231 | How to Overcome Parental Doubts as a Non-Parent Child-Centered Play Therapist

In this episode of the Play Therapy Podcast, I address a thoughtful question from Malley in Texas, who wonders how not having children might influence her work as a play therapist, especially in building trust with parents. Malley expresses concerns about parents questioning her ability to help their children simply because she isn’t a parent herself. I share personal anecdotes from my early career and offer insights into how to confidently navigate these situations.

I explain that parents care less about credentials or personal circumstances and more about whether they can trust you to help their child. I emphasize the importance of projecting confidence, clearly articulating the principles of child-centered play therapy (CCPT), and building trust through genuine connection. Regardless of whether you’re a parent, the key is to instill hope and communicate your expertise effectively, ensuring parents feel supported and reassured.

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Common References:
Cochran, N., Nordling, W., & Cochran, J. (2010). Child-Centered Play Therapy (1st ed.). Wiley.
VanFleet, R., Sywulak, A. E., & Sniscak, C. C. (2010). Child-centered play therapy. Guilford Press.
Landreth, G.L. (2023). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bratton, S. C., Landreth, G. L., Kellam, T., & Blackard, S. R. (2006). Child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) treatment manual: A 10-session filial therapy model for training parents. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Benedict, Helen. Themes in Play Therapy. Used with permission to Heartland Play Therapy Institute.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks,
your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.
Hi,
I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get
a master class in child-centered play therapy
and practical support and application for your
work with children and their families.
In today's episode,

(00:20):
I am answering a question from Malley in Texas.
And Malley's question
is about being a play therapist without
your own children,
and how that might influence parent's perceptions
and just the dynamic of not being a parent yourself,
but working with parent's children.

(00:40):
Your client's parents,
and how to best navigate that.
So,
Malley,
thank you so much for this question.
This is really helpful and I,
I have a couple of personal anecdotal stories that
I'll throw in as a result of your question.
So
you'll see that you're not alone in this is the point of that.
And so
I'll read parts of her email and then we'll talk about it together.

(01:01):
So she said,
thanks so much for all the work that you do to advocate for CCPT and train competent,
compassionate professionals.
Yes,
thank you for all of you for wanting to be competent,
compassionate professionals.
I can't do this without you wanting to be the best clinicians you can be,
so
I'm very happy to do it and thank you for saying that.
I have been working my way through your podcast.

(01:22):
I will be starting my internship this spring,
and I can't wait to start applying my knowledge to practical skills in the playroom.
My question for you is,
when it comes to communicating with a client's parents,
do you have any advice for a therapist who doesn't have
children of their own and doesn't plan to have any?
Like many others,
my biggest fear right now is working with parents.
Yes,
so many people fear that.
I imagine there will be some parents who are hesitant to trust me

(01:44):
or utilize any skills I suggest simply because I'm not a parent.
While this is somewhat understandable,
it's also disheartening for me to think about.
I really do delight in children and their experiences,
and I'm so passionate about working with them,
but having kids of my own is not part of the plan for my life.
Is contempt from parents just going to be something
I'll have to learn to completely shrug off?

(02:04):
That seems like a recipe for burnout.
I've asked several different professors this question and received as,
and received as many different answers,
but I'd really love to hear your thoughts if you have the time.
Yes,
I'm happy to share my thoughts.
So Malley,
again,
thanks so much for this email.
All right,
here's a funny story.
So I was without children.

(02:24):
I was
relatively new out of grad school.
I want to say I was probably 25
and had gotten my master's.
Actually,
I must have been 26 because I had gotten my graduate certificate by that point.
So I'd finished my master's and I had my graduate certificate in play therapy,
so I had to have been 26.
And I,
I will never forget this.

(02:45):
I'm sitting down with this mom
and she wanted me to work with her,
I want to say maybe 3 or 4 year old son.
And she was very,
very anxious
and very high strung and just,
I,
I mean,
I could just,
it was like oozing out of her.
And
we had been maybe 30 minutes into the initial parent consultation,

(03:07):
and she pauses and says,
I,
I,
I just have a question to ask you,
do you have children?
And I said,
no,
not yet.
And
she goes,
because I mean,
I,
I mean no disrespect,
but like you look really young.
I,
I,
I mean,
I kind of nodded my head like,

(03:28):
well,
yeah,
I mean,
I guess,
and I don't even think she was really that much older than me.
I mean,
she was maybe mid-30s,
so it wasn't like we're talking,
you know,
like 25 to 50 range here.
But anyway,
so she was older than me,
but I don't consider her to be that much older and
she's like,
you just look really young.
And so I kind of smiled and acknowledged what she said and then she goes,

(03:48):
I mean,
you don't even have wrinkles.
And so I've always thought about that moving forward.
So
in my head,
and ever since I've gone
so clearly,
you can't be a competent play therapist if you
don't have children and you don't have wrinkles.
So,
I remember even thinking at the time,
what does this have to do with me being able to help your kid?

(04:11):
So Malley,
you're not alone,
that that's the moral of that story.
And
here's another
Thought
I have often
gone back to that conversation in my head.
And
I don't know if you all do this.
OK,
I'm I'm gonna go on a tangent for a second.
I don't know if you all do this,
but I do it all the time and my husband
finds it funny because he does not do this whatsoever.

(04:33):
So I don't know if it's a female thing.
I don't know if it's a Brenna thing.
I don't know what it is.
Maybe you all can email me and say,
yes,
Brenna,
you're not crazy.
I do the same thing.
Or you can say,
yeah,
it is 100% you're crazy.
But
here,
here's the story.
I always replay
prior conversations in my head.
And I come up with things that would have been more effective to say or

(04:56):
things I wish I would have said or different ways in which I would have responded
or
when they said this,
you know,
man,
it would have been so much better if you would have said this.
So I
will reconstruct
past conversations.
and think through things that I might have used as an illustration or told as a story,

(05:16):
or,
well,
that probably would have helped them better understand
that if you would have said that.
I do this all the time.
And he goes,
no,
that conversation is over and you're never going to be able to have it again.
So why would you think through it?
I think it's normal to do that.
I don't know,
weigh in [e-mail].
OK,
so now I'm back to,
I've often thought if I had that conversation to do over again,

(05:37):
here's what I would have said,
and maybe this will help all of you
if you don't have children and you don't have wrinkles and
someone is questioning your competence as a result.
I've often wanted to say.
Just because
I don't have cancer
doesn't mean that I can't be a doctor that treats a patient with cancer.

(05:59):
Or just because I don't have a cavity
doesn't mean that I can't be a dentist that can treat and fill the cavity.
This this notion that you have to have a child of your own
to be able to provide play therapy to a child,
that doesn't extend to any other field.

(06:20):
Oncologists don't have cancer themselves.
Dentists don't necessarily have cavities.
But they're still competent and they're able to help people
and provide services for people because of their training,
because of their education,
their knowledge,
their background.
So I don't think that it even makes sense for anyone to
say if you don't have children you can't work with children.

(06:44):
Just because it doesn't make sense,
doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.
So,
May,
I think this is a valid question.
And I think
here are the,
the strategies,
or,
or my thoughts at least,
let's put it that way.
You have to meet with parents
and you have to be confident.
Now
So many of you in the Collective

(07:05):
that listen to the podcast,
that they're in my coaching programs,
so many of you constantly talk about,
I want to be more confident.
I want to feel more confident.
I want to be able to confidently communicate.
I want to be able to confidently explain what's going on.
So I think pervasively,
we kind of as a field and as clinicians,
we feel a lack of confidence often.

(07:27):
But here's the thing.
You
are trained.
To do this work,
even if you're only training is listening to the podcast,
I know it's hard to get solid CCPT training,
which is why this Play Therapy Podcast exists.
This is why my coaching program exists.
This is why the Collective exists.
Why?
Because it's hard to get solid CCPT training.

(07:50):
However,
You have the training
to
do clinical work.
Even if you're still in grad school,
you still have been trained
in how to do clinical work.
And then even if the only training you have in CCPT is listening to the podcast,
you understand the fundamentals.
So you have to take that knowledge and you have to confidently present

(08:15):
that you are
capable of helping.
And way back when I talked about a confidence
competence loop that's a very valid factor here.
So if you have no idea what I'm talking about,
go back and listen,
but
confidence and competence are intertwined.
So when we sit down with parents,
we have to believe in our competency

(08:36):
and therefore we are more confident we have to
believe in our confidence and we become more competent
and.
Ideally,
the number one factor
in meeting with parents.
Is never
about your credentials.
It's never about
what
training you've had specifically.

(08:57):
It's never about your degree.
It's never about how many letters you have after your name.
We have a lot of alphabet soup in our industry.
Parents don't care about any of that.
They care
about whether or not you can help their child.
And so
what you're going to do when you meet with parents,
Malley,

(09:18):
whether you have children or not,
you don't.
We know that,
right?
But
if they question that,
if they're worried about that.
You make sure that they know like and trust you.
those are the factors
of why someone will commit to bring their kid to you.
They know I can trust you.
And you're confident in what you're going to do,

(09:40):
why you're going to do it.
You trust the model,
you trust the process,
you trust yourself.
And you effectively communicate
that CCPT works,
and all of that
says,
we know
that this will help
get you to the outcome that you want.

(10:01):
What we're really communicating to parents is that there's hope.
So
the goal when we meet with parents is not
convince them
of anything.
It's they have to know that you can help,
and they have to know like and trust you.
So that's why articulation matters.
That's why communication matters.

(10:22):
That's why understanding how to convey the model and all of that.
And
whether you have kids or not,
that becomes irrelevant at that point.
Whether you have wrinkles or not,
it becomes irrelevant.
All parents care about
is,
are you able to support us in getting us closer to where we want to be as a family,
closer to having a happy,

(10:43):
healthy child.
If the answer is yes,
they will not care that you are not a parent.
So Malley,
really,
thanks so much for this.
I hope this is encouraging to all of you,
especially those of you who
have been second guessed or doubted for a variety of reasons.
It,
it really is about communicating with confidence
that people can trust you

(11:05):
and
they need,
they need to know and like you too,
but,
but really it's about trusting in the process
and trusting you to help them get there.
So thanks a lot for the question.
Hope you find that helpful.
Love y'all.
We'll talk again soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr.
Brenna Hicks.
For more episodes and resources,
please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.