3 Lessons Christian Parents Can Learn from Play Therapy

By Dr. Andi Thacker (MABC, 2006),
assistant professor of biblical counseling
at Dallas Theological Seminary. She is a
licensed professional counselor and
registered play therapist. She is married to
Chad and they have 3 kids, Emerson, Will,
and Webb.

When I graduated from DTS almost a
decade ago with a Biblical Counseling
degree, I had no intention of working
professionally with children. I had
deliberately chosen not to focus any of my
time and training on the developmental
needs of children in a therapeutic setting
because I planned to work exclusively with
adults. Ironically, I now find myself with an
advanced degree in which most of my
training was spent learning how to meet
the unique developmental and therapeutic
needs of children. Further, the vast
majority of my private practice clients are
under the age of fourteen.
During the beginning stages of my doctoral
degree, I decided, somewhat on a whim, to
take a play-therapy course. As a result of
that course, I discovered a love of working
with children and providing play-therapy
services to those who are often voiceless
and powerless to change their
circumstances.
I also discovered that by counseling
children, I might be able to address mental
health concerns that could be a hindrance
later in life. As I continued my training as a
play therapist, I developed a deep passion
to train other Christian professionals to
meet the unique therapeutic needs of this
population. In my dissertation, I examined
the prevalence of seminary counseling
students who intended to work with
children and the amount of specific training
in play therapy provided to these students.
I found an alarming trend that revealed that
most seminary counseling students
planned to work therapeutically with
children, yet they did not have specific
training in the unique skills of child
counseling.

Lesson #1: Teach Them to Name and Accept Emotions

In addition to my role training future
counselors to work with children, I have the
unique privilege of teaching parents helpful
parenting skills. I have found that some of
the most important things I can impart to
parents are how to first acknowledge and
accept their child’s emotions. Emotions are
part of our design, which make us uniquely
human. Sometimes emotions can be seen
as sinful, wrong, or invalid. However, we
see in Scripture the triune God voicing felt
emotions (Genesis 6:6; Zephaniah 3:17;
Psalm 147:11; Matthew 21:12-13).

The issue with emotion is that we need to
experience our emotions as acceptable and
valid; however, sometimes actions birthed
from emotions can be destructive.
The parents’ challenge is to help children
experience their emotions, yet manage
their behavior in an appropriate manner.

Psychiatrist Dan Siegel (2013) calls this
practice “name it to tame it.” Research
indicates that naming a feeling and
allowing the feeling to be felt helps calm
the emotion. Naming emotions also builds
greater neural integration and emotional
regulation in both the parent and the child.

Lesson #2: Let Kids Make Choices

The second thing that I have found most
important to impart to parents is to give
children the opportunity to learn how to
make choices. As Christians, the Lord
allows us freedom to make choices.
Sometimes we make wise choices and
other times we make poor choices.

Nevertheless, making wise decisions is an
essential aspect of walking in maturity. In
play therapy, we use choice-giving with a
two-fold purpose. The first purpose is for
discipline. By using choice-giving language,
a parent can impart to a child that his or
her actions have consequences.

The hope is that this type of language
would build an internal locus of control in
which the child can role-play the
consequences of behaviors. An example
of choice-giving for discipline purposes
would be “If you choose to hit Mommy, you
then choose to not play outside.” For an
older child an example might be, “If you
choose to lie to me, you choose to lose
screen time for the day.”

The other purpose of choice-giving is to
help children learn to make decisions on
their own. Often times, children and
adolescents have had very little opportunity
to practice the skill of decision-making.

Being able to make wise decisions is like a
muscle, and unless it is used often, it will
not grow to be strong. Therefore, parents
can create opportunities for their children
to exercise the muscle of decision-making.

In play therapy we say “Big choices for big
kids, and little choices for little
kids” (Landreth, 2012). Right now in my
family, I have really young children, so their
choices consist of things like “Do you
choose chicken nuggets or pizza?” or “Do
you choose to wear the red shirt or the
blue shirt?” As a child gets older, the
decision-making opportunities increase like
“Do you choose to play soccer this year or
basketball?” Ultimately, the hope is that
kids will grow into adults who can think
through the consequences of their choices
and make wise decisions.

Lesson #3: Model Repairing Relationships

Finally, and probably the most important
thing I can impart to parents is how to
apologize to their child and ask for
forgiveness. All relationships are
characterized by what we call ruptures.
Ruptures are little—and sometimes big—
instances in which rifts occur within a
relationship. Ruptures are a natural part of
our world because of sin. We make
mistakes, we hurt one another, we cause
pain, and on and on.

However, repair is what heals those
ruptures and mends the relationship. We
see the ultimate demonstration of repair in
Christ’s work at the cross (Luke 23:26–
43). God forgave the rupture humanity
caused by sin, and God calls us to follow
His example by practicing forgiveness of
others (Matt. 6:14). Repair occurs in
parenting when we as parents own our
mistakes, apologize, and ask for
forgiveness.

The great thing about most kids is that
they are extremely forgiving. What repairing
does for children is to help heal the
wounds caused by parents and brings
greater cognitive, emotional, and
psychological health to the child. Also, it
models for a child the art of apology.
Children who have seen their parents
model this skill are far more likely to do
the same for their own children when they
are parents. In essence, modeling the art
of apology can be impactful for
generations to come.