Tough Times to Playtimes: The Healing Power of Play

Stop Talking. Start Playing

What if the most powerful thing you could do for your struggling child wasn't another appointment, another assessment, or another parenting book…but simply getting on the floor and playing with them?

Melanie Gilbert-De Rios has spent 35 years working with children and families. She's a registered social worker, a child-centred play therapist, and a family therapist. Most importantly, she believes something that might just change the way you see your child forever: that play is not what children do instead of healing. Play IS how children heal.

In this episode, you'll hear:

🧸 What play therapy actually is…and why it's SO much more than toys in a room

🚀 Why breakthroughs never happen in uncomfortable chairs in clinical rooms...and what to do instead

🧠 The concept of Filial Family Therapy…and why psychologists once tried to ban it for being too powerful

🪁 How 30 minutes of protected, intentional play time each week can transform your relationship with your child

💥 Why the behaviour you're seeing is just the tip of the iceberg...and what's really going on underneath

🫣 The one thing most parents do that quietly teaches their kids NOT to take responsibility (Freddie is guilty as charged…)

❤️‍🩹 Why empathy isn't something you teach a child, it's something they catch from you

🎁 The gift that matters more than Robux, more than screen time, and more than any toy in Mel's incredible playroom

If you've ever wondered whether your child is OK, whether you are OK, or whether things are ever going to feel less chaotic, this is a conversation you need to hear.

Discover more about Mel and Play Therapy Tauranga here: https://www.playtherapytauranga.co.nz/

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EPIC Families is part of Bay Paediatrics, New Zealand’s leading child Neurodevelopmental clinic. We believe every family deserves to be an EPIC family with Extraordinary Parents and Incredible Children.

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