people that they can like can relate family members to this way again they put it on the puppet again you don't have to get super fancy there are beautiful puppets just beautiful puppets out there but a soft puppet will do the trick in a pinch
• 22:00 - 22:30 so if need be that'll work play-doh and clay again more expressive type toy in the playroom and I think maybe the most important thing I want to say about this is if you are a person who and cannot deal with play-doh or clay colors being mixed probably don't have them in your playroom and the reason why I'm saying that is because honestly I
• 22:30 - 23:00 know it bothers some of you I know no judgment there in fact I think on play-doh and clay our outdoor toys so I'm definitely not judging you if you're like oh the play-doh colors so I have a couple of suggestions one is if you really really liked em play-doh and clay in there but it does kind of like trigger you a bit that when the kids mix the play-doh then have play-doh or clay that can be mixed and playdough and clay that can't be mixed in this way you can
• 23:00 - 23:30 set some parameters around that or just don't have the play-doh in there and the reason why I'm saying that is because and again this goes somewhat back to limit setting but the overall the overall thing is it doesn't really matter what kind of toys you have in play therapy it's about the relationship so there are times where I've only had maybe five or six toys because I was doing home based work or school based work where I was traveling between elementary schools it doesn't matter but
• 23:30 - 24:00 you want to be able to have enough toys that they can show you what they need to show you through if any particular toy and triggers you bothers you irritates you annoys you anything like that when a child starts playing with it you will not be attuned to them you will check out you will get upset you will not be present so I rather that you just not
• 24:00 - 24:30 have it in there so that that doesn't happen so that you can be present and accepting and fully there for the child and not be like oh my gosh that play-doh they just mix the blue with the yellow like of having the play-doh all be the same color like if you had four things of play-doh and they were all pink or what yeah yeah why not right again you want to simplify this and you don't want you to get in the way right so so that's an
• 24:30 - 25:00 yeah that's another great tip is to just then just have one color and you don't even have to worry about it um I'm gonna tell you it's all gonna be one color anyway about Julie and again here you don't have to go out and buy anything expensive there's lots of good play-doh and clay like recipes that you can follow a doctor's kit is really important um for frequently for nurturance kind of play sometimes for aggressive play sometimes
• 25:00 - 25:30 for regressive play it is one of the things that definitely gets used in the player of the most now um you can get like a toy doctor's kit but you can also make a doctor's kit and by this I mean you can get like a tool a plain toolbox or a plain lunchbox or um even like just like a purse and put these things in there so the important things that I think you should have in there are like again simple things cotton balls
• 25:30 - 26:00 band-aids um an ace bandage without the pin clip all those things you know can go in there crap stick so it's tongue depressor and like though mze vitamin bottles that have been washed out of course and anything like that and a real working stethoscope is a great great toy tab in your playroom because kids again metaphorically and symbolically they can listen to what's going on on the inside and for so many kids that's such a
• 26:00 - 26:30 really important metaphor and they can also check out what's going on in your inside by using the stethoscope on you so it's really powerful they're like ten dollars to get a real working stethoscope at most you know regular drug stores and super stores so it's not a huge expense and it's totally worth it the other thing that I will say is a must in that doctor's kit like I said a minute ago is band-aids and um and I
• 26:30 - 27:00 can't stress this enough um okay so first of all we're really as adults about band-aids like we ration them to kids but you can get a box of 200 at the dollar store so this is so I will tell you a couple of things one is as many band-aids as you put in the playroom will get used so if you put five band-aids in that doctor's kit five band-aids will get used if you put 2020
• 27:00 - 27:30 will get use so so I would say to only put probably tops five in there yeah paper too because and I'm glad you said Allison because sometimes what the kids do I'll just take like um you know like a marker on the on every single sheet of paper and be like look just like one little mark and now you get nobody else can use that paper and like you know it pushes our sustainability button so I
• 27:30 - 28:00 usually do three sheets of paper five band-aids that's the way that I usually handle them the what's so great about band-aids is one is kids know that we are weird about it so they're they're like wait he's real band-aids and so it already it's another thing that makes the playroom seem special and band-aids have like magical in the world of childhood in the culture of childhood they have like magical healing qualities
• 28:00 - 28:30 so and I'm not even joking my son was like probably 12 years old and he had this bruise on his leg and he come and he's like oh I just I just got this bad bruise on my leg and I said yeah you know what happened do you know he said ah I fell outside and he's like where the band-aids and I was like what it's bleeding and he was like ah I know but I
• 28:30 - 29:00 still need AB and E so even at 12 years old you know like magical healing quality of band-aids on persists so being able to give kids that opportunity and also I mean one of the things that you have to think about and it's a reason that you're not going to name ties is that like the can use them for lots of different things so I had a child once take the stethoscope out of the doctor's kit and he and if I would have been like oh you
• 29:00 - 29:30 found the stethoscope I would have gotten in the way of this child's expression and creativity because the next thing he did was he took the stethoscope and he weaved it through his belt loops on his pants and it became his utility belt same thing with band-aids although most kids will like identify them as band-aids and then if a child means the toy then you can call it whatever the child called it but I've had kids use band-aids as tape I've had kids tape my
• 29:30 - 30:00 mouth shut with band-aids when I'm a little too talky things like that so you want to just make sure that you're letting their creativity still come out even if it's a toy that's usually used in a particular way a camera I I think that most kids at this point would see a camera as part of a phone but i you can
• 30:00 - 30:30 still get like little throwaway 35-millimeter cameras at like the place like the dollar store or something like that they used I will tell you that kids sometimes ask me what they but if you can get a good play phone that also has looks like it has a camera part of it that works really well the reason why you want to have something like that in the playroom is because it's great metaphors for memorializing in memory and the memory of what's happening in the playroom which is a lot of children
• 30:30 - 31:00 do that it seems to be really important to them a couple more that I want to talk about here and then we'll move on is um you know really um great to have a baby doll and a baby bottle in there I you know obviously you have to take some precautions about you know things that might be choking hazards or kids putting stuff in their mouth with the baby bottle it's just something that I'm going to clean every single time but the
• 31:00 - 31:30 other thing about that is I do put water and my baby bottles in my playroom personal decision again sometimes those baby bottles get uses baby bottles and I've had other kids especially some of the sexually traumatized kids I work with use it as like an extension of themselves and their penis right so they'll like pretend they're peeing on things so and that's important to them in that moment it's not something I would set a limit
• 31:30 - 32:00 on but that again there's all sorts of different reasons to set limits which is a whole other webinar and the other thing with the baby baby doll family and people puppets trying to see if there's anything else really on here not on this particulars but I'll talk about it again is you can leave and you definitely want to leave in a variety of cultural opportunities here so you want
• 32:00 - 32:30 to make sure that you just don't have white dolls and white babies and you know and that are part of the puppets things like that just be thoughtful about that the last two things that I'm going to talk about one is that egg cartons and this can really be any kind of like empty box really an empty cereal box I like to use those in the kitchen you know like in like the kitchen area so they can be used for nurturance and family play but they could also be
• 32:30 - 33:00 destroyed so if I'm needing to set a limit with a child and like let's say they dump the crayons out and they're about to stop all over the crayons I would limit that behavior I'm gonna limit anything that's going to harm the child harm me or destroy property in the room so if they were about to do that I would limit them but then I can offer them a post you know alternative that would be pro-social so you can't just you can't break the crayons because then
• 33:00 - 33:30 nobody else can use them but you can tear up that empty cereal box you can squish the egg carton because there's no you know there's nothing in there so you want to be able when the child is being aggressive or destructive both have something that they can dispense yep okay cool and the last thing is a foam noodle and those are those pool noodles that you see around the summer time or if you live in a warm
• 33:30 - 34:00 climate all the time what I do is and also they're like a dollar you cut them in half and now you have two full noodles that are much more manageable size these are really great particularly in settings where you could not have toy weapons because a lot of times kids will use these as swords or something like that where they can still demonstrate their aggression without it being upsetting the setting that you're in so
• 34:00 - 34:30 the people in the setting that you're in so I love using foam noodles for that I will also say so much creativity comes out of that so I've had kids use them as a telescope frequently as a witch's broom I've had kids use them as a jackhammer so would you say yes of course a horse right all sorts of things um so I think that again is an really good
• 34:30 - 35:00 thing to have in your playroom and I consider it a basic again they hold up really well so it's like every season I spend one dollar on a new foam noodle because they um they hold up so I'll send any questions or anything that I'm that I should fill in that I didn't talk about on this particular slide you know I think you covered it all ok cool let's move on um so I just want to expand on this and looking at the toys in some of
• 35:00 - 35:30 those other kinds of categories that again they overlap and stuff but and I just wanted to give some more examples I'm so examples of family and nurturing toys some of this comes from that basic list then I want there some that are going to add that to people puppets and again all different shapes and sizes stuffed animals I don't I would say make a recommendation here one or two don't want it to be like too much
• 35:30 - 36:00 looking like I I don't know like my bedroom did in 1983 you know like you don't want it just to be overwhelmed with stuffed animals the other things you have to wash those pretty regularly and so I just tend to keep like two in there it's really nice for them to have stuffed animals in there because they are you know you know like nurturing and cuddly and that kind of thing so stuffed animals are a great addition to the playroom that you don't need too many play food and kitchen materials so
• 36:00 - 36:30 there's absolutely toy play food and I would encourage you to have some of that but there's also kitchen materials that you can have that come from that you're just upcycling or recycling and particularly I like to do that with empty spiced containers so wash those out and then I put them in the play room one of the great things about that is spice and food are so connected to
• 36:30 - 37:00 culture so having a variety of smells and like the that part in the playroom it makes your playroom much more multicultural experience and diverse experience so I buy that we have a we have a wide berth giving us spices in our home so we're pretty good like that but to just you know if you know somebody who's like oh you always use rosemary and you're cooking when you're done with that can I have it I think
• 37:00 - 37:30 that that is something that's it's just a really nice way to bring multiculturalism into your therapeutic playroom and like I said before empty boxes of any sort um but you know you can you kids don't always destroy them they can also just be used in like the kitchen area so to speak okay so play food and kitchen materials let's see what else sand sandbox and figures um so I have a
• 37:30 - 38:00 bias here that I just want to share is that I don't I honestly don't like to have that in my playroom if I if I'm working with really young kids I find it it's just really hard for them to keep the sand in the sand palm box and it becomes it it can become a power struggle it can be like a lot of limits around that and also the figures are small so choking
• 38:00 - 38:30 hazards and iPad kids put the sand right in their mouth but I get the sand in their eyes so I tend to use this in the sand sandbox and figures with a little bit older kids let me give you an operational definition of older I would say like nine and older so that's a personal preference from and also I always want to stay on the good side of the custodians in my building and that kind of thing so it's a lot of cleanup
• 38:30 - 39:00 something to think about um you know with regard to that but that certainly would be an example of family and nurturing toys particularly with the figures that you choose to go along with it um if you're doing home-based I would not bring sand into your clients home again I just think that yeah that that could be problematic in that way and and in this schools they've definitely used it in the schools but when I'm just when
• 39:00 - 39:30 I've been traveling between buildings you can do a small container with a Rubbermaid you know like Rubbermaid or Tupperware or something like that with a lid so that it's closed up and easy to transport and you can transport it with the figures right inside dollhouse and figures which we already talked about and dolls in general one or two baby dolls again just like the stuffed animals you don't want to overwhelm the space with those animal families so that
• 39:30 - 40:00 can be jungle animals sea creatures zoo animals farm animals doesn't matter and then a doctor's get authority um we talked about already so those if you're looking at it through different lens those would be your family and nurturing toys anything else there that you would that you thought of Allison that could go that was going um for kitchen materials having like if you are traveling or a shared space or
• 40:00 - 40:30 just don't have the funds to get the big kitchen is the really easy like Tupperware container and then like you can draw on the stove yes and put the toy food inside of it even use as a container piece for that part so because I think that is a really useful toy in the playroom yeah so all you do and again you can find really examples of great examples of how to do this on Pinterest is you use like a container
• 40:30 - 41:00 with a lid and you just draw like a burner kind of on top of it like the stove burner on top of it and then now you have that but then you also have a way to store your toy you know toys and travel with them so it's excellent I love love love that idea scary toy examples so we divided these up a little bit so creepy creatures I think are an important thing to have in
• 41:00 - 41:30 your clear you don't need again to over and do it having one or two creepy creatures is enough but snakes are typically viewed as creepy creatures but in some cultures they're viewed as healing creatures so you know obviously it depends on how the child is using ya rats we have what we have we have one that's like a foamy kind of squishy one it's so gross so creepy and a child that
• 41:30 - 42:00 I worked with who had been sexually traumatized like one of the things she wanted me to do is eat the rat you know and so it was like perfect because she really wanted me to know she's really trying to show me what it was like to have to put something in my mouth which was you know part of what had happened to her dinosaurs can be creepy creatures particularly the carnivore style dinosaurs alligators or crocodiles
• 42:00 - 42:30 sharks you know just kind of like the traditional creepy creatures also puppets masks would fall under that this right here this clown puppet or a clown mask is like literally right out of my playroom it is a creepiest thing I wish you guys could see it in like real life because it's creepy here but in real life way creepier I'm part of part of why it's so creepy is this tongue sticks out so around Halloween time what I
• 42:30 - 43:00 would suggest is buy one or two creepy masks that you can have in the play room with you a lot of times children their view from their perspective of adults is distorted especially if an adult has harmed them and so those creepy masks are so important because they allow the child to shoot you know give you an idea of what that's like and then these are some creepy puppets here but I would say
• 43:00 - 43:30 scary puppets is that one of the ones that gets used all the time in my playroom and like I said I don't like have kids use puppets a lot is like the alligator crocodile puppet the Scorpion pup puppet the scarier looking puppets we even have like a vulture or looking one that gets used all the time so I would say any puppet that you like take a look at you go like anything like that
• 43:30 - 44:00 that you want that in there just and again you don't need tons of it you just need one like one or two of these things it's enough for them to convey that to you okay yeah I had to do that because aggressive toys okay so in terms of aggressive toys we've talked about like certainly toy weapons right but this fit this image right here this is a pop bag
• 44:00 - 44:30 and for those of you not familiar it's one of those like bags like you punch and they come back up and there's a lot in the literature on whether or not you should have bought bags in your playroom I will say this I like about bag in my playroom too kids use it to demonstrate aggressive aggression yup but they also and I think this is so important and again part of the reason you don't need toys and you look specially in child center please every and you let what manifest needs to manifest is I've had this exact
• 44:30 - 45:00 bag act as on guard that protected a child I had another child that used it as their best buddy and so they're like me Mama's buddy you're going to the market and it was this was their best buddy so it's not only for aggression and I think sometimes we like we're putting our own stuff on it just be careful about that so some other examples besides the bat bag would be any toy weapons I will say that if
• 45:00 - 45:30 you're going to you have a toy dart gun in there that the ones like the nerf ones that shoot like foam are way better than the suction cup ones and how I know this is because I've been hit in the face with a suction cup dart gun and it hurts so and I like to think that I'm pretty quick in the playroom but so are
• 45:30 - 46:00 kids so and and it can be really upsetting to a child when to hurt you so like I mean I think that sometimes we think that that's but they're trying to but sometimes you know like that suction cup toy dart gun will fire and it will hit you and it will hurt you and you'll respond like ouch and that will be upsetting to a child so because they care about you and they didn't want to do that so that isn't
• 46:00 - 46:30 like an important thing to remember about that you can also have a toy gun if you're allowed to in your setting and I would check always check about that first is if you're allowed to have one in your cell you don't have to have ones that do shoot anything out the other thing I will say is that so two things I always check with my setting and when I start with a new client I always ask because people have very strong feelings about guns is I will always ask the
• 46:30 - 47:00 parent is it okay for me to keep the toy gun in the playroom I'll tell you in 25 years I've never had somebody say no but I still I ask and I think part of that is a community I that I live in there's a there's a large hunting community so I think that that's part of it it's also very embedded in our American culture so so that's one of the things that I wanted to say about that the other thing I wanted to say is you don't have to
• 47:00 - 47:30 have a gun toy gun in there at all because if a kid needs to pretend something is a toy gun they will and so whether they turn a marker or a block or their fingers or anything if they feel like they need to do that show you aggression communicate aggression through their play and I'm gun is a very simple way to do that is they'll figure out a way to make them even this yeah right so simple right um the other thing too is that I've had
• 47:30 - 48:00 those suction-cup dart guns in the playroom where kids have used them as a nail gun to build something I have one kid you flip it over on its like side and I was like pretending it was a boat like I'm like okay I didn't see that coming at all but again it's important not to just assume that they're going to play aggressively you know with a toy that lends itself to being played with
• 48:00 - 48:30 aggressively swords um I prefer to have use the phone noodles then pretend swords in there unless you can find Foam swords because the plastic ones hurt really bad and I and I have never had a kid like and again 25 years I've never had a kid like try and hurt me with a plastic sword but I get hurt anyway and part of that is if in child centered
• 48:30 - 49:00 play therapy if you are doing the style child centered play therapy where a child invites you into their play and then your sword fighting with them is for whatever reason that plastic sword will in sort in the sword fight will hit your fingers and it like hurts like nobody's business and I don't want to hurt the child that way and of course and I don't want them to hurt me that way and they don't want to because it's part of their play so I would just suggest you to
• 49:00 - 49:30 either use foam swords for those foam noodles instead and they make rubber knives and actually like one of the in one of the play rooms we have there's like a a rubber axe that I bought around how the meantime that has like fake blood on it that gets a lot of use so any kind of toy you know any kind of toy weapons but assessing them for safety and your own comfort again if you feel like oh my gosh this is like a little
• 49:30 - 50:00 too much to put in a therapeutic playground don't put it in there you don't have to okay toy soldiers tanks cabins we talked about that a little bit when we were talking about the army men earlier a shield is a really great thing to have in there I like to have two shields I find a lot of times kids one if they're engaging me in their play they want me to be able to protect myself too
• 50:00 - 50:30 fairness is at the heart of the culture of childhood and so a lot of times they're gonna want if they have want something to use they're gonna want you to have that as well it's actually a good sign it's pro-social and I'm handcuffs so those are probably one of the things I could see use in the playroom the most I will say that if you are not comfortable with having a kid's thumb put your hands and handcuffs just
• 50:30 - 51:00 have them again because it whatever it does whatever about it makes you uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable you can't listen so I will have let them put one handcuff one cuff around but not the other and I'll pretend that's one way to do it also a lot of times they want to put they you know to use the handcuffs behind your back that leaves you really vulnerable if you feel safe and it doesn't trigger anything for you then go ahead and do it but if you're like
• 51:00 - 51:30 then don't do it just don't allow them to do it you can know what you can say is like I'm not comfortable just own it I'm not comfortable with my hands behind my back like that but you can do it in front or you can put one on my wrist you'll give them enough give them an alternative I will tell you that once I had a kid I'm not uncomfortable it doesn't trigger anything for me if they use them behind my back so but once I got stuck like that and
• 51:30 - 52:00 that was uncomfortable knocking on my colleagues door and asking to please uncomfy classic moment in my plate there being career well it's the joys being a plate their best and then I just I I had to put this image here because I thought it was like kind of crazy a piece I made out of guns but that was just for an image that I wanted to share okay so
• 52:00 - 52:30 really anything can be an aggressive toy or not and so again as long as you have one or two things that kind of lend themselves easily to aggression you've like check you've got it that in the clear and then that's good so expressive two ways here here's gonna be your art stuff for the most part crayons markers
• 52:30 - 53:00 easels in an easel and paints plate or clay finger paints um I don't traditionally have finger paint in my office but or my clay term I should say but every now and then I do and/or have had in the past a really interesting thing about finger paints is they have similar consistency to bodily fluids so you'll see that children who have been sexually automatized
• 53:00 - 53:30 often have a very strong reaction to finger paints so just be prepared for that if you especially if the kids you work with are part of that population like if you work at a Child Advocacy Center or someplace like that that you know what they'll show you because they may get triggered by the finger pains you know I just want you to be like ready for that because it it's
• 53:30 - 54:00 um it's pretty you know it's pretty disturbing so all of you will work with sexually traumatized kids whether that's your specialty or not and whether the whether that's the reason the child was referred or not they're just gonna they show up at our doorsteps our therapeutic doorstep so to speak whether we're in schools or doing home based or residential um you know the those kids are gonna show up for us so glue and
• 54:00 - 54:30 scissors I have some kids who cannot be safe with the scissors so I just don't put the scissors I take them out of the room and the kids come in but there's lots of kids who get have opportunity to experiment with scissors same is true of the glue that can be very provocative particularly for sexually travels I blew stick it's a little bit easier to clean up and like the band-aids and the paper kind of thing is they will use
• 54:30 - 55:00 that entire thing of glue if you leave it in there so glue stick is a much more manageable way to keep glue in your player what about blunt scissors like the scissors you just you just said the rounded edges yeah so those like the kid kind of scissors right I think there are some kids that I that I've worked with who still couldn't be safe with that like they would even though they've the rounded edges they would take it and like yeah cut them themselves and stuff so that's
• 55:00 - 55:30 just that's a judgment clinical judgment call on your part but most most of the time if you're working with I would say elementary age kids and older they can handle at least the blunt scissors if if it was a kid who was referred for Mott like violence then I probably wouldn't even put the scissors in there but some of the littler kids have trouble I mean as they should because they don't have the dexterity for right oh good Allisyn blocks are also considered
• 55:30 - 56:00 expressive toys and Legos and so little something about Legos is I like particularly if like if you're in an elementary school setting Legos for the older kids for your fourth fifth sixth graders they not really respond well to that the other the other thing with Legos is they have some of the sets have tiny pieces so being careful if you have
• 56:00 - 56:30 Legos in your therapeutic playroom and you're also working with real little ones or kids who have Pike you know or you know or just kids who put stuff in their mouth for other reasons is like I usually put the I only take the Legos out for the older kids so if I'm working I work with like the youngest kid I'm working with now is two so I would not even I wouldn't put the Legos into the playroom it's just easier for me to keep
• 56:30 - 57:00 them out of the playroom and then bring them in when I'm working with older kids okay all right so because I think that we've woven some of these in here all the lessons that I learned about toys too in avoid and play their BR have happened in the moment so I'm trying to UM to prevent you from that experience twig off clubs are a bad idea I just
• 57:00 - 57:30 gonna say they look cute bad idea so I don't know how else to say that you will get hit with them even and and I want to be really clear like sometimes you get hit with something not because a child is trying to harm you just because their children and they can't manipulate it or hold onto it the way that they want you know they want to and so because they don't have the dexterity or the physical
• 57:30 - 58:00 development or whatever and you wind it or they they're not good at judging spatial relations and you get hit if you get hit with a twig off of it really hurts it leaves a mark so just don't have them in there this is a little bit of a different one I do have puppets in my playroom that don't have opening mouths but I would say which is fine as long as you also
• 58:00 - 58:30 have puppets that have mouths that open and the reason why you would avoid only having puppets that mouths don't open is for really concrete thinking children is that if the mouths don't open they can't speak they don't have a voice so that they kind of put those things together so I it's okay to puppets without opening mouths as long as you also have puppets with opening mouths make sense
• 58:30 - 59:00 yeah because there's some that just like fit on your hand that um you you manipulate like the legs and arms and other parts of the puppet but the mouths you can't open and shut right didn't throw a child-centered point of view and i know that some people would disagree but um i'm Acuras here no board games out of the playroom and so um now can you play board games with children and
• 59:00 - 59:30 still follow a child centered approach yes but a lot of the board games that play therapist choose our therapeutic board games which is somebody else's agenda and if I'm really sticking to the child centered philosophy bringing in a board game like the thinking feeling doing game but that are there's an agenda attached to that game and so that is not non directed even in scope does
• 59:30 - 60:00 that make sense Allison yeah the other reason not to have board games is honor about the rest of you but I'm a little on the competitive side and I found that that sometimes I dipped in my way and so when I I remember playing checkers with this kid and I didn't um I've never had more games in my playroom but this was up shared play rooms and I didn't even know the checkers was in there and the seven seven-year-old
• 60:00 - 60:30 boys or Kamath goes like oh hey can we play checkers and I was like oh okay so he gets the checker set up and he illegally triple jumped me I really try not to let it get to me but I was like even here's the thing is that kids are going to cheat that's one lens to look at it through they're gonna cheat at games but on the
• 60:30 - 61:00 way that I look at that is is that they're gonna find ways to be successful right and so all of us find ways to be successful and they're just it's not usually very graceful when they're playing board games so for some of us it's the cheating that bothers us for or if they lose pieces or if they play differently like if they're playing Monopoly I know the way my the way I was raised in my culture was there's a you
• 61:00 - 61:30 know there's five hundred dollars on under free parking did you play that way else no no okay so right they are like right there so Allison and I even as adults are playing Monopoly we're going to have a power potentially a power struggle over whether or not you get five hundred dollars when you land on free parking okay so I just think it's easier to leave the board games out just leave them out they come with too much
• 61:30 - 62:00 connected to them I know there's lots of great board games that are therapeutic I know there's lots of great board games that help connect us to children like oh no and Jenga and feel like playing feelings Jenny and there's so many cool things that you can do um that's fine if you're not doing child centered play therapy - like it - its truest orientation make sense okay so if if
• 62:00 - 62:30 you're watching this and you're like oh my gosh that Jody melon is so strict about the board games I am but I'm not I if you're doing child centered play therapy I'm not if you're doing something called like humanistic play therapy so it kind of depends things with sharp police I think that's kind of a no-brainer broken or dirty toys broken her dirty toys convey that we don't care
• 62:30 - 63:00 so dirty toys also can I mean broken toys can also have sharp points or things like that so they can be dangerous but like I'm having toys that are really like mangled or dirty conveys that like we don't care enough about the space and our things and we don't want to we don't want a child to think that that also applies to them what are your thoughts on like if
• 63:00 - 63:30 you're able to fix a toy like if something snaps off and you're able to glue it back without it you know being seen or noticeable so if it happens outside of the session you mean or or if it is broken in the session and then yeah okay so two things so sometimes like a Lego snap for the doll or something and um okay so - I'm really glad you said that's awesome yes sometimes you'll see a kid will break a toy will get broken I oxidant you know in the
• 63:30 - 64:00 playroom and you will see a child have a really visceral reaction like that they'll go like like they'll think you're gonna yell at them or harm them or you know whatever so one of the things that's really important to say is that like toys blink you know like so it's like so if I notice that kind of reaction in the child when they break a toy like hmm I will say like you were
• 64:00 - 64:30 really worried I was going to get mad I'm actually gonna reflect on what's happening in the relationship you were really worried that I was going to get man but police breaking the playroom all the time so making sure that um and just a quick funny story is I had a you know in a graduate level play therapy class like when you're helping me teach currently is I had a student who was probably at the time in her 30s break a toy during a
• 64:30 - 65:00 practice session and she was beside herself beside herself about it so you know so I just I think we really need to be observant and attune to how kids feel if a toy breaks in session okay that being said if I can snap the leg back on that I might say like let me see if I can snap the leg back on that especially asked me but if a toy breaks in session and and I think I can repair it of
• 65:00 - 65:30 course I'm going to give it a try but at some you know also at some point just saying like like this doesn't look right or it doesn't work right yeah I've actually had some kids you know over the years be attracted to broken toys I'm for various reasons and I've like kept like I'd kept them for that kids session like I had a baby duck his head popped off and every time he picked it up like that after that if
• 65:30 - 66:00 that happened in a session the head would just roll off and this one kid that that happened with like he thought it was the funniest thing ever and so at the end of this session he said oh can we keep that and I was like yeah so I didn't keep it in the session for the other kids but you know for him I did so I'm wondering what your thoughts are I just thought of this um for toys that maybe like like you said a leg is missing so I think of my brother
• 66:00 - 66:30 who has one leg uh-huh and how that would like represent him like if you were to go in and see that yeah other people with physical disabilities that might connect your toys that have pieces missing yeah so I think I think there's just a thoughtfulness about that like does it look like a broken toy or does it look like that can be purposeful or it could be you know a child might be attracted to that I told the story in class a couple of weeks ago where I had
• 66:30 - 67:00 a Barbie doll and it's one of my favorite toys when I was growing up at a Barbie doll who got her legs stuck in the escalator and and it was a compound fracture so her boy hurt Barbie doll Barbie doll bone was sticking out yeah I loved her so much that I did not want to part with her and actually my dad like bandaged her up and I kept that Barbie until I said goodbye to all my Barbies so you know I think
• 67:00 - 67:30 just again you're assessing for how a child responds but but to just I think more the spirit here is I'm not gonna go to like collect a bunch of toys that are kind of on the yucky side or broken and use those as my play therapy set okay any toys that break easy for kind of the reason we were just talking about a lot of it you know you don't you won't don't want to have to keep replacing them be
• 67:30 - 68:00 replacing them and the other thing is you also don't want the kids to have that happen because there are so many of them especially in the relationship with you that can be really kind of like taxing on their system so you don't want to have toys that just like just break super easy toys with too many small pieces choking hazard plus the pieces get lost like you know it just becomes a hassle you can have battery-operated toys but then make sure you bet you keep
• 68:00 - 68:30 the battery in it like an up 2d or never have a battery in it so so you have to make a decision about about being able to do that I tend to not use battery-operated toys at all in my play rooms because I just can't like it's like another thing I have to think about the other thing is frequently battery-operated toys they put the expression in the toy rather than the
• 68:30 - 69:00 child puts the expression in the toy so I have an example that this is in our class I use the cash register as a computer reattach register had the sounds and everything that might have an impact the child using that for something else perfect that's exactly that's exactly it so that's why I either stay away from battery-operated toys or I just I just don't put the batteries in at all um you
• 69:00 - 69:30 know if you look at like Axe lines original work you know one of the things that she really stressed that was also stressed in my training in my education in terms of becoming particularly a child centered play therapist is simple simple simple in terms of the toys and once you add battery to it it's not so simple anymore okay so you always want to think of safety of course in terms of toys to avoid and also you're going to have some kids that just don't risk that
• 69:30 - 70:00 respond really negatively to a particular toy and for those kids I might just take the toy out of the playroom like I had one little girl who was like really afraid of we have this Elmo doll in the playroom it's just terrified of it so I would just take it out write logical safety piece of it you recognized and yeah so it's not just physical safety it's also psychological safety um and I'm so glad that you said that cause that just triggered me
• 70:00 - 70:30 something else is like there's no need to have anatomically correct doll in your therapeutic playroom and I'm saying that as somebody who specializes in working with sexually traumatized kids they will show you what they need to show you whether or not those dolls have the correct anatomical parts so um that and there's there's research on that you can look that up if you don't agree with me then how about it but I'm telling you you don't need that in there so um and
• 70:30 - 71:00 then I also thought it would makes a lot of sense for us to just talk about some considerations I know we've kind of been weaving them in here and there but I wanted to make sure we talked about these as well so I will say that if you go to integrative counseling services YouTube page you can find an entire free webinar on home based play therapy and the toys that we recommend
• 71:00 - 71:30 go along with that so I'm just gonna send you there rather than say a lot about that here but when you're doing home based where you're traveling to children's homes to do the therapy play there be there is it really just has to be things that are easy to travel with and easy to clean up so that's like your probably the most important and part of that but again there's a whole webinar already on integrative counseling's
• 71:30 - 72:00 YouTube page on that and it's free so bonus just like this one so also school-based and out then I'm gonna let you be the expert because even though I've done school-based play therapy is that like what are some of the things that you're that are really kind of important to think about because you're doing that now in school-based play therapy right um so one of the
• 72:00 - 72:30 things that comes up a lot for me is my location so like where your office is um it's right next to the principal's office and also the attendance so many people are on phones talking with parents and if a child were to be you know swearing or yelling or even doing something that just creates a lot of noise that can have an impact on others that would take away from the session and then me also being like oh my god like that was so loud so keeping that in
• 72:30 - 73:00 mind and then being prepared to set a limit in that sense yeah and then have my news achill instruments maybe in that office right right or um something that made like like a toy gun that made shooting noises I think I'd be a foolish toy to have anyway but particularly in a school setting yes definitely um and then another piece
• 73:00 - 73:30 with the weapons is like the army set that I haves actually there's a lot to it they they have little guns in the army set itself um and they're not like big so I feel like there's a degree of separation there in the sense of like it's with the army guys and then just the phone noodles otherwise I wouldn't really have any other weapons out in the room yeah and then the other like a
• 73:30 - 74:00 positive about school based is all the kid like the kids have to go to school so you all the kids they're all right like someone had to come in and make an appointment so I'm like the just play therapy being a great approach for working with kids of different cultures yeah so that in itself is like a great way to just interact and provide therapy for kids who are of different cultures yeah so not letting that get in your way and there's enough research out there
• 74:00 - 74:30 you can really get into the weeds on it and using school based plate therapy and you can using play therapy with kids from all sorts of cultures across the planet you know and one of the things that Gary Landreth said who's our modern-day child centered played therapy guru as gary said it's not if you use play therapy in the schools but how and so it's just you know some of the things that Allison has been saying about being
• 74:30 - 75:00 thoughtful about that and I would recommend Athena drew this book on school-based play therapy I think that you you know that there's a lot there's a lot in there and that's enough to get you feeling confident about bringing play therapy into the school and play there beyond the guy I included play therapy on the go here because I think home-based play therapy school days played there be an even agency based plays there be all can be played there be on the go which has some it has some
• 75:00 - 75:30 things to think about with it is that you have to be able to pack it up you know a lot of us are not in just one location where we go into the room the room we use or the space we use is not designated so I think like when you're thinking of played therapy on the go one of the things that I think can be really helpful and this would be true for home-based play therapy to is having a sheet or a blanket that designates the
• 75:30 - 76:00 area of the room right so that if you're doing play therapy in the middle of a child's living room at home it's not the room not special it's just being on that blanket it creates sort of a container or a border and that can be true doing school-based work and that can be you know true if you are going from building to building that you have a mat or a blanket or something like that that also works well with shared space so I'm
• 76:00 - 76:30 jumping around a little bit and by shared space I mean like I need to use this part of my office for my computer and my paperwork and you know that kind of thing and this part of my office I want to do play therapy and and so having something that designates the boundary of play therapy I think is really important in doing this work and so so thinking about like in terms of the sharing the space is what can I have
• 76:30 - 77:00 in my office that's easy to clean up if I have a parent meeting right after or something like that but being able I have literally put tape down on carpet or tape down on flooring and kids will not come across it if you set strong boundary and if you don't waver around that so I find kids super responsive to that so if you have shared space weight and I don't mean sharing with another person I mean space that you have to
• 77:00 - 77:30 share with other things that you have to do if that's a good way to do it and then limited faith is that some of us don't have really big play rooms big beautiful play rooms one of the one of the schools that I did play therapy in I'm not even exaggerating the room I had was a closet and it was four by five 40 foot by five foot and so in just
• 77:30 - 78:00 thinking of that limited space I didn't need I didn't want any large scale toys in there so in that room I didn't have a kitchen set which is one favorite things tab the player might gets used all the time I just had like a little teeny tiny barbecue said you know so so just thinking of limited space you don't want it to be overwhelming to the child so being you know thoughtful about like the number of things you have and as long as
• 78:00 - 78:30 you're hittin one or two in all those five categories or one or two of aggression regression expression you're in pretty good shape you don't have to have everything um there's something I do a lot of supervision so I've seen some of the most I think beautiful play rooms on the planet and the my playroom is not one of the most beautiful places on the planet but here's what you learn it doesn't matter toys are just an opportunity for child
• 78:30 - 79:00 to help children communicate to you but it's especially with the child centered it's about the relationship so some other consideration cleaning in messes is if you have kids that are scheduled back-to-back or if you have to like pack up and go all those kind of things how like what toys are in your room that will help facilitate that right so if
• 79:00 - 79:30 you have like don't have the 180 pack of crayons have the eight pack of crayons you like have a bin that can easily you're not sliding and back into the right yeah so that's right but bins and containers can be really helpful too because it's just I can just take all the Legos and put them back into this container versus having to put them back in a box or organize them in a particular way so bins and containers
• 79:30 - 80:00 are really good um to have plus if you're play therapy on the go school-based home-based or you know like moving from place to place is that's a good way to travel with them also thinking about in terms of cleaning and messes obviously cleaning anything that a kid puts in their mouth or sneezes on or anything like that you have to take care of that I don't get any like residuals from this but there's a product called
• 80:00 - 80:30 Clorox it's for hard surfaces and you can just spray it right on and that you don't have to wipe it down or anything in a clean it takes you know these disinfect the surface so I really like that for quick cleanup again quickly not that if if need be but one thing and again twice very much wind up as they have this whole conversation being connected to limit setting and so if I have children
• 80:30 - 81:00 scheduled back-to-back or I have to go after you know a particular session because I have to head out to another building or you know anything like that is I'm much more likely to limit the mess making than I am if it's my last kid of the day or if I have the time to clean it up and child-centered please air me children are not responsible for cleaning up the messes we are they you
• 81:00 - 81:30 know the mess is again a metaphor it's symbolic of what they're going through and what they're in the middle of or that kind of thing so you just want to make sure that if it is like if it is impeding what you need to do next that you just set some limits around the message and usually the limit that I set because you have kids who I just refer to as refer to them excuse me as dumpers and build them everything every container you have out
• 81:30 - 82:00 right and so you have all the crayons all the Legos all the you know all the kitchen food everything is jumped out the those dumpers is um is that I'll just say like if you if you want to play that way we have to end session five minutes early because it takes me a really long time to take care of that mess for you and you know in some kids it's worth it if you have never done that I'm gonna tell you do it it's it is
• 82:00 - 82:30 so um story is um we were so we have at the university we have our like campus clinical play area and we were moving from one building to another and I had our clinical space has a play area but also I was like the sand play and the figures right so um so I had my one of
• 82:30 - 83:00 the students who was helping me move and organize stuff I was like you know what just take all the puss and play figures off the shelf and just will reorganize them when we get to the new building so she just took her hand and went like and and knocked them all off the shelf and and then she was like oh my god that was the best feeling ever and she said to me have you ever done that and
• 83:00 - 83:30 it might god no Sushi's like do it do it so I did it and I was like wow that's an amazing feeling so then we went to the department secretary and I said Melissa you have got to try this and luckily we had like six or seven shelves and we just kept inviting he invited all their professors in to do it and everybody had the same response being able to create a mass like a swooping mess like that ah
• 83:30 - 84:00 it just does something to your system so if you haven't done it if you haven't dumped something out if you haven't created a mess like that do it have enough time to clean it up yeah just make sure you have enough time to say that right right right often you should consider the developmental age of the kids that you're working with some of you will work with you know from - like I do from two-year-olds - 12 year old and so you want to just make sure you have toys that are appropriate for the whole span
• 84:00 - 84:30 developmentally but some of you are going to be working with more narrow age like somebody will only work with preschoolers so you can be thoughtful on in that way - and of course there's a lot of diversity among preschoolers but still you would need less diversity in terms of the toys you have in your playroom if you're working with just preschool then if you're working with two-year-old and 12 year olds and then cultural considerations make sure you're you have dolls of color and puppets of color and
• 84:30 - 85:00 they even make markers that are different for different skin tones Crayola makes them also like I had recommended spice the different empty spice containers look for a different ethnic food like you know not food boxes that you can put in your playroom but also different ethnic items in terms of plastic food it's much I can tell you it's much much much better than it was
• 85:00 - 85:30 25 years ago when I started but I mean it still should be a thoughtful practice and procedure right I actually had two things that I want to bring up with the messes okay um was a story that you told but first paint markers I think are a good way like if you still want the paint to incorporate them and then also this thing called mono light you have it right there with you huh yeah right there with you I use it um so you know
• 85:30 - 86:00 because clay is really it can get like it's wet and it just doesn't work well all the time for schools and just between sessions so that is it dries and so the kids could also like depending on what they make they could keep it and it would be like oh it has to stay here to dry and then also a story that you told once and I'm wondering how it wouldn't relate to this in terms of like if the kid has a mess
• 86:00 - 86:30 on them like their hands and having a wipe like kit like hand wipes in the room yeah it's also giving an opportunity to be like hey act like saying is it okay if I help you wipe off your hands yeah so it I think that I forgot about that so that's why that's why I happy afford Allison so thank you it's like yeah having just like some baby wipes or you know things that are in the room
• 86:30 - 87:00 that a child could take care of themselves um if they had to or they could ask for help in cleaning a toy they'll use it with the baby dolls or themselves absolutely that's a great thing to tell in the playroom even sometimes just paper towels and water isn't you know is enough to do that that becomes a nurturing to way but it also allows them to demonstrate their pro-social Ness and I think that's what you know I think one
• 87:00 - 87:30 of the things that happens when you talk about toys is oftentimes you talk about the anti-social waves children will use toys again I'm going to say that my experience is like yo that much more examples of children finding pro-social ways to even use toys that are typically antisocial or thought of as antisocial then you will have the opposite happen so I think that like that is important
• 87:30 - 88:00 um you know to know as well yeah alright I think this is here's just my contact information there's a foam noodle see I told you this is my contact information if you're interested and there um there is more you know eyes thinking of this as we were like wrapping up that last slide there definitely is more to toys them where you know talking about you know you know
• 88:00 - 88:30 but I think a lot of it is woven into some of the other basics of child centered played therapy a lot is woven into limits a lot is woven into themes and we're going to include some if you're interested is some ancillary um that will help you see how those things are connected out and I'm creative I'm really cool and about toys and beans so if you're interested that would be you would contact me through that email
• 88:30 - 89:00 address and we'll send that out to you um yeah what else ALPHAN um do you want to mention any toys that weren't on the basic list that you find our users with often yeah I want to to say what are the - um you know how long have you been doing cake every like a year no not a year yet I guess well I started in September okay so you're getting there so what are the toys that
• 89:00 - 89:30 the kids at that you work with like what are some of the things that you're like oh I don't even know how I'd ever have a playroom without this in here um cars is something that has been use quite a bit even for like escape like a vehicle for people to get aping or being involved in the play of aggressive aggression yeah and then also it's not a toy but a beanbag yeah it'd be really great in terms of even for laying on sitting on
• 89:30 - 90:00 you thing as an alternative and limit setting for hitting instead of like if you're on a bot bag which I probably wouldn't in a school find that to be and even the sound of it like with the jab adding that piece to it um and then dress-up clothes not having a lot but like a cape and a mask um the combination of that I found to be used yeah I would I definitely agree about that sometimes like I think
• 90:00 - 90:30 sometimes you just want to also think from a sensory perspective to is like okay what different sounds and feels and things like that are in the playroom my but I think I said earlier like I gotta have handcuffs in my playroom I also have to have a jump rope I love a jump rope in my playroom it is I can't even think of all the different things like jump ropes how bad a rope right yeah one here it's
• 90:30 - 91:00 like plastic you know those ones stink the the actual jump rope because they'll use that I've had kids use it as a snake as as waves in the ocean as a Salah so to show competency to tie themselves up to tie me up to tie us together you know because they don't let you know because they're creating like a bond you know there's just a million ways that maybe use the lasso
• 91:00 - 91:30 think you can see from this picture lots I do love my dress-up stuff in the players yep you know it's weird I'm like wearing almost the same outfit right now that I am in that picture side this I mean besides the glasses and the kerchief it appears I also love a magnetic dartboard I like this I do think there should be toys in the
• 91:30 - 92:00 playroom that allow kids to be successful so like you know we talked a little bit about board games earlier and that kids will cheat belchy adults will cheat look at the research you know like if given an opportunity I think it's like 96 percent of college students will cheat on its that's its classic right but um but I like to have things in the clear and where kids can feel successful and a jump rope - you know I absolutely
• 92:00 - 92:30 do that or you know allow them to feel competency another thing that I really like in the playroom is something like it gets the cash register gets used every single kid there's not a kid who doesn't use the cash register and the money that goes along with it and I like like in one of our therapeutic players we have like a toy vanity that has like a pretend blow-dryer and a curling iron
• 92:30 - 93:00 and that that gets a lot a lot of use as well yeah so I again I don't want you just like you want kids to be creative in the playroom you can be creative too about what you include in your in your playroom it shouldn't be expensive it shouldn't break easily it shouldn't be dangerous and it should for allow regression regression and expression it's you know so within that there's so many different ways that that you can go with that but we really just wanted to
• 93:00 - 93:30 give you a nation for that and we'll ink it will include the link for the home-based play therapy webinar and toy list a toy list that goes along with it that things we recommend for home-based play therapy and then if you're interested in CEUs or you're interested in Allison's theme and toy challenge is um we I'll be
• 93:30 - 94:00 happy to send those to you all you have to do is email me and let me know that that's what you're looking for so last words I'll send anything I don't think so that was great house fun thank you for sharing your expertise and proof that like you can really become super knowledgeable about about play therapy and in a in a short time like Allison has but she has really dope deep so so
• 94:00 - 94:30 thank you again Allison I appreciate you doing this with me yes thanks for including me welcome [Music]