Note: This course provides: 6 APT non-contact hours. See full details below.

APT Primary Focus Area(s):
Skills and Methods: 6 CE
Total Play Therapy CE Hours: 6 CE

Children under 4 are estimated to have about 9 tantrums a week that include kicking, biting, yelling or pushing for five to ten minutes each. Most will outgrow these behaviors due to parenting skills and social norms. However, for many children, these issues only get worse as they enter school and even more so during their teens.

Many pediatricians report that they are ill-equipped to deal with the myriad of anger concerns which parents present to them. In fact, anger issues are the number one cause for referral that brings children to the care of mental health professionals. For many children, anger issues are part of a larger picture of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, as well as genetic and biological considerations. Many well-meaning parents only fuel the anger further in a frenzied effort to contain it.

In this engaging and interactive training, play therapists will gain a greater knowledge in how to help clients who struggle with anger, in an effort to help change the pattern as early on as possible. Through play therapy interventions that include hands on activities, games, videos and worksheets, children can be taught and empowered to harness the healthy part of their self-expression and do so in a healthy and effective way.

Participants will learn to engage all kinds of children (main clinical focus is on ages 3 to 14, with some teen skills as well), including the oppositional, resistant, and even those in denial of their anger, helping them work towards achieving their therapeutic goals. The training begins with assessment, helping clients reach self-awareness, sharing psychoeducation, creating accountability and ends by sharing practical play therapy techniques to facilitate the release and expression of anger, through increased insight, and lasting coping skills. Clinicians will walk away empowered to effectively help clients live calmer lives through the skills which the sessions build in them.