Play Therapy with Children

“Play is the work of children”.

Age-appropriate play develops a love for learning about life that can work across all subjects, and last a lifetime.

Play has the potential to teach the child in the child’s true language. Until children reach puberty, the ‘age of reason’, abstract teaching places a terrible strain on the overall development of the young child: a strain that may have a direct harmful effect upon their physical, emotional and mental development as adolescents and adults.

Children develop their inner capacity for learning through play, it is not something that can be forced or taught directly. In the past, much of this learning happened spontaneously, outside, in the ‘classroom of nature’ and between children and adults in the home and local environs, but urban, technological living has changed that and so now children must be helped to play.

The module covers:

• The needs of each of the child development phases
• The gift of play appropriate to each of these phases
• Structured and free play
• Contraction & Expansion in play settings
• Play for children with special needs
• ‘Creative Discipline’ approach and play