273 | Keeping CCPT on Track: When a Child Refuses to Stay in the Playroom

In this episode, I answer a question from Hannah in Texas about what to do when a child leaves the playroom mid-session—especially when limits have already been set. This is one of the most common challenges in CCPT, and it brings up important questions about limit-setting, consistency, and maintaining the integrity of the play therapy process.

I break down how to structure limits effectively, why wording matters, and how to handle situations where a child insists on staying in the lobby. I also explain the importance of positioning yourself near the door as a barrier to help with self-regulation. If you’ve ever struggled with reinforcing playroom expectations, this episode provides clear strategies to keep sessions on track while staying child-centered.

LIVE, APT-approved Advanced "4-Pillars" CEU Training (Reflecting Feelings, Choice-Giving, Encouragement, Limit-Setting) Series Starting Friday March 28th Through April 11th, 2025

Virginia Association for Play Therapy 2025 Annual Conference March 7-8, 2025. 

 Register for the Podcast Meetup here! (Friday, March 7th, 6:30pm)

PlayTherapyNow.com is my HUB for everything I do! playtherapynow.com. Sign up for my email newsletter, stay ahead with the latest CCPT CEU courses, personalized coaching opportunities and other opportunities you need to thrive in your CCPT practice. If you click one link in these show notes, this is the one to click!

If you would like to ask me questions directly, check out www.ccptcollective.com, where I host two weekly Zoom calls filled with advanced CCPT case studies and session reviews, as well as member Q&A. You can take advantage of the two-week free trial to see if the CCPT Collective is right for you.

Ask Me Questions: Call ‪[phone]‬, or email: [e-mail]
Brenna's CCPT Hub: https://www.playtherapynow.com
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APT Approved Play Therapy CE courses: https://childcenteredtraining.com
Twitter: @thekidcounselor https://twitter.com/thekidcounselor
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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,
I am answering a question from Hannah in Texas.

(00:23):
And her question is about
when a child leaves the playroom mid-session
and how to handle that,
especially when limits have already been set.
So that's going to be helpful.
I,
I think the number one.
Well,
top 3 for sure.
I don't want to misspeak,
but
top 3 for sure.
I'm pretty sure that I hear questions about
lobby sessions and or leaving the playroom or refusing to come back

(00:46):
to the playroom more than I hear questions about almost anything else.
So this will be really helpful.
I'll read that in just a second.
Couple of
housekeeping updates.
Number one,
if you are interested in advanced pillar training,
so reflecting feelings,
choice giving,
limit setting,
encouragement.
Corwell and I have partnered
to do a

(01:07):
Friday training 3 weeks in a row at the end of March.
So it will be
last Friday in March
1st 2 Fridays in April,
and it will be a deeper dive into the 4 pillars.
So 3 weeks' worth of 4 pillars.
Encouragement and choice giving are combined,
so you have an entire
course on reflecting feelings,
an entire course on limit setting

(01:28):
and then
about an hour and a half each of encouragement and choice giving.
So if you would like to hone your skills,
if you'd like to be more adherent,
if you'd like to do a deeper dive,
please register for the Corewell training.
It'll be in the show notes.
You can also get there at playtherapynow.com.
And
that will give you an opportunity to get 9 CEU's number one,

(01:49):
but also give you a lot of information about each of those four pillars.
So I'm really excited,
huge thanks to Corwell for giving me the opportunity to do that.
And also,
if you are,
oh my gosh,
it's February 27th.
So
if you are going to be next week,
yikes,
that's crazy how fast that's coming.

(02:10):
In Virginia.
Either to come to the conference or because you're going to be at the meetup.
First of all,
thanks to all of you who've signed up for the meetup.
There's,
it looks like there's gonna be a lot.
I'm excited about that.
We are hanging out next weekend,
so Friday night is the meetup.
It's gonna be in Richmond,
Virginia,
and then the conference.
I'm speaking all day Friday,
all day Saturday.
So if y'all can fly,

(02:32):
drive,
plane,
train,
boat,
automobile,
I don't care.
I think it might be hard to take a boat to Richmond,
Virginia,
but get the point.
If you can get there,
you need to be there.
We're gonna have a lot of fun.
12 hours of me talking,
that's not quite as much as Australia,
but it's close.
So I might not have a voice by the end of Saturday,
but we're gonna hang out and have fun.
So please register for the meetup.

(02:53):
Please register for the conference,
please register for Corwell trainings.
I love you all,
so let's hang out more.
OK,
at least face to face.
I know we hang out a lot,
but you only ever hear me and I don't see or hear you.
So let's hang out where I can see and hear you.
That would be fun.
All righty,
so I'll read parts of Hannah's question and then we'll dive in together.

(03:15):
I'm really grateful to have found your podcast.
I love hearing the day to day experiences
that I have mirrored in other people's questions.
That's why I do it.
I'm so glad.
I have a follow-up question for when a child leaves the room.
I typically say,
you're ready to be done playing,
but we have 15 minutes left.
You can choose to play with toys or choose to do nothing.
It's up to you.
I have a few clients who will look at me and walk through the door.

(03:37):
I don't own my own practice,
and the setup is such that I can't sit
my chair near the door without directly barricading it,
which I don't feel comfortable doing.
My question is,
once I'm out in the lobby,
how many times do I repeat the limit,
and is there a point where it turns into a lobby session?
I feel a bit of a disconnect between using ACT,
sorry,
I feel a bit of a disconnect between using ACT setting a limit

(03:59):
that quote,
our time is for the playroom 3 times and then having a lobby session.
Yes,
and therein lies the dilemma.
So I'm really glad that you brought that up.
OK,
so Hannah,
I know you said that you don't own your own practice,
and many of us don't,
so you're in a boat with a lot of other clinicians
and the setup is such that I can't sit

(04:20):
my chair near the door without directly barricading it.
OK.
Most rooms
are
pretty
small access.
In other words,
the door is.
Kind of usually in a corner
and it's usually kind of in like a if your chair is
there it's going to be in the way of the door.
That's the whole purpose of setting your chair up in that

(04:44):
location.
Now it does not have to be right up against the door,
but it needs to be close enough in proximity
that you sitting there
is a barrier to the child flinging out of the room,
flinging the door open and fleeing the room.
So while you say you don't feel comfortable barricading the door,
I don't think the goal is to barricade the door.

(05:06):
The goal is to be another level of barrier.
So that the child can't just
run up,
fling the door open and flee out into the hallway or the lobby.
Now,
many,
most kids,
many and most kids will not
ever try to leave the room.
So we're talking a very small portion of our clients

(05:27):
that will have the impulse to do this,
rooted in a lot of different reasons,
which I'll save that for a different episode,
but there are all kinds of reasons why a child will do this.
And the point is
that we want to serve as a little bit of extra time and a little bit of extra
hesitance.

(05:47):
To
dive into that impulse and flee the room,
especially after a limit has been set.
Essentially what we're doing is serving as a little bit
of assistance for self regulation until they possess it themselves.
We're not correcting the child's behavior.
We're not insisting on compliance.

(06:08):
We're not mandating that the child obeys the limit.
But by being in front of the door,
even if it's 2 ft in front of.
The child can't just run over and fling the door open and leave.
This is a safety thing.
As soon as the child leaves your room,
there's liability.
As soon as the child leaves your room and is doing something,
even if it's for 3 seconds,

(06:28):
out of your sight,
there's liability.
So this is also a safety concern.
And I know sometimes we feel hesitant to quote
restrict or barricade or whatever it is that the verb we want to use to a child.
But the reality is,
it is our job to keep that child safe.
And if that child runs out into the hallway,
by the time it takes you to follow behind him or her.

(06:52):
He is out of your line of sight.
God forbid he trips and busts his head open.
God forbid he trips and he bites a hole through his lip.
God forbid he trips and breaks his ankle or his arm or whatever.
There are just safety factors here.
So when you have what we at the center call a runner
who is likely to just leave your playroom really quickly,

(07:13):
all kinds of reasons why.
We have to have some methods in place that
help.
So we're not restricting
the leaving,
but we're making it a little bit more tricky.
So,
that's my thought on having your chair in front of the door,
but let's get back to your limit setting scenario.
So you said,
our time is for the playroom.

(07:35):
OK,
so
that's important
to say that is a neutral limit.
You're ready to be done playing.
I wanna start there because
That may not be appropriate.
The child may not be ready to be done playing.
Maybe they want to go check and see
what mom's doing.
Maybe they want to go out and get a drink.

(07:56):
Maybe they
are
needing a snack.
Maybe they.
Are control needy and they're making sure that mom hasn't left.
They want to give mom a hug.
They wanna tell mom what happened.
They want to,
there's all kinds of reasons that a child will want to leave the room.

(08:16):
So unless the child says,
I don't wanna play anymore.
Then we don't want to make assumptions with our validations.
So,
oh,
you're thinking about leaving the room right now.
That would be the most neutral thing unless we have
an indication of why the child wants to leave.
Now,
sometimes
when we pseudo-limit set,

(08:38):
so we would say,
oh,
you're thinking about leaving,
but you know that our time is for the playroom and we have this number of minutes left.
Sometimes the kid will say,
yeah,
cause I just want to,
and then you learn why the child wants to leave.
Then that allows you to decide if
The child
is going to go out in the lobby and come back.

(09:00):
If the child's going to go to the bathroom,
if the child's going to go get a drink,
if the child is going to go get a jacket,
whatever.
So
often,
if we pseudo-limit set,
the child will provide us more information about
what their needs or wants or desires are.
So that's always helpful.
So,
you're ready to be done playing.
I don't know that we would want to say that unless that's very clear.

(09:22):
Then we have 15 minutes left.
Our playroom,
the playroom is for
our time together.
Both of those are helpful.
You can choose to play with toys or you can choose to do nothing,
it's up to you.
That is very blanket.
You're in charge for the time that we have left.

(09:43):
I might tweak that a little bit and say,
you're in charge when you're in here,
so you can choose to do whatever you do inside the playroom.
Notice that it's inside the playroom
because you can choose to do whatever you want
is,
well,
I wanna go out to the lobby
and then you get stuck.
So we have to be really intentional with the wording when we're setting limits.
So now Hannah,

(10:03):
when you said,
I feel disconnect between saying our time is for
the playroom and then having a lobby session.
That is exactly the rub
of saying our time is for the playroom,
and then the child ends up in the lobby,
which is why I really highly recommend putting your chair as a barrier.
But
if you end up in the lobby,

(10:24):
You
then ultimate limit set.
Because
the expectation is absolutely that the child finishes time in the playroom.
You really want to stay out here,
but you know that our time is for the playroom.
You're gonna go through that 3 times.
If the child is unwilling or unable to comply,
then you move to ultimate limit setting.

(10:46):
If you choose to come out to the lobby,
even though you know that our time is for the playroom,
you choose to immediately go back into the playroom for the rest of our time.
OK.
So you're making it very clear,
you chose to not comply with staying in the playroom.
So now you're choosing to go back into the playroom.

(11:08):
Because you know that's where our time is for.
Now,
to provide an actual choice,
you can choose for mom to walk you back to the playroom,
or you can choose to race me back to the playroom.
Which do you choose?
Notice how now the
focus of attention is how are we getting back to the playroom,
not whether or not we're staying in the lobby.

(11:28):
There's a lot of wordsmithing that goes on with
limit setting when you get into these complicated scenarios.
And we have to practice this.
I talked to
my coaching people about this all the time.
Rehearse
all the time scenarios when you're not in a playroom.
When you are exercising,
when you're driving,
when you're
showering,
when you're

(11:48):
folding laundry,
when you're doing dishes,
whatever it is that you're doing,
rehearse in your head scenarios and run through limit setting in your head
because if you wait until it's real time,
it's hard to have the muscle memory to execute it.
If you've practiced it a whole bunch ahead of time,
it's a lot easier.
So
I would run through scenarios so that you feel comfortable and

(12:10):
equipped to do it on the fly in the moment.
But the wordsmithing that has to take place,
it's,
it's a skill,
it's a talent,
and you have to be able to pivot
away from staying in the lobby to how we're getting back to the playroom.
So I hope that that's helpful.
Hannah,
thank you so much for the question.
I really appreciate it.
And if you all would like to reach out,

(12:31):
I'd love to hear from you,
[e-mail].
All right,
love you all.
Have a great week.
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.