305 | Shared Walls and Noisy Lobbies: Preserving the CCPT Playroom Environment

In this episode, I answer a question from Jill in Pennsylvania about how to handle playrooms that share a wall with a waiting area—and the issues that come with that setup. From parents commenting on sessions to kids reacting to sounds from the lobby, these scenarios are more common than you might think. I share the strategies I've used in my own practice to mitigate sound, preserve the integrity of the playroom, and maintain strong therapeutic boundaries.

I also offer scripts and practical language you can use to set clear expectations with parents from the very first meeting, as well as how to address disruptions when they happen. Whether it’s preserving confidentiality, protecting the therapeutic relationship, or handling lobby meltdowns, this episode is packed with tools to help you advocate for your client and maintain a child-centered space—even when your office setup is less than ideal.

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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]
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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,

(00:20):
I'm answering a question from Jill in Pennsylvania,
and Jill's question is about
her playroom sharing the waiting room wall.
And I know so many of you are nodding your
head right now because you know exactly what it is like
to have a shared wall with the waiting room
and your playroom is so close and so you hear the play the lobby,

(00:44):
the lobby here is the playroom and it is just
quite a dynamic.
So
I'm gonna read parts of her email and we'll dive into that.
My playroom shares a wall with the waiting room.
It's soundproofed,
but you can still hear what is happening in the playroom
and in the waiting room,
and I'm getting tired of tracking,
oh,
you can hear your mom out there.

(01:05):
For the opposite,
I've tried psychoeducation for the parents about not making comments like it
sounded like you were having a lot of fun in there,
or worse,
Miss Jill had to tell you 3 times that her body was not for hitting.
But these statements still continue.
I know this heightens my anxiety and I don't want it to
come out in the playroom and affect my time with my client.

(01:26):
All right,
Jill,
thank you so much for this.
This is something that we discuss a lot
how to manage noise and the
just
dynamics of working with children in child-centered play therapy.
And even if it's not a shared playroom wall,
I've had so many of you say,
I share a wall with
an adult therapist,

(01:46):
I share a wall with a marriage and family therapist.
I'm in an office with a whole bunch of people and none of them work with children.
I have a supervisor that will not allow a child to remain
in the hallway if they refuse to go in the playroom.
I have a supervisor or a director or an owner or whoever that will not
allow a child to sit in the lobby if they refuse to come back.
So we all have these struggles

(02:08):
when we are not in an environment
that is quote ideal
for providing child-centered play therapy,
we have to find ways to navigate and adjust.
So Jill,
I think this is a really helpful question.
I'm really glad that you emailed.
So in your case,
you are sharing your playroom wall with the waiting room wall.
So

(02:28):
even when you soundproof.
We bought
soundproofing hexagon panels,
we installed those,
we bought.
Recording studio,
really large rectangular sound panels,
we installed those.
We put door sweeps on,
we put rugs in
the playrooms,
we

(02:49):
put white noise,
we put fans,
we put music,
we put TVs.
We've done
everything you can think of to mitigate noise and
there is no foolproof 100%
solution.
And Maya,
my office manager is known when
things get really loud in playrooms,
she will turn up the TVs in the lobby

(03:11):
to try to drown out some of the playroom noise,
and there's just,
there's no simple solution for this.
However,
I will share some thoughts.
When
There are constant concerns about
the exchange of sound between the lobby and the playroom.
Sometimes it is helpful to have that discussion with parents

(03:35):
and set expectations of behavior.
Before they come.
So,
in this case,
you're obviously already working with this family,
and it seems like it still remains a struggle.
I would advocate that moving forward,
you set expectations
from the very first initial parent consult.
My playroom wall is shared with the lobby wall,

(03:57):
so there will likely be times that you will hear what is happening in play sessions.
Although we have put soundproofing in place,
it is not
complete and thorough,
so you can still typically hear,
especially if the volume gets pretty loud,
you'll be able to hear what's going on.
For confidentiality's sake,
as well as preservation of relationship with
your child

(04:18):
between the two of us,
you have to pretend as if you've heard nothing.
And if you set that expectation from the very first initial meeting
and you provide the why,
which is
I have to preserve your child's confidentiality
and your child has to trust me and there can't be a rupture
in the trust

(04:39):
that we have that what happens in the playroom is just between us
when it's clearly not if you bring something up that you
heard or that you were aware of that was happening.
So that has to be a very clear expectation
from the beginning of your work with parents,
and they are still sometimes,
not all of them,
some of them are still going to

(05:00):
test that boundary.
They're still going to make comments
and then you have a follow up phone call where you say,
I know we discussed this in the initial meeting,
but I just wanna make
you aware,
I wanna remind you.
That when we finish a session,
it is important that you act as if you did not have any awareness

(05:21):
of what was going on in the playroom because as soon as your child feels
that they're not able to be free and do what they need or want
to do in there it's going to undermine the process and if they're protecting you
from their noise from what they're saying.
From what they're playing,
from what they're doing,
it's going to stymie
their work that they need to be doing,
and we don't want that.

(05:41):
You're here so that they can move through the process the way that they need to.
So I just wanted to remind you again
that when we come out,
your job is to act as if you had no idea what happened in play sessions.
So that's the way that you're going to handle addressing the comments from parents.

(06:02):
If worse comes to worse,
and this,
this has happened in lots of therapists' offices,
you let them know that they're
going to be asked to wait in the car
moving forward if they continue to make comments and
it becomes a choice that's provided to the parent
and so.
It's really important that your child does not feel

(06:23):
that you're aware of what's happening in sessions.
And so
it's,
I know it's so hard not to make comments when they come out,
but if you choose to say things at the end of our
time together,
you're choosing to wait in the car and then you'll actually
not know what's going on and that will preserve relationship.
And that makes it very clear

(06:44):
that there's no wiggle room in this.
And this is about advocating for the child.
The child has to know
that their work in there with you is sacred and confidential,
and that they don't have to safeguard anyone from it.
They don't have to protect anyone from it.
They don't have to worry about the fallout of that.
I mean,

(07:04):
when a kid comes out and parent says.
Miss Jill had to tell you 3 times that her body was not for hitting.
They're getting chastised
for struggling with complying with the limit.
That's why a parent isn't in the room.
That's why CCPT is therapist and child only
because the child has to wrestle with it.

(07:24):
I,
so this last week.
My kid was shooting hoops in my room.
I have an over the door basketball hoop,
and he
slam dunked and like kind of fake hung on the rim,
and it popped two of the screws out of the backboard and the holder that
goes over the door on one side was no longer attached to the rim.

(07:45):
So it kind of like swung down,
you know,
like about halfway
and it was hanging from one of the hooks and so I said,
oh boy,
I think we're gonna have to put those screws back in.
So we found the screws on the floor,
we took it off the door and then when the session was over,
we went into
Miss Maya's office,
my office manager's office,
and we set down the screws and the backboard and the hook

(08:07):
and said,
we need a little bit of toy repair,
Maya.
And she laughed,
got out the screwdriver,
you know,
that,
that's standard operating procedure for play therapists,
right?
Like toys need to be fixed,
repaired,
glued,
cleaned,
whatever.
And mom goes,
did he break that?
All right,
now,
mom knows that she has to act as if she

(08:28):
didn't hear anything.
But she
saw that it was broken and was shocked and in her reaction was like,
did you break that?
And before Kit even responded,
I said,
sometimes accidents happen and it's not broken.
We just have to put some screws back in.
And you nip it in the bud

(08:48):
because
child can't feel chastised or judged or criticized
because he dunked a hoop and the screws came out of the backboard.
It's no big deal.
Look,
if he would have shattered the backboard,
if it would have been in 100 pieces irreparably damaged,
and I was gonna throw it away,
I would have said exactly the same thing.
Accidents happen,

(09:08):
sometimes toys get broken in the playroom,
we're gonna get another one.
It doesn't matter.
Relationship preservation is far more important,
and here's why I brought that story up because mom immediately said,
as soon as I said,
Oh,
accidents happen,
and which it's not broken,
we just have to put the screws back in,
whatever.
Before I said anything else,
she goes,
I know this is why moms aren't allowed back in the

(09:31):
playroom because you allow so much more than I would.
And I said,
that's exactly why parents aren't allowed in the playroom,
and we laughed about it
and we moved on.
Even kid laughed because he looked at me like,
yeah,
mom would never let me do half the stuff that I do in there.
But that's the beauty of setting expectations.
She knows
that it's just me and him and it has to be just me and him for a reason.

(09:54):
As far as your client,
Jill,
being able to hear parents
from their side.
Oh,
you hear mom in the waiting room.
That does actually happen in session and that is exactly the way you handle it.
You just briefly acknowledge it
only if the child makes it known that they

(10:14):
are actually focused on it.
In other words,
just because it's audible,
we don't need to bring that in,
but if the kid goes,
I can hear my mom,
or,
oh,
my mom's on the phone,
or.
You know,
oh,
that's my mom's ring tone,
that that's a really common one.
That's my mom's phone
when the phone rings.
If they actually bring it up,

(10:36):
then you just reflect content in the exact same way.
Oh,
you hear mom's phone,
and then you move on.
If
what's going on in the lobby becomes a distraction.
So we actually just had a post about this in the collective last week.
Mom
or dad,
I don't remember,
parent
waits with siblings in the lobby while client goes back with therapist

(10:59):
and parent started yelling at sibling
and they're basically having like a knock down drag out
fight in the lobby and this happens apparently weekly.
And it's so distracting and then client is like worried
about the fight that's going on in the lobby.
And so there was this whole dialogue about how to handle that.
If it becomes really disruptive to where it's not just you can

(11:21):
hear them talking or you can hear their phone or whatever,
if it gets to a point where a limit needs to be set.
You're going to set limits just like you would with any other scenario.
So.
You're usually in the lobby with your other kids and obviously,
you know,
there are certain things that are gonna happen and it's
hard to wait for an hour and keep them occupied,

(11:41):
validate,
normalize,
reassur blah blah,
but it's really disruptive when we can hear
screaming and arguing and confrontation in the playroom.
So I just want to let you know if that happens again,
you can choose to just step outside
and address that outside of the building,
or I might pop my head out
and and let you know that we can hear you and we would appreciate

(12:05):
it if you could take that outside so that we can no longer hear.
You're setting expectations,
and there's always a why.
I have to preserve the therapeutic relationship,
I have to pre preserve the therapeutic environment,
and I have to preserve the therapeutic work.
If you've developed no like and trust with parents,
they will understand why you have to have these conversations.

(12:28):
They're not easy conversations,
but they're necessary
because above all,
all you care about
is making sure that
your client is able to do the work that they need to do.
They can't self-actualize with all of these external factors
convoluting the process,
so we try to minimize and eliminate them as much as possible.

(12:48):
So very direct conversations,
very clear expectations that are set
and choices and limits when needed.
So Jill,
I hope that that's helpful.
I hope that's helpful for all of you because
without question,
we end up with noise concerns in play therapy.
All right,
we'll talk again soon.
I hope you know how much I appreciate y'all.
Love you.

(13:08):
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.