The playroom is working like a treat so I wanted to share a few resources that I am enjoying working with in the playroom.
The Postbox has been very popular for a range of purposes either in directed activities or child directed play. Activities have varied such as:
- to write how we feel and post this message to someone special
- writing a message to someone we no longer see or miss
- write a message or make a drawing to the therapist to explain how one feels
- post an activity when finished
- thinking about writing a letter of thank you to someone
- sending a postcard to someone about our life adventures and how one is having a good time
- sending a message to someone about one’s strengths and skills and/or a success
- sending a message to someone about a change one would like to make
- exchanging messages about a difficult event that happened in the week
- write a message about the session and what we would do next time
The Postbox is certainly a great resource in the playroom. This one was purchased at a popular store. With creativity, a postbox could be easily made with a box. Additionally, postcards and message cards can be created for children to take away messages with them.
As children do not necessarily have literacy skills develop for long messages, encouraging drawings, images, keywords and codes is as successful as writing a message. Processing thinking visually can be helpful in mapping thought and feelings.
When working online, a postbox could be created using the whiteboard during sessions.
Parents can also create a postbox in the house for children to post messages or big emotions about specific events. This can help children express their thoughts and feelings in a different way to talking. As talking can be developmentally challenging for children, a different way to express thoughts and feelings can work well. The process of thinking and writing is also a different process to talking, and can be helpful to children who have challenges in expressing emotions verbally.
The Postbox and narrative therapy activities feature in The Therapist Backpack, see the link below for more information about this concept.
