KZN, South Africa-based social worker and play therapy practitioner working with children and their parents in creative, reflective ways to increase emotional connection in families.
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Tags: children connection creative emotional families increase parents practitioner reflective therapy working
US United States, NA North America, latitude: 37.751, longitude: -97.822
US United States, NA North America, latitude: 37.751, longitude: -97.822
US United States, NA North America, latitude: 37.751, longitude: -97.822
US United States, NA North America, latitude: 37.751, longitude: -97.822
If you are the parent of a teen, like me, here is one thing we almost cannot do enough. Listen.
I have enjoyed the work of Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist specialising in work with adolescents. She talks a lot about the adolescents she works with expressing over and over again how they wish their parents would listen more and lecture less.
This came into sharp focus for me when interacting with a teen. He expressed being so tired of trying to share something with his parent and then being shut down in some way either by a lecture or a story from the parent's own life, or by the parent finding fault with him as a person in what he was sharing.
For this teen, there was nothing more distressing than simply not being listened to. He is dealing with normal teenage things. He is navigating growth and identity and life as a 15 year old. He is trying to find his own voice and feels it is being shut down by not being listened to.
I found this TED talk by a 13 year old girl, Lucy Androski, who talks very eloquently about different types of parents. She defines The Listener something like this..
In every day life there is a lot to do, and a lot of functional stuff that we need to remind teens of, or ensure they've done. Do you have homework? Have you studied for your test? Have you fed the dogs? I have to work at reminding myself not to only relate to my teens on this functional level.
My goal is to prioritise relationship over function every time I interact with my teens. Can I have a hug? How are you? I missed you today. It's a goal, and I'm practising, so I don't always get it right.
In the end, life is not a series of functions to fulfill. Life is relationships. How we live out our relationships makes up our life. I don't want my kids to have a memory of me getting things done at the cost of connection.
Lisa Damour talks about spending time with your teen just hanging out with no agenda. Just the pleasure of being together.
If we start with the simple things, so much can go right.
Mental health and accessing emotional support are more talked about, blogged about and written about in every media available to us these days. And yet, stigma around actually attending therapy or play therapy seems to linger.
A concern many parents have when we sit in consultation is that they don't want their child to think something is wrong with me because they're coming to play therapy.
Play therapy is not only available when something is "wrong". Many children with no significant traumas or adverse events come to play therapy and benefit from it. Play therapy is a way of helping children connect with their true self, the ultimate goal no matter what the referral issue is.
You don't go to school because something is wrong with you, you go to school because your parents want you out of the house a few hours a day... Just kidding! (also not kidding all the time!😉)
Children go to school because there is a void in learning and knowledge that needs to be filled that will contribute to your overall development. Slowly, over 12 years in school, some of those voids are filled. Most importantly, in the foundation phases it is learning to read and write. The basis for all other learning.
Referrals to play therapy occur because there is a void in social or emotional functioning that tends to cause issues in other parts of life. Or, there is something happening in the child's environment/family that causes a void in social or emotional functioning.
Void doesn’t mean deficiency. Void means opportunity for development. Void means; I feel like I've lost a part of myself and I need help finding it in the middle of everything else that's happening in my world.
Children recognise the void in themselves. Many, once they have been to play therapy, recognise how the process supports them. They experience some growth and they exit. As they grow and develop, they may hit another void. They now know that play therapy helped them to feel supported, heard, and helped them find themselves. They ask their parents if they can return.
I sat with a little girl in her first ever play therapy session recently. We talked a bit about the worries that brought her to see me. I told her that there is nothing wrong with her and that there is nothing wrong with the worries she feels. In fact, her worries serve an important purpose in keeping her safe. AND, sometimes her brain goes into complete worry-mode all the time even when it really, really doesn't need to. This becomes an issue when it affects sleep, or her brain's ability to learn, or being able to feel like herself.
Does she have a void? Yes. In the case of anxiety it is often that the person is unable to feel safe within themselves. There is a void where the anchor of safety used to be. Is there anything wrong with her? No.
Everyone experiences voids in different ways throughout life. It is called being human.
Everyone needs support to navigate various voids. Somehow we've made it a stigma to seek help when emotional voids show up.
If you're contemplating play therapy for your child and it feels uncomfortable to you, think about whether you're comfortable with asking for or receiving support for emotional voids in your life. And maybe you've never done that so it can feel really foreign and vulnerable. And maybe you have and you were made to feel like there was something wrong with you.
Let's normalise getting support for our voids. There is nothing wrong with you, you are simply human.
27.2.2026 06:00The VoidHappy Valentine's Weekend everyone!
Every now and then I love sharing something we've been having fun with as a family. This time it's a game from one of my clever sisters, she brought it back from her travels at Christmas.
It's called Six Second Scribbles. A little bit Pictionary, but not quite. Seems daunting at first, but you can do more than you think. We even took it to our friend's house one night and our two families played and it was a hoot!
So, unfortunately you can't get it here, as far as I can tell. But you can get it via Amazon, or ask a nice aunty/sibling/granny travelling to the UK to get it for you and bring it back. It's little and light so it travels well. It's a great gift, birthday sorted. You're welcome.
This Valentine's weekend, have some fun playing with the ones you love the most. Over the years I have posted ideas that I share again here.
Just an idea, if you like the look of a game but don't have it or can't afford it right now, ask around to borrow one. Many people have games they don't play and may be happy to lend one or two out.
We’ve just finished the third full week of the first term of school. How’re you doing?
It’s a funny thing. Week three feels a bit like “the honeymoon is over” week. The first week jitters have gone, the first couple of full weeks of school have gone by and your body is starting to go “ooooh, this is what it feels like.” And “I don’t know if I like this all or not!”
The length of school days, the after-school activities and the full-on routine of the term have begun. For our little grade 1s, this can be a tough time. Once so excited about their uniforms, now they grate on them, confined by shoes and desks and short play times. The reality of homework sets in. This is just not as fun as grade R with 80% of the day being play!
For others, a new grade can feel like a complete gear change. New, and higher, expectations, a little more pressure. I was having this conversation with a 10 year old the other day and he told me it just feels so much faster. I felt his anxiety as he said that.
I am not saying it’s all bad, at all. But even good changes are still changes that bring new things we have to adapt to. For younger children, for the highly sensitive, for the neurodiverse and those who are just having a hard time in general right now, right now might feel very difficult. (EVEN if it is good! Change is change and creates uncertainty!)
You may see behaviour from your children that you don’t get right now. Seemingly sudden mood swings, increased anxiety, aggression, increased bickering between siblings etc… What if, you’re just seeing some adjustment in the gear change. Sorting through and trying to find themselves again in the flurry of all the new. New for some can make them feel a bit untethered and floaty, now that's scary!
By the way, if you also feel some of these things as an adult, that is OK! New is new at any age and stage and can create uncertainty. We can be sitting with lots of unknowns right now, and/or overwhelm.
What are we to do with all of this? It can be really tempting to simply sit and go the path of least resistance when we’re home and very often these days that is being on devices; social media, TV, YouTube etc… (I know, because this has been me!)
We tell ourselves it’s a way of switching off our brains or that it’s giving our children some downtime. Maybe, for a little while. But as an everyday coping mechanism used to avoid reality, it’s not great for us or our children.
Here are some ideas to do instead. (For you and your children!)
Movement is regulating, it helps modulate the intensity of our emotions and gives an outlet for what we’ve been holding in our body through each day. For children who struggle sitting still at a desk all day, movement is critical!
I’m talking about movement for enjoyment, not as a performance or goal. Ask your child how they would like to move their body and give some suggestions of what you can do with them; walk around the block or in nature close to your home, timing round the house running in the garden (if that’s your children’s vibe, without focusing too much on the competitive aspect), seeing how many jumping jacks you can do whilst whistling happy birthday, having a dance party! For older children, hitting golf balls at the driving range or going for a bike ride. What is fun for you, what is fun for your kids without too much admin, free (or cheap) and easily accessible.
True story, I got overly involved in world news recently. It made me feel so angry and sad and down. And if I read the comments on any news articles it was even worse! I decided to ban myself from social media and even from reading any news for a week. When I made that decision I went and sat on the veranda with my drawing things and drew. I’m not an artist, at all. I drew without self-judgement and as long as the colours pleased me, I used them and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt like a detox!
I recommend using actual paper and pen/paintbrush/pencil crayon in order to get yourself away from digital devices and reconnect with yourself on a sensory level. If you really don’t know where to start, try a bilateral doodle. It has amazing benefits for the brain by helping get out of your cognitive processing and into a more creative space, also it is a doodle so no performance needed! I remember when the children were small giving them chalk to draw on the driveway. Also, paintbrushes and water to “paint” anywhere they wanted outside!
We can get stuck in thinking that our schedule is the most important thing. When we step into nature, we remember that there is life larger than our schedule, that there is so much more out there to enjoy and experience. Beauty in nature, no matter how small it is, does something good to our souls. If you’re privileged to have a garden, this is nature! It doesn’t have to be out there somewhere- although exploring further afield is fabulous when you can.
I’m sure your kids, when encouraged, can think of a million things to do in your garden. Unfortunately the pull of screens is that there is instant gratification in terms of pleasure and mindless entertainment. This has, in many ways, replaced outdoor exploration. I’m advocating for shutting down screens for the majority of the time and sending them back out into the garden, and/or further explorations in the great outdoors!
If your children need some encouragement and ideas, let them set up a mud kitchen, gather some materials to make a garden fort (our garden fort did end up looking like a squatter camp, but you know, all in the name of the great outdoors!), or go on garden walks with your children with the fun challenge of finding something you’ve never noticed before, or finding a specific colour plant, or something of a certain texture. Hey! This is movement, creativity and nature all in one!
Yes, I think the honeymoon is over. We might be feeling it, that's OK. I highly recommend not getting lost in digital space when you have downtime, and doing one of these other things, instead. I think your soul will thank you for it. Let me know how it goes!
6.2.2026 06:00The Honeymoon Is Over
Last week, I talked about ways we ‘should’ ourselves and when we do so, we tend to expect ourselves to be someone we’re not. We can only make decisions and take actions based on what we have and what we know in the moment.
This week, I want to talk about when we pass ‘shoulds’ on to our children.
When we have a ‘should’ about our children, we are essentially expressing a fantasy and wanting them to live up to that. No reality can compare to an idealistic fantasy, we are setting them up to disappoint us.
We need to consider what we expect our children to be able to do at their age and life stage. We can ‘should’ our children when we expect more from them than they are able to do. “You should share.” “You should be more considerate of others”. “You should talk to me”. “You should work harder.”
We need to check our expectations against what the reality is. When my kids were little, I found myself with high expectations at times. It was informal conversations with friends which helped me to put things in perspective and be more realistic, time and time again I might add! Being able to ask friends “When did your child start doing (or stop doing) XYZ?”, and getting different answers helps us to remember that development happens on a continuum and at different paces.
Now, my teens can be incredibly self-absorbed and entitled. I have to remind myself we’re right on track, they’re doing what they’re designed to do at their age! To expect them to always be empathic, outward looking and self-less is completely unrealistic.
AND just in case you’re wondering if we have to put up with all behaviours because it’s being labelled developmentally appropriate, I want to say this:
We can expect things of our children without “should-ing” them. We need to check that our expectations are age appropriate, and use different language designed to encourage and coach them, rather than judge and shame them.
“You should share” could rather be “I noticed last time you had a play date it was difficult for you to share. Do you want me to help you think about which toys you’re happy to share and which you’d rather like to hide away for today? Remember that when friends come, they feel welcomed when you share your toys. But if there are some you’re not ready to share that’s OK, let’s rather put it away.”
You’re reminding your child about the social rules around play dates; it is all about sharing time, toys and games. Assume that the younger your child, the less inclined they are to share or even able to share. Being unable to share is developmentally appropriate! Rather than discipling them for not sharing, support them in learning how to.
Shoulds and wishes are real for parents, sometimes we genuinely just want things to be different than they are. Sometimes parenting certain behaviour is so energy-sapping, it's natural to wish something about your child was different, just easier to parent, you know, less push back, more cooperation. Let’s acknowledge that reality and keep practising self-compassion.
What if you're in exactly the place you need to be as a parent to learn, to grow, and to celebrate wins. Right now, as you are. Today.
“Stop should-ing yourself.” Might be a phrase you’ve heard somewhere in recent years? 'Shoulds' could sound like “I should know this by now.” Or “I should lose weight.” Or “I should stop doing that.”
When you say a should to yourself, you are essentially telling yourself that who you are or were being in that moment is not valid. Let me explain...
A poster hung in our kitchen when I was a teenager and it said “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt. We can only be who we are and make choices based on what we have and what we know in any given moment.
“I should” is a pretty authoritarian voice. It carries a lot of judgement. I think it drives a huge amount of the guilt we can feel as parents to not measuring up - to who or what I don't know!?
'Shoulds' set us up to be incongruent with ourselves. Incongruent is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as not suitable or not fitting well with something else. When we 'should' ourselves, we are essentially making ourselves not fit well with ourselves; our knowledge, skills, resources and energy available to us in the moment.And this is the key that can lead to more healthy reflections about our actions/mistakes/choices - in the moment did I do the best I could with what I had?
We can reflect on our actions in healthy ways, without the judging shoulds. It could sound a bit more like this: At the time this is the choice I made, but I wonder if I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently?
Next time you tell yourself “I should have…” , take a pause. Are you beating yourself up for making a choice in a moment? Shoulds drive the guilt we can sometimes live under as parents, we second-guess everything we’ve done as we get bombarded by things we 'should' have bought, read, done with/for our children. Separate out the noise (marketing, influencers and others who do not have your best interests at heart), from your own true learning, reflection and growth. It's not a bad thing to learn from mistakes and misshaps, but the judgy voice is likely no help.
I have been wondering to myself if there is an appropriate time to use a 'should' on myself. I think, and this is simply my opinion, that a should could be used when giving yourself permission to choose something. Such as "Hey, it's date night! Should we go out to dinner or a movie or both?" (No, it's Janu-worry, we should farm the kids out and eat at home!!😁 )
What do you think? Is there an appropriate context to use a 'should' on yourself?
Other people put lots of shoulds on us too, more on that next time!
23.1.2026 06:00I Should ...How do you know AI does not write my blogs? Yup, well as much as I hate to admit it, I have been absent from here since November! My last post was fabulous though, if you didn't get to watch my interview with Christy Herselman, you can watch it here.
Anyway, so I don't use AI to write. And I think I am getting more honest with myself as time goes by, the end of the year is a tough time. There is a "collective exhaustion" that seems to settle and yet the rest of the world doesn't stop, if anything it speeds up! So if nothing is slowing down or stopping for me, and I can no longer go at speed, then I have to make some choices about what I don't have capacity for and can say "no" to.
All that to say, I haven't written here for a long time and I have missed it! Welcome back, I am so glad you're here. I wonder how the year is going for you so far?
The first day of school is done, you did it! Just a reminder, the start of the year is quite a thing for kids. Even if they remain in the same school, there is still a lot of change. Change can be a real challenge, even when it's good change! Process (in adjusting to change) is messy, I wrote about this a couple of years ago. You can read it here.
The start of a new year can be a thing for adults too. Even if everything remains the same, there are still decisions to be made about what we are going to continue to give our time to, what we are going to start and what we are going to discontinue.
I have started reading a book "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry." by John Mark Comer. OMG, it's good and confronting. Carl Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, is credited as saying Hurry is not of the devil, it is the devil.
How does that quote land for you? It's most definitely confronting for me! The book explores what constant hurrying does to our souls, our attention spans, creativity and relationships.
So, in 2026, what do you want to slow down for? What are you tired of rushing through? In your context, what does eliminating hurry look like for you?
The subtitle of Comer's book is: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world. As you may know, I am a journallor and love to run journalling workshops. Journalling as a practice is anti-hurry. Get in touch if you want me to run a journalling workshop at your office/church group/retreat. You can find out more about my journalling workshops here.
I sat down with Christy Herselman recently, the author of "The Chat: Birds, Bees and Destinies." We hear her story of how this book came to be and how it has started a movement.
Christy has authored two other books since and has many resources on her website which I encourage you to browse. Christy is a well-known speaker, going into brave spaces in talking to adolescents and children about online safety, sex, pornography and more.
I truly hope our conversation can inspire you to think intentionally as a parent about talking to your child about their body. Empower yourself with some knowledge and confidence as you listen. And, maybe you could find a friend or two and talk to them about it? We need to encourage one another in some of the more challenging aspects of life, share your concerns and learn from others along the way. You don't have to do it completely alone.
Christy's Instagram @thechatdurban
Christy's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thechatdurban
A reminder about the upcoming webinar on making a plan for your child's screentime in the holidays. You can sign up here.
I've often shared jokes with fellow parents over the years "If only there were a manual to help me know what to do with my child"...
What if your child IS the manual you so desperately want and feel you need in order to understand them?
This is not a generic manual (rather a genetic manual, ha ha!), this child is such a particular, unique, delightfully made being.
We get to learn who they are. They have their own personality and temperament. They are not a mini you or mini anyone else, they are them and they will continually evolve as they grow. It's up to us as the adults to perceive the evolutions and grow up as parents with them.
I once worked with a parent who did not live with their child, but had regular contact with them. They were confident in relating to the child as a very young child, they drew on their love of reading books and teaching them about the natural world around them on walks when they were little. As the child grew up into a middle-school aged child, the parent really began to flounder and was perplexed that this same child didn't want to read books together any more or go on nature walks. The child had developed sporting abilities and was quite obsessed with ball sports, something this parent had no desire or aptitude for. The parent really struggled to relate to their child in a whole new way. This can be a real issue for parents and children who have different aptitudes and interests. And, it is the adult's responsibility to make space and accept who the child is, and is becoming.
I have sometimes seen, through the play therapy process, when a child moves from anxious patterns to a more empowered human, that their behaviour changes. They move from being very compliant, to more challenging to the status quo, maybe more boundary-testing. This can be a shock to parents, and some gear changes are needed. It doesn't always happen this way, but when it does I do celebrate. A child who has moved from feeling disempowered to empowered is a wonderful thing! And, they need to be lovingly shown what to do with their new found freedom! Think about it, the rules of engagement are so different when one feels free and empowered. It becomes safe to test boundaries and try new behaviours out. As parents experiencing this type of change, we get to learn how to parent this in this.
Each child has a chronological age, and also an emotional age. These may be different, or quite similar. For example, a child turning 13 has the chronological age of 13 years, but emotionally they play and interact with others as a typical 11 year old would. Maybe we could think of it as each person having younger and/or older parts to them. The younger part of this 13 year old still wants to engage in pretend play, the older part wants to dress like a teenager and blushes when she sees a cute boy. This mix in chronological and emotional ages can often be seen fairly clearly in neurodiverse children (children with autism, ADHD).
To get to know your manual (I mean child), think about their chronological and emotional age(s). Maybe you catch yourself thinking "they should be doing this at their age."? It's good to be curious and to question where you see them struggling behind their peers, but don't assume they have to be on the same trajectory as everyone else.
Learning how to read your "manual" is a process driven by attunement. Attunement is about noticing. Our children constantly give us cues, the child does something that is trying to elicit a particular response from a parent. For example, after a play therapy session if a parent and I speak for too long and the child is getting bored they start to give their parent cues such as tugging on their clothing, interrupting us, sighing in frustration - everything they can to cue their parents "Hey, stop talking I want to GO now!"
We could also call cues, clues! So, if your toddler is being ratty, what are the clues they are laying down for you? Attunement is about looking beyond behaviour and noticing; why this behaviour? why now? I wonder what they need?
I had a little guy come and see me for play therapy. He was settling in so well, we had built a good rapport and then suddenly one week he struggled to separate from his mom, he was tearful and anxious the whole session. Afterwards, he passed out on the couch at home and in the next couple of days developed flu symptoms. His anxiety and unsettledness were actually present to signal his body wasn't completely well. Sometimes we can only fully see these things in hindsight. But it is good to think "what else could be going on?" And over time, we learn to read the clues better and better because in general, there will be patterns we can start to recognise.
I have written about this before here. And in that post I said;
The joy in all relationships is getting to know the other person, and maybe especially our children as we have the privilege of seeing them grow!
Hey! The fourth term is up and running. I am limping along with it, how about you? I have been reflecting this week about how it is OK to Do Less.
This week, after a week off work, my body has said "Slow down." and slammed me with a flu virus thingy - haven't had one for quite a while. When I get flu I tend to lose my voice, my body is talking to me, saying "Do Less". Not ideal when one has to give a talk, but thankfully my voice was OK.
I lay in bed for a whole day this week and I was surprised at how guilty I felt intitally. My brain was going "you can't afford to lie here doing nothing." And when my body was not able to respond my brain tried "well, at least type something. Anything! We can't afford this, this is not a good time!"
And you know what, it is not a good time. It is never a good time to be sick. It is not something we can control. There is not always a convenient time to Do Less. But I do think it is important. Even if it is for one day, or half day, for a weekend, or even one hour! But what I realised this week is "Do Less" was all I could do. I couldn't push myself any more, my body simply refused. My brain, for all its moaning at me, was not firing on all cylinders. Permission granted: Sometimes we simply need to Do Less.
On this note, my friend who has also been woman-down with flu this week got up to work for a couple of days and then had a set-back in her recovery... her body too was telling her "DO LESS"!!
You may be able to Do Less of one thing at a time; less reading the news, less looking at social media, less pushing your body to exercise when it is asking for a break, less people pleasing...
Here is a different way of Doing Less.
I came across a woman named Catherine Price who did a TED talk on "Why having fun is the secret to a healthier life." She also has a substack called The Serious Business of Fun. I highly recommend both! She offers this free screen saver to help people mindfully engage (or not engage) with their phones. There are 3 questions that now pop up every time I touch my phone...
This has been a reminder to me this week to be mindful when I pick up my phone and Do Less, especially of the mindless screen-related stuff.
It is fully OK to recognise when you need to Do Less. You're not lazy, you're looking after yourself. Enter a bit of "rest and digest" mode, which, btw leads to more productivity and happiness in the future!
17.10.2025 08:00Do Less
