"Toys are children's world and play is their language"
Garry Landreth
Are you worried about your child's behavior?
Do you feel you don't understand your child?
Do ongoing siblings battels seem to have no solution?
Do your child's teachers report unwanted behavior?
Do you feel there is something "wrong" but you don't know what?
You are not alone
Many parents seek professional help for their children
PLAY THERAPY?
Play Therapy was first used in 1928
to substitute verbal psychotherapy
Now, you can give your child the opportunity to understand themselves better. Understanding helps to control impulsive behavior. Your child's self-awareness will help them grow as an individual resilient to outer stress.
In Play Therapy, children find safe space in the company of the non-critical, supportive, and accepting professional. It is in Play Therapy, that children get the chance to be fully themselves and in non-verbal ways express everything that lies below the surface of consciousness using creative activities, such as art, music, movement, clay, sand play, masks, pretend play or therapeutic storytelling and much more. The non-directive approach of the play therapist helps the child navigate through the creative activities and the child gains the so much needed self-awareness.
NON-DIRECTIVE?
The most important aspect of Play Therapy
I like to use the following explanation: Just like we cannot order a broken bone to heal faster, the same way, we cannot speed the process of soul healing. Only the child, in their unconsciousness, has the ability to recognize what burdens them and the amount of time they need to work on it.
That is why in Play Therapy,
children are the agents of change, the initiators of therapeutic activities and processes.
In Play Therapy, therapists do not ask questions and do not give answers.
"Asking questions in therapy would be so helpful if anyone ever answered them accurately."
Virginia Axline
WHAT CAN PLAY THERAPY DO FOR YOUR CHILD?
Play and creative activities are the child's language and it is the easiest and most natural tool for expressing feelings, needs, worries, or fears.
In Play Therapy, a child learns self-control and better communication. Understands own feelings and learns what causes them. Hyperactive children become calmer, chaotic children find order in their doing, sad children grow happier and impulsive children learn to think before they act.
These positive changes come from the children themselves and therefore are not temporary - on the contrary: they become part of their lives.
Kveta Pumera
Mother of two children
Wife
Author of two books and many, many articles
Play Therapist
People ask me why, even though they try so hard to be better parents, they still feel like they are doing something wrong and their child is affected by this.
I reply, that the fact, they are thinking about their children and always questioning their actions and what effect these actions have on their child, that is already a sign of their parental love, good intentions and utmost care about their child's well being.
Searching and reading these words make you automatically a good parent who wants to make shifts for the better: for their children, for the family.
Asking leads to getting answers. Searching leads to finding - new ways, new solutions.
I have started working with children in 1989. At that time, it was my specialized high-school preparing its students for the jobs of nursery teachers and afterschool activities pedagogues.
Children are my life passion - I had wished to work with children since I was four. The reason? I did not like the way we, as children were being treated in the nursery. And I knew, if I became a teacher one day, I would be "the nice one".
Being a trained pedagogue, I quickly started working in schools, but I was young and full of energy and ideas which were too much for the stiff government school environment. I knew I had to learn more and find new ways to change things. Traveling and seeing new teaching styles from the USA and Great Britain and learning that communication with children can be based on respect (unheard of in the early 90' Czech Republic) this widened my horizons.
Becoming a mother later, raising my children in an international environment in Japan and Singapore was a very enriching part of my life. It was in Singapore, where I gained my further specialisation as a Play Therapist and a Child Counselor at the College of Allied Educators affiliated with the University of Leads. I attended courses in Child Psychology and Learning Disorders Management and later obtained a Diploma as a Certified Play Therapist from the British Play Therapy International.
After moving back from Singapore to my homeland, Czechia in 2017, I opened a private clinic in a little village Svojetice, near Ricany in 2019.
My Singaporean and later Czech clients were children affected by divorce, children with ADHD and ASD, children affected by school refusal, children with anger management issues, emotionally unstable children, gifted children, children suffering from cyber addiction, children who lived through trauma or children who were abandoned by their parents.
Play Therapy changed the lives of every one of them.
As much as I love working as a non-directive Play Therapist, I am also a mom. I have been searching for the right balance which would make me feel stable in the decisions I made. I wanted to make sure that while I am helping others, my own children or family is not being overlooked.
And lastly: I believe that every time we feel lost as parents, unsure what turn to take on the ungrateful path of decision making, we only need one sentence to guide us:
"Kids need love most when they deserve it the least"
PS: And I wish I knew whos quote this was! There seem to be a few authors to name.
Services
Professional standards meeting the expectations for high quality client services.
Individual Therapy
Behavioural disorders? Only the tip of the iceberg.
A child's behavior is designed to communicate the current state a child is in. The child uses their behavior to reach their goals or to settle with what is unavoidable. How do we get the child to be more aware of their behavior?
Play Therapy helps the child understand themselves better and find a healthy balance between their own emotions, needs, and social environment pressure
This balance is what every individual needs to grow as a strong, stabilized being.
Group Therapy
What is the child like in the social environment?
The school environment is the child's first real serious encounter with society with all its ups and downs. While some children seem to be a beneficial element for the class, others seem to ruin their teacher's attempt for any form of team building. Group therapy helps children build healthy social skills by supporting empathy and understanding we all have to co-operate for productive social life.
Filial Play - coaching
Does dealing with your child bring daily tension and stress?
How can we strengthen our relationship with our children? Let them feel they are important for us, they are being understood and seen the way they really are. Filial Play Coaching helps improve mutual respect and communication between parents and their children.
Gifted child
An intense child, often misunderstood by others
The "Gifted Child" term is well known to some whilst frown upon by others. Seen as a "diagnosis" that can only be made by running a series of extensive tests. What does it really mean to have a Gifted Child at home? A child with a huge potential in few or many areas of interest, who is born into this world in an extremely difficult "gift wrapping". Those who have never experienced might never believe.
Sometimes, just knowing you are not alone seems to be enough...
Would you like to have more information or make an appointment?