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Parent/child play therapy
Play therapy is an evidence -based approach for children that allows them to find ways to learn, process their emotions, and make meaning of the world around them. Play therapy can be used for several reasons including trauma, autism, behavior, attachment, and language.

A study was done on several children who were observed and did training with children for Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Stress can accumulate for a child is doing Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, but the stress also comes from the parent. Harsh parenting behaviors is what causes a child to have their clinical problems and have them act a way that their parent didn’t expect.

Allowing children who struggle with trauma to use play therapy allows for them to work through their trauma and begin to trust beyond it. "For children to being trust beyond their trauma, an adult should respond differently to their defensive and closed off behaviors (Baylin & Hughes, 2016)" (Parker, Hergenrather, Smelser, & Kelly, 2021). When parents respond to children defensively, the child doesn't trust them due to their past trauma. Working with a child-centered play therapist allows for the therapist to engage with the child, convey messages, and is open to what the child may express regarding their previous or current trauma. The therapist responds in an empathetic an understanding way to allow the child to become openminded and respond in an enjoyable way rather than a self-protective, defensive way.

"Attachment is an emotional bond between the child and the primary caregiver, usually the parent' (Lin 2003). A child having attachment issues is significant because a child can have either a good or bad attachment to their primary caregiver. Which can lead to development and behavioral issues as the age depending on the type of attachment. When using play therapy for attachment issues it is essential to ease into it because the child could have emotional isolation and the therapy could be traumatic for the child. This type of therapy benefits both the parent and child due to being connected on a deeper level. It allows the parent and the child to build their relationship and the child to feel more secure with the parent.

Play therapy is an effective way for parents and children to interact with one another and for the parents to see their child progress through their life. Children go through a lot such as parents do, but for a child it affects their school performance along with their relationship with their parent. Impact of play therapy on parent-child relationship stress at a mental health training setting by Dee C. Ray

The author, Dee C. Ray, uses data that was collected from several different people who observed and did a training with children for Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). It goes over how stress can accumulate for a child when doing Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, but the stress also comes from the parent. When a child has treatment for what their behavior is, the parent’s stress decreases. Harsh parenting behaviors is what causes a child to have their clinical problems and have them act a way that their parent didn’t expect. The author goes over several ways that this can be fixed. Parent-child relationships of single mothers stressing correlates to child behavior problems. “Herber suggested that assessing parent stress concurrently with child behaviour is a reasonable part of a treatment plan for the family and child” (Ray 2008). The child centered play therapy (CCPT) study only explored on children who received the treatment but did not demonstrate the effectiveness of play-therapy to any type of intervention.“The large effect size associated with externalizing children and change in stress revealed that not only does CCPT demonstrate a significant change, it also demonstrates practical significance” (Ray 2008). Ray goes on about the impact of parent-child relationship stress as to that the parent and child characteristics of each can’t be separated as trespasser of the behavioral problem. Facilitating Constructive Parent-Child Play: Family Therapy with Young Children by Shi Lin

The author goes in detail about what attachment is. “Attachment is an emotional bond between the child and the primary caregiver, usually the parent” (Lin 2003). Attachment is important to this because a child can either have a good or bad attachment to their primary caregiver. There are four types of attachment styles, one of them is secure attachment style when a child feels secure enough to go to their trust primary caregiver when they’re feeling discomfort in themselves. The other three are insecure attachment styles which contain when the child can’t go to their primary caregiver because of how the primary caregiver doesn’t listen or doesn’t give the attention that the child needs. “As a consequence, these children rarely engage in direct support- seeking behaviors; however, their frustration is seen through anger, aggression and lack of empathy for the suffering of others” (Lin 2003). Lin uses an example of a mom and her son. she was in an abusive relationship. It goes over how the little boy could also have built up aggression from what his mom had experienced, so the therapist eases him into play therapy. Play therapy takes a while to ease into because the child could have emotional isolation and be traumatic for the child. It discusses how it can benefit both the parent and child to be connected on a deeper level. In comparison with the journal cited above, they both show examples of how the child and parent get closer along with both of their stress decreasing. They both share how a child needs more attention than being pushed away. Though this first goes on by giving an example of what a child can go through for parent-child therapy, but it also shows that there are ways to heal the connection between the two. Ten minutes a day working on little exercises with each other could/would strengthen the new relationship they’re building than the one they used to have. Speech and language therapists’ views on parents’ engagement in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) by Inge Klatte, Sam Harding, and Sue Roulstone

The authors use research data to explain what Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is and how speech and language therapy (SLT) is brought up in pre-school then with developmental language disorder (DLD). “Parents' play an essential role in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) as the primary agent of intervention with their child” (Klatte, Harding, Roulstone 2019). It can be challenging for the parents when doing PCIT, some will end up being lost but others are fully engaged and ready to help their child take on something that can be challenging for them, for both of them. Parents will do anything to help their child through a difficult time, especially when it comes to SLT and DLD.“Therefore, parents' engagement was viewed by the participants as about being present at therapy sessions and being involved in therapy activities” (Klatte, Harding, Roulstone 2019). It stimulates how PCIT is beneficial for the parent and child by being able to communicate more to improve their language. This audience is more for parents who want to improve their child’s language and want to be more informed of how speech and language therapy and developmental language disorder is brought up at a young age and how to help improve their child by helping them through it as they grow up. Parents being a part of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy is a key success for their child because it’s not their fault that their child be lagging behind but the child having that support of their primary caregiver gives them an extra boost of confidence on bettering themselves. “Some think they are the cause of their child's language problems; others are not confident enough to be involved in therapy sessions” (Klatter, Harding, Roulstone 2019). It’s important to put their time and effort into SLTs along with being supportive and creating a safe space for the child to learn. Exploring child-centered Play therapy and trauma: A systematic review of literature by Maggie M. Parker, Kenneth Hergenrather, Quinn Smelser, and Catherine T. Kelly

“Play therapy is an evidenced-based approach for children who experience multiple presenting concerns” (Parker, Hergenrather, Smelser, & Kelly, 2021). When using play therapy, children find ways to learn, process their emotions, and make meaning of their own world. A play therapy room is a nonjudgmental area where the child can process their emotions where they can use toys. Play therapy helps children with their trauma and to try to trust beyond it. “For children to begin trust beyond their trauma, an adult should respond differently to their defensive or closed off behaviors (Baylin & Hughes, 2016)” (Parker, Hergenrather, Smelser, & Kelly, 2021). When parents put up their defensive tactics, it makes the child not trust them due to their past trauma. A child-centered play therapist is engaging, conveys to message(s), and is open to what the child has to say about their past trauma or current trauma going on. The therapist responds with empathy and understand the behavior of the child, this allows the child to be openminded and respond in an enjoyable way instead of responding in a self-protective, defensive, way. Children put up a guard on themselves when someone doesn’t show empathy towards how they’re feeling, so that’s why they are defensive when having to respond to someone who doesn’t show empathy. When researching support for child-centered play therapy (CCPT) it’s conducted that there’s medium to large effects of different outcomes of children’s global behavioral problems, caregiver-child relationship stress, and self-efficacy. There’s a medium effect of problem behaviors and academic problems in a school setting. “Although existing research uses play therapy with survivors of traumas, play therapy research does not usually require client diagnostic criteria for participation” (Parker, Hergenrather, Smelser, & Kelly, 2021). Childhood trauma is very difficult to diagnose and can adverse childhood experiences. By using CCPT it uses systematic literature to highlight multiple studies with a variety of traumatic experiences.

Family System Play Therapy: An Integrative Approach by Lexie P. Daley, Richard B. Miller, Roy A. Bean, and Megan Oka

When doing family therapy, it’s effectiveness has decreased symptoms, such as, attachment problems, child abuse, conduct, emotional, and somatic problems. It said to be known that family therapy has been more effective with individual child therapy with family therapy. The route of family therapy or firmly enrooted in the treatment of families to bring down children symptomology. “Carl Whitaker held a firm believer in the vitality that young children bring to the family therapy process (Keith & Whitaker, 1981)” (Daley, Miller, Bean, & Oka, 2018). Another example of early work with young children and their families is Virginia Satir. Virginia Satir uses family sculpting, which focuses on understanding the child that is diagnosed. There’s also Salvador Minuchin, who is the founder of structural family therapy. “… was interested in the functional symptomatic nature of children’s presenting concerns and did much of his work with families of young children (Minuchin, et al., 1975)” (Daley, Miller, Bean, & Oka, 2018). When a child is exposed to anger, aggression, and conflict in his/her family there are rick factors for the child’s poor mental health. Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is associated with controlling, neglect and punishing family dynamics, this is where the parent’s ability to work together comes into play. “Co-parenting can be characterized by antagonism, undermining between partners, or triangulating children (Fosco & Grych, 2010) and has been linked to child symptomology” (Daley, Miller, Bean, & Oka, 2018). Therapists bring strong play to family therapy with children so that they understand the developmentally appropriate therapy that the child would be receiving. There are two types of therapy for children, there’s traditional talk therapy and play therapy. Traditional talk therapy has diverse of cognitive and verbal skills of young children, while play therapy is shown to be effective with a range of behavioral and emotional issues. Younger children in particular like to do/be a part of play therapy due to it being hands on and having different play activities to do rather than traditional talk therapy. Family play therapy is directive, play and verbal, and is adapted to child’s level for the child to know what is doing on. “Play is a developmentally attuned of giving young children a voice in therapy (Rotter & Bush, 2000)” (Daley, Miller, Bean, & Oka, 2018). For a young child to voice how they feel during therapy is a big step, while playing in therapy it distracts their mind that they are telling the therapist of what they are feeling. Therapy ends when the child shows reduction in their symptomatic behaviors along with observation for their therapist if the child shows comfort with their new structure and patterns of interactions. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy from the Parents’ Perspective by Melanie J. Woodfield and Claire Cartwright

The authors go through explaining and giving examples of what the parent’s perspective is on parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) with several different experiences of the parent’s doing it with their child. Through the parent’s perspective, several parents would describe their child as controlling, unpredictable, or/and out of control. “Several parents described having reached a point of crisis, and their relationship with their child having suffered over time” (Woodfield & Cartwright, 2020). Parents gave captivating descriptions of confusion of what was causing or contributing to their child’s problems. Parents at first get anxious and worried on what is happening to their child and how they can help with it on their own, but in most cases trying to do it themselves can cause stress which stress can also happen to their child. A child can sense when their parent is stress, so if the parent is stresses then the child is stressed. But when it came down to child-led play, it was one of the most valued aspects of parent child interaction therapy (PCIT) because it brought out change in the child’s behavior and in the parent-child relationship. Parents often feel confident in the parenting ability until it comes to their child is acting different than usual. PCIT has helped change perceptions about their child initially and allowed them to see their child be social again than how they were before. Once doing PCIT, parents learn new skills to help their child at home when they aren’t at therapy together, practicing, or doing, these strategies will help their child progress more than they ever have before.