The Importance of Play in a Child’s Recovery from Trauma

In thinking about the needs of children who have been traumatized, it is important to have a good understanding about how play contributes to healing and resilience.  The following excerpt is from www.lifeisgood.com/playmakers Playmakers, a program in Boston, MA that has worked with Hurricane Katrina survivors by engaging children in transformative, trauma-informed play.

Play is the way in which children form loving, trusting relationships. And the quality of a child’s life (or anyone’s life for that matter) is in direct proportion to the quality of their relationships.

When children are actively engaged, they play with passion and gusto, are curious and inquisitive, move freely and comfortably, and extend this passion and curiosity to many different kinds of activities. Active engagement is the key building block for creativity - when we are actively engaged, our minds are primed and ready for exploration and creation.

INTERNAL CONTROL = Feelings of safety, worth, and competence that support our ability to engage and challenge ourselves.

Using rats as his subjects, Jaak Panskepp found that young rats stop playing the moment a threat is introduced in their environment. Even once the threat is removed, the rats do not return to their pre-threat levels of playfulness. All young mammals, including children, cannot fully engage in play if their basic safety needs are not met. However, once children feel safe, they can develop a sense of freedom and empowerment, enabling them to gain control over their own involvement in an activity and to handle the ups and downs of their emotions. Developing a sense of control, children begin to believe that they can influence their world and meet challenges with success. When children are internally controlled, they have an “I can do it attitude,” they continue trying to meet a challenge even when they feel frustrated, they take initiative when playing with others, and they can switch to different roles comfortably (e.g., from leader to follower). Through feeling safe, competent and empowered, children develop an inner peace that sustains them through life’s challenges.

Play that provides children with opportunities for engagement, empowerment, connection, and joy has the potential to serve as a transformational experience, changing the way a child’s brain, body and spirit develop.

When children are fully and freely engaged in play, they learn new things, develop key social and emotional skills, feel part of a community and take on new challenges. Engaged in transformative play, children build healing relationships with the key people in their lives. This type of play enables children to build resilience in the face of life’s greatest challenges. Denying children access to transformative play experiences does them a great disservice. This is particularly true for children who have been exposed to trauma. Unfortunately, we know that fear destroys playfulness. According to a 1998 study conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, millions of our nation’s children have experienced profound trauma, such as community violence, abuse, neglect, natural disasters, and extreme poverty. Trauma can cripple the development of young children, lead to negative long-term health consequences, and shorten life expectancy. Long-term stress such as community violence, conflict at home, and inadequate resources can undo a child’s sense of safety in the same way that natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes) and manmade disasters (e.g., war) can. And children need to feel safe to play.

Fortunately, children have an incredible ability to bounce back when they receive the support they need from the adults around them.

Empowering, joyful play with sensitive, caring adults can help to restore what trauma violently strips from a child.

If schools, hospitals, and social service agencies put playful engagement on the back burner, children, particularly those suffering from the impact of poverty and trauma, will miss out on essential opportunities to engage in transformative play and build the resilience they need to meet life’s challenges.

In addition to providing opportunities and areas for children to play, it is important for adults to engage with children in meaningful ways to promote competency and resiliency.  The following is from The Urban Child Institute.

·         Respond: Responding to children’s distress and creating an environment of care and support helps children to develop their ability to calm themselves down as they grow older.

·         Create a sense of safety: Children thrive in environments where they know they are safe and supported to explore and learn.

·         Encourage resilience: As much as we would like to protect our children from any hurt they might face, there are benefits to a skinned knee. Learning to overcome mild disappointments and difficulties early in life lays the foundation for being able to overcome greater challenges later. Feeling connected to others, developing self-confidence, experiencing success and helping others overcome challenges are all aspects of resilience.

·         Help others together: Helping others is a good way for children to feel connected to others and builds their self esteem. Helping others as a family is a good way to help children learn and express responsibility and learn that they can make a difference.

·         Grow positive behaviors: Children do better when they have the structure of clear and consistent expectations where they can learn how they are supposed to act. Child behavior experts tell us that positive responses to a behavior from supportive adults will increase the likelihood that the child will repeat that behavior. Catching your child being good by commenting on things they do that you like will help them increase positive behaviors and learn that certain behaviors are valued over others.

·         Help your child find something they do well: It is important for children to know that their actions can lead to good outcomes. Providing them with opportunities to explore different activities. Also providing your children time with other children their age can help them learn that they can make friends and build a support system.

·         Accentuate the positive: Young children tend to personalize the information they get from their caregivers, so it is important to accentuate the positive you see in your child. Every correction or negative comment should be matched throughout the day by five positive comments or encouraging statements.