From the very start, Vivian Mueller has lived up to her name, which means “full of life.” Her mother, Michelle Mueller, describes the 6-year-old as vivacious, loving, extroverted, and excited about life. Vivian loved dance class and had recently joined the competition team, but late last year, Michelle noticed that Vivian didn’t want to go to her lessons. Then it was Girl Scouts. Then, grandma’s house. Vivian started waking up in the middle of the night and needed Michelle to get back to sleep. She’d rise a few hours later and repeatedly ask if it was time for school. She had more separation anxiety, was worried about illness, and didn’t want to leave the house. Michelle, who runs the popular Instagram account Play STL, made the decision to pull Vivian out of competition dance. Then she decided her family needed help.
“There was a point where from the second I woke up to the second I went to sleep, it was full-time Vivian,” Michelle remembers. “She was constantly asking questions, crying, and needing to be comforted…. [We realized] that this is affecting all of our lives. It’s me and my husband having to console her constantly, and then we can’t be as available for our other two children. The whole family was wrapped up in this anxiety.”
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Michelle is an early childhood educator, but this was outside of her teaching experience. She reached out to Vivian’s school counselor, as well as her own therapist, and did research online to look into what options for help were available. Michelle read about play therapy, which uses play to express feelings, and found Brooke Harris of Playful Pathways.
Harris’ office is lined with toys and miniatures, but none of them are chosen at random. They’ve been picked because each has the potential to spark imagination play and tap into a child’s subconscious. Children can act out scenarios that might be troubling them, and Harris can talk through how the child is feeling.
“Play is a language,” Harris says. “You and I can sit here and have this conversation because we have this wonderful vocabulary. Kids don’t. They have a vocabulary to communicate for their basic needs, which could be crying, screaming, or throwing things. It’s not always, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m really upset right now. I need you to help me calm down or I don’t know what to do because I’m feeling a way that I don’t even understand.’”
Sessions typically open with Harris offering the child to play with any of her toys: a dollhouse, a kitchen set, art supplies, Legos, and a sand pan where kids can use figurines to create different worlds. Harris might pull out the sand and prompt a child: Show me what it looks like when you’re angry. Sometimes there’s no prompt required—children will just dive in. Even if the child doesn’t say anything, his or her style of play often informs Harris. Do they have good empathy skills? Is their play aggressive? Because Harris has had an appointment with the child’s parents, she can start sneaking in questions or lessons that the kids need to work on.
Harris says that play therapy can help with anything related to mental health, difficult behaviors, self-esteem issues, or socialization. Generally, parents are looking to change a behavior, and Harris can sort out why the behavior is happening, what the child is feeling, and not necessarily eliminate the feeling, but teach the child how to live with it. Each child’s path is different, but children are typically in Harris’ care for 15–25 weeks (though it could be longer). According to the organization Play Therapy International, about 70 percent of children who participate in play therapy will experience a positive change.
Michelle didn’t know what was realistic to expect from Vivian’s appointments, but she hoped that her daughter would learn to minimize her anxiety and cope with whatever was left, so she was able to return to a more normal life. Months in, Michelle reports that Vivian is doing much better.
“She really enjoys her time with Ms. Brooke,” Michelle says. “It’s a very positive atmosphere, which I think she needs, because when you’re anxious, everything just seems negative.”
