Strive to Thrive: It all starts with the relationship you have with yourself!
Kids
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Why Play Therapy For Children?
The therapeutic approaches used for adults are not appropriate for children. Children are unable to understand and talk about their feelings and internal processes as adults are able to do. Play therapy is a process focusing on the use of play for emotional resolutions. A child can give expression to the experiences and emotions they are currently having difficulty with through therapeutic play. A variety of methods may be employed when working with a child. Games, stories, puppets, art and crafts, music, sand tray are some examples. Play therapy may be either directive or non-directive.
How will I be involved as a parent?
Parental involvement in a child’s therapy is important. Parents will be asked to meet with the therapist at times throughout their child’s therapy. Parents may be asked to join sessions and/or given recommendations to follow at home that support the therapeutic process.
How Does Play Therapy Work?
Play to children is a natural way to rehearse for life’s interactions. Play has three basic functions: cognitive and motor development and emotional resolutions. Through the play therapy process the children create play that resembles emotional experiences they are struggling with internally. These are usually experiences they are unable to express verbally. They recreate those internal conflicts through representations in the therapeutic play process. Beginning with these representations, the play evolves until the child gains a sense of understanding and resolution of the conflicts presented.
At times from the outside play therapy may look like it’s just about playing and having fun. However, empirically-based research shows play therapy is effective in treating a range of behavioral, emotional, and mental health problems.
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Positive change starts With A Solid Foundation!
As a parent, you want your child to become the leader of their own life, by understanding their true value and worth. Guided by the play based coaching program, developed by Kids Life Studio, your child will work towards achieving their full potential and understand their unique place in the world.
It doesn’t matter how committed we are to offering the best in parental support to our children, we may not always get it right. Understanding that we don’t need to figure it all out by ourselves will provide support to both you and your child.
Navigating our fast paced modern world and the challenges we face, requires tools and strategies for healthy social, emotional, and mental development.
The best gift you can give your child is the ability to navigate the ups and downs of life with confidence. Learning requires stumbling, correcting, and growing. So whatever your child may be facing right now, how you help them deal with it will determine the impact it has on their future. This all starts with creating a foundation of positive beliefs for your child so that they believe in themselves.
Trained and Certified, Kids Life Coach Check Out:
https://kidslifestudio.com/.
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Filial play therapy is a relatively short-term child and family intervention with long-term results. Filial therapy is a psychoeducational family intervention in which the therapist trains and supervises parents as they hold special child-centered play sessions with their own children, thereby engaging parents as partners in the therapeutic process and empowering them to be the primary change agents for their own children.
This approach to helping parents develop their relationships with their children through nondirective play. Filial play therapy creates a safe atmosphere where children can express themselves, try new things, learn about social rules and restrictions, develop family attachments, and develop effective social skills and bonds.
Because filial play therapy is a developmentally attuned way of communicating and understanding, it can be used with nearly all child problems. Research has shown that play therapy is more effective when parents are involved, so this approach involves training parents how to effectively play with their children.
Check out my Filial Play Therapy 12-week Program
Adolescents
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Being an adolescent means embarking on spiritual journey of self-discovery and understanding of how they fit and want to fit into this world. On this journey, past experiences and teachings, will be doubted, tested, reformatted, discarded, and reestablished. It is an exciting time, yet one that is laden with challenges and confusion.
During this developmental stage, not only is the adolescent enduring the trials, and tribulations of this spiritual journey, also are the community and family members who surround and support them. Again, this is an exciting experience, and a heroing one for all.
Utilizing my holistic approach, I will pull from a vast tool box of: therapeutic modalities, strategies and tools, mindfulness practices, and energetic healing modalities. My Holistic Coaching, is the adaptive approach in choosing the ones best suited to meet the adolescent’s specific needs and goals. Our sessions will be enjoyable, and supportive, allowing them to expand into the independent, resilient, and brightest version of the person we see in them.
I am proud of you already, as a caregiver to this adolescent, for wanting and being willing to take the steps necessary to support them on their journey. I look forward to hearing more about your adolescent and the ways in which I can best support them and you.
Adults
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I believe in a holistic approach to healing and growth. Holistic is characterized by the belief that the parts of something are interconnected: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” As humans, each experience we have, impacts us on a mental, emotional, spiritual, AND yes, physical level (somatically). When it comes to how we expand and heal: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, & physically, a single application is rarely the mechanism by which we see positive change.
In my trauma informed, holistic coaching approach, I pull from a vast tool box of therapeutic modalities, and energetic healing practices, choosing the ones best suited to meet your specific needs and goals. Our sessions will be enjoyable, and supportive, allowing you to grow your thresholds and capacities in order to take on life’s challenges in a way that builds lasting resilience.
In my trauma informed approach, we will not be working directly from past traumatic experiences, which often only serve to triggering us further, hindering the expansion of our thresholds and capacities. Instead, we will focus on what is already going right in your life, building resilience through the use of mindfulness practices, and the application of tools and strategies to enjoy each day more fully! Overtime, there will be a natural progression to work through past traumas, which will present themselves, when your internal, biological system is organized in a way that supports this processing.
Book a discovery call to find out more!
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Parenting is hard! Let’s say that again: “Parenting is HARD!!!”
The current modern way of living, makes it hard to feel like we are getting this parenting gig “right.” External stressors, poor modeling (from our own upbringing), and minimal tribal community supporting us in our daily lives, leaves us working overtime to even feel like we’re keeping our heads above water.
Welcome! I am here to support you in taking what might currently feel FRUSTRATING, OVERWHELMING, SHAMING, BURDENED, & ALONE, and transform that into feeling: IN-CONTORL, POWERFUL, KNOWLEDGEABLE, FUN, & SUPPORTED.
Together, we will identify the daily struggles your family faces, and what is going right! I will educate you on your child’s current developmental stage, and how best to support them. Through education, and the use of strategies and tools to foster healthy communication and coping skills, your efforts will ensure a feeling of trust and belonging in your home.
Parent coaching can benefit any parent, step-parent, or caregiver who is seeking support on how best to navigate meeting their child’s needs. Parent coaching can occur in person, or online, including one or both parents (separately or together).
In general, this form of coaching carries an implicit larger goal of re-establishing positive family relationships achieved through smaller goals such as improving communication, providing psychoeducation, improving parenting strategies, fostering confidence and self-efficacy, developing solution-focused thinking, and improving metacognitive skills.
I look forward to supporting you and your family as you grow TOGETHER!!
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12-week Program Foundations:
Parent preparation and education on Play Therapy and Human Development.
Mock play sessions: (behavioral rehearsals), the coach pretends to be a child while the parents practice the four play session skills (structuring, empathic listening, child-centered imaginary play, and limit-setting).
Coach demonstrations of child-centered play sessions while parents observe.
Parents hold short play sessions with their children with support from the coach. Each play session is followed by a debriefing period in which the parents and coach discuss their skill development as well as play themes and other dynamic issues that arise.
When the parents are competent and confident in conducting the play sessions, they hold them weekly with each child at home.
Future coaching sessions are available to discuss those sessions, family changes, and how to incorporate the use of the skills to everyday life.
Many families choose to continue holding the play sessions long after the coaching program ends because of their power to enhance family relationships and prevent future problems.
Emily C. -TX
“Ayla was an amazing life coach for my tween! Transitioning from Elementary School to Middle School comes with lots of big changes and big feelings. Ayla was a safe space for my daughter to talk out her feelings and better understand what was causing them. She helped her enter Middle School with a confidence that has served her well. My daughter had an amazing first year of Middle School, and I know a huge part was Ayla!”