Theraplay®
Does your child struggle at school with building healthy relationships with other students or school staff? Maybe they have a difficult time concentrating or dealing with negative emotions in a healthy way and it gets in the way of their learning. Does your child struggle at home with building a healthy and happy bond with family members? Maybe it feels like you don’t really know your child or how to help them. Theraplay® is a great therapeutic intervention using a child and family therapy approach, aiming to address behavioral, emotional, and/or developmental struggles and enhance the parent child relationship through healthy and playful interactions. Theraplay® is also a sensory based model that can also help children who have language delays, developmental disorders, or are extremely shy.
- Attachment Disorders
- Behavioral/emotional struggles (conduct, ODD, aggressive behavior)
- Social interaction disorders (social anxiety, internalizing)
- Pervasive Developmental Disorders (receptive language delay)
- Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Sensory Processing Disorders
- ADHD
- PTSD
Core Concepts from the Theraplay® Institute
The adult, the leader in the relationship, creates organization and predictability for the child which communicates safety
The adult provides caring that can calm and soothe the child in a manner that makes them feel good physically and emotionally
The adult is present in a manner that the child experiences being seen, heard, felt, and accepted
The adult supports the child in the acquisition and mastery of new skills, enhancing the child’s sense of competence and confidence
Theraplay employs the lively, joyful play of parent and young child that is critical to the formation of secure attachment. Early experiences of high levels of positive affect co-regulated with an attuned caregiver are related to the development of connectedness and empathy and to the ability to self-regulate high affec
Stern, 1974