Parenthood changes life in many different ways. You learn and experience new things and grow alongside your children. Every stage of your child’s life is a learning opportunity for parents, from taking their first step to the first time they say “mama” and “dada,” their developmental stages bring joys and lessons. As your child enters the 3- to 5-year age group, communication may become a challenging part of their everyday routine. While they explore the world around them, they express their emotions in different ways, and sometimes their limited vocabulary makes it challenging to understand. As a parent, it can get a little overwhelming when you do your best to understand your little ones but still find yourself falling short. However, Play Therapy is a well-established therapeutic approach that helps parents and professionals connect with children on their level emotionally, cognitively, and developmentally.
To fully understand how play therapy works and the benefits it offers during their developmental years, let’s move forward with our blog.
Understanding How Play Therapy Works for Children
Imagine this: you are new to a world where you feel all these big emotions, the sadness, fear, excitement, and frustration, but you don’t have the words to express them, so you express them in a way that you can with your actions. Children at the age of 3-5 years are very sensitive to their environment; how they act is a mirror to every person, and everything that happens around them. They want to be heard and understood, so when they lack the ability, they show it through their action, throwing a toy, crying out loud, clinging to a parent than usual; these are all signs of being overwhelmed and a child’s attempt to communicate their inner feelings.
For many children under 5 years, it’s their everyday reality. At this age, children are still in a developmental phase of emotional vocabulary, and expressing their complex feelings is a challenge for them. When they feel upset, fear, confused, or angry, all these feelings come out as tantrums, clinginess, and withdrawal. This is where parents need to pause and take the lead, and understand that not every meltdown is “just a phase” and not every tantrum is a behavioural issue. Sometimes, it’s just a simple cry from the little ones looking for support to help them regulate all these complex feelings.
This is where Play in Therapy works as a powerful tool with children to encourage them to express all their feelings in a playful and safe environment, rather than forcing them into talking. Let’s move ahead in our blog to learn about some techniques used by professionals in Play Therapy.
Techniques Used in Play Therapy
Play Therapy uses a variety of techniques to help children express themselves, process emotions, and build healthier coping skills.
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Non-Directive Play: This technique is a child-centered approach where children are encouraged to lead the play independently while the therapist follows their cues. We will help you understand it better with this scenario: Imagine a 3-year-old girl entering the play area, running to the doll house while the therapist sits there quietly to observe, the child places one doll in the kitchen, shouting, and another in a room, sitting quietly. As the play continues, the child reenacts a recent event at home, perhaps a conflict that took place between the parents. The therapist doesn’t interrupt but provides a safe space for the child to express their feelings through play. Later, when the child is ready, the therapist may gently reflect on how it looks like the doll in the kitchen was upset. And wonder how the other doll in the room alone feels, validating the child’s emotions without probing too deeply or altering the flow of play.
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Directive Play Therapy: This technique is more guided through specific themes and goals. It is useful to understand how any recent trauma, incident, or event may have affected the child. For example, imagine a 4-year-old who has been showing signs of anxiety after starting school. In direct play therapy, the therapist leads the session with a puppet play.
The therapist says, “Today, let’s play with these puppets. This one is starting school for the first time and feels a little nervous. What do you think happens next?”
The child leads the puppet and acts out their fears and experiences, maybe by making the puppet hide or cry. As the play unfolds, the therapist gently guides the storyline to explore coping strategies, like deep breathing, making a new friend, or asking the teacher for help. These techniques give the child the problem-solving skills they can use in real life.
Whether guided or free-flowing, both techniques aim to help children express themselves in the way they know best through play. Let’s take a closer look at the key Benefits of Play Therapy for children.
How Children Benefit from Play Therapy
Play Therapy offers a wide range of benefits in emotional development, especially to children in the 3-5 year age group. At this stage, the children have a limited vocabulary to express their complex feelings such as fears, sadness, and anxiety. Their struggle to express often comes out as anger, tantrums, and clinginess, which puts parents in different challenging situations. Play Therapy offers a safe environment for children to express these emotions and is helped by a professional to make sense of what they’re experiencing internally.
One of the most important benefits of play Therapy is emotional regulation. As children learns to identify and express their feelings in healthy ways, you will see a decrease in sudden tantrums, outbursts, and withdrawal. Play therapy also helps children develop coping skills, making them handle challenges such as starting school, moving homes, or sudden loss.
Play therapy offers parents insights into their children’s inner world, which allows them to offer better empathy and support. These sessions improve children’s social skills, self-esteem, giving them a better sense of control over their emotions. In cases involving trauma, loss, or major life changes, Play Therapy serves as a gentle yet powerful tool for healing and resilience.
While Play Therapy can be beneficial for most children, there are certain signs and situations where it may be especially helpful. Recognizing these signs early can make a big difference in how your child grows, copes, and heals.
When Your Child Might Need Play Therapy
While every child may show some tantrums now and then as part of their growth, there are times when certain behaviors may be a signal of a deeper need to support. Sometimes, your child’s behavior says what their words can’t.
Maybe they’re having more tantrums than usual, or their moods shift so quickly it catches you off guard. Some kids just pull back completely, seeming quiet or distant in a way that’s not like them. You might also see things like bedwetting again, sudden clinginess, or big tears at school drop-off, especially after changes like moving, starting preschool, or welcoming a new baby.
That’s where Play Therapy can be a game changer. It gives kids a safe, comforting space to work through big feelings in a way that makes sense to them. Through play, they can show you what they’re feeling, even when they can’t say it.
Our Approach to Play Therapy at Rocky Mountain Psychological Services
At Rocky Mountain Psychological Services (RMPS), we believe that all a child needs is someone to understand, support, and guide them with love and care. This is why one of the models that guides our work is the Play Therapy Dimensions Model (PTDM), a research-based, flexible framework developed by Lorri Yasenik and Ken Gardner. This model helps our therapists navigate the therapeutic process with clarity, intention, and compassion.
The PTDM focuses on two key dimensions that shape how a session unfolds:
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Directiveness – refers to the level of guidance or structure provided by the therapist during a session. Depending on the child’s needs, our therapists may adopt a more directive stance, offering specific activities and boundaries, or take a non-directive approach, allowing the child to lead the play and express themselves freely. This flexibility supports a sense of safety, independence, and engagement.
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Consciousness – reflects the emotional awareness present in the session. Interactions can range from surface-level engagement to more profound emotional processing. Our therapists are trained to adjust to the child’s ease and capacity for emotional exploration, gradually facilitating greater insight, regulation, and healing as appropriate.
These two dimensions intersect to create four quadrants of therapeutic interaction, allowing our therapists to meet the child’s needs while still keeping the goals in focus.
The Four Quadrants:
When you combine Directiveness (low → high) with Consciousness (low → high), you get four types of play therapy interactions:
| Low Consciousness (surface level) | High Consciousness (emotional depth) | |
| Low Directiveness | Independent Child Play: The therapist follows the child’s lead, allowing them to choose the toy, game, and storyline. | Child-led Play: The Therapist allows the child to explore feelings and experiences at their own pace. |
| High Directiveness | Therapist-led Activities that are more goal-oriented. | Emotionally focused and guided play. Therapists use structured activities to target specific emotional issues. |
How We Use PTDM in Our Practice
At RMPS, PTDM isn’t just theory it’s part of how we plan, guide, and adapt each session. For example:
- For shy and anxious preschoolers, we begin with a child-led approach, first working to build their trust and comfort before introducing a more structured approach.
- With a child going through a recent trauma, the therapist shifts into an active approach, gently bringing awareness to recurring play themes and emotions.
- With older children or those ready for verbal reflection, therapists move into open discussion and exploration, where play acts as a bridge to deeper conversation.
Modalities We Integrate Under PTDM
What’s great about PTDM is that it gives us the flexibility to use different proven therapy methods without losing the flow. Our therapists might blend:
- Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) – For trust building and emotional safety.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT) – To teach coping strategies and problem-solving skills.
- Sand Tray and Symbolic Play – For expressing complex feelings non-verbally.
- Creative and Art Expression – For emotional exploration, self-expression, and sensory regulation.
- Theraplay-inspired Activities – To strengthen attachment and relationship patterns.
- Trauma-Informed Play Therapy – Using the PTDM-R (Revised) model to include neurobiological regulation and the “window of tolerance.”
If you’re wondering whether play therapy could benefit your child, we’re here to listen, answer your questions, and help you take the next step toward support and growth. At Rocky mountain play therapy, our team is dedicated to creating a safe and supportive space where children can heal, learn, and thrive. Contact us at 403-245-5981 or intake@rmpsychservices.com to learn more or book a consultation. We’d be happy to answer your questions and support your child’s journey.
