Play therapy really works

Losing someone is one of the most difficult things to go through. Every day there is a gentle reminder of that loved one, from a simple scent to a song or TV show that they loved, and these little reminders can break your heart into a million pieces.

Imagine how loss feels to a little three-year-old girl.

Alayna lost her great-grandmother whom she regarded as her ‘best friend’, and as a mum who just gave birth to her second preemie, I did not know how to help Alayna deal with this loss.

She just became a big sister, which is meant to be so exciting, but she also lost one of the most important people in her life. My daughter and her great-grandmother were together every single day since she came home.

I could not answer questions such as “Why did her Mum Bee go?” or “When Mum Bee is coming back?” however the red flag for us was Alayna’s aggression. She started displaying aggressive behaviour towards her brother and I tried my best to help her but I just couldn’t.

After researching play therapy, we decided to give it a go, as she is not emotionally ready to verbalise her feelings.

She attended six sessions and at the start, she kept putting a doll into the sand and bringing it back up. The therapist explained that in Alayna’s mind, she was still coming back, but during the fifth session she put the doll into the sand and never took it out. Even though Alayna is still a minor, patient-therapist confidentiality still applied, therefore we could not sit in the room while her therapy session occurred. The therapist, however, did discuss progress.

After the sixth session, we did not need to return as Alayna was no longer playing out the theme of death but rather the theme of bonding with her new baby brother. She was playing out feeding the baby and changing the baby. The therapist did suggest that we continue using play to help her deal with any new emotions going forward.

She suggested that we buy a dollhouse and some figurines, which Alayna should identify as people in our family and she told us that we should play out any new situation that Alayna will be exposed to, to help her deal with it. Alayna started playschool this year and a week before school, we played out the entire day of her transport fetching her, her classroom activities and coming home. She was not nervous at all, she enjoyed her first day because she knew what was going to happen.

I truly believe in play therapy as I feel that it really helped my daughter. I feel that parents do not need to go to a therapist, per se, but even just sitting in the same room and observing them play or encouraging role play to assist them with dealing with difficult situations. It can also be an aid to prepare them for something that will happen. It’s a wonderful tool for parents to use to explain to younger ones that they will become a big brother or sister and this might make the transition easier.

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I’m a mum of two beautiful preemies. I enjoy being a mom and I love all the chaos that comes with it. I’m a wife to the most amazing husband ever. I’m a deputy principal of a public high school and an English teacher. I have a Shakespeare obsession and I write in my spare time.

Visit my blog here