The Way of Play

1. Unlock Your Child's Potential Through PlayStrong Parenting

Once we learn that language, we can unlock the best aspects of our children, helping them develop in healthy ways, build skills and confidence, connect better with others, make better choices, and find joy as they become fully themselves.

PlayStrong's Core. The PlayStrong approach uses play to strengthen children's emotional intelligence, mental and cognitive abilities, empathy, and relational skills. It empowers caregivers to engage with children in a way that fosters positive family connections and mindful discipline. By adopting PlayStrong techniques, parents can radically change their relationship with their children.

Benefits of PlayStrong. This approach supports positive family connections by enabling shifts toward mindful discipline when kids are showing challenging behavior. It also enhances emotional intelligence, mental and cognitive abilities, empathy, and relational skills. The PlayStrong approach is about creating a mindset that focuses on who the child is and what they need.

PlayStrong's Impact. Through the years working at our institute—the Play Strong Institute in Pasadena, California—we’ve empowered thousands of caregivers to engage with children in a unique way that truly makes a difference. Parents have learned to use play to help a child move out of a meltdown. Teachers have transformed their lesson plans to become more alive and engaging. Therapists have discovered whole new ways to reach young clients who are resistant to traditional clinical methods.

2. The Essence of Play: Unstructured, Child-Led Exploration

Parent-led play can definitely have its place, but when we follow a child’s lead, that’s when the real magic happens.

Defining Play. The book emphasizes unstructured, child-led play, not structured enrichment activities. This type of play focuses on the child, giving them undivided attention, and enjoying being together. It's about creating a mindset that prioritizes understanding our child and embracing all of their individuality and uniqueness.

Play as a Mindset. Play is a way of being in relationship. It's a mindset that prioritizes understanding our child and embracing all of their individuality and uniqueness. It offers you the privilege of entering your child’s inner life, where you can discover what lights them up, what they feel most deeply about, what upsets them, what they really need, why they do what they do, who they are when they’re being totally authentic, and where they can be in perfect harmony with you and everyone around them.

Importance of Play. Play is crucial for the development of a child’s brain: their curiosity, their language development, their relational skills, their self-image, and on and on. When we don’t offer children the opportunity to play on their own terms, we’re doing them (and the world) an enormous disservice. To be blunt, a lack of play stunts their growth.

3. Think Out Loud: Cultivating Self-Awareness Through Playful Narration

What we’re doing, essentially, is introducing our kids to their inner world.

The Strategy. Thinking out loud is the first step to teaching kids to pay attention to what’s happening inside themselves so they can develop positive, conscious, intentional responses, instead of intense and off-the-cuff reactions. It involves parents narrating what they see happening during play, especially with an eye toward describing the child’s mind and intentions.

Step-by-Step Guide:

• Observe and attune: Watch and listen for clues to tune in to your child's world.
• Come up with a hypothesis: Explore interpretations of where things are headed.
• Say it out loud: Narrate what you see happening, especially with an eye toward describing your child’s mind and intentions.

Benefits. This strategy helps children become more conscious of their own thoughts, feelings, plans, ideas, wishes, and intentions. It also fosters a sense of connection between parent and child, as the child feels understood and seen. By playing the long game, you’ll unearth a gold mine of skills that will positively affect your kid’s awareness, communication, relationships, and self-control as their brain develops.

4. Mirroring Emotions: Building Empathy and Connection

Making yourself a mirror flips the empathy switch in our children, releasing a cascade of brain-based social skills and abilities, allowing your child to tap into more emotionally connected behaviors that will bring others closer and deepen their ability to socialize with nuanced and heartfelt reflection.

The Strategy. This strategy emphasizes building empathy by mirroring the actions of your kids during play. It involves joining them in their play, echoing back what you see them doing, thereby letting them know that you’re attuned to them and to what’s important to them.

Mirroring with BFVs:

• Body: Imitate physical movements or gestures.
• Face: Match your child's facial expressions.
• Voice: Echo vocal tones or rhythms.

Benefits. Mirroring helps children feel truly seen and understood. It also activates mirror neurons in the brain, which are associated with empathy and social understanding. By making yourself a mirror, you can assist them toward developing valuable life skills that come with increased empathy and social intelligence.

5. Bring Emotions to Life: Transforming Feelings into Manageable Experiences

If you want your child to learn how to manage their emotions, you’ve first got to let the emotions live and breathe.

The Strategy. This strategy focuses on helping kids recognize, manage, and express their feelings. It involves leaning into emotions expressed in play and helping children practice emotional regulation. By strategically joining your child in a dramatic play scenario and helping them bring their emotions to life, you give them the chance to “play through” their feelings—to name, experience, and discuss their emotions calmly and explicitly.

Types of Emotion-Based Play:

• Expressive Play: Developing an emotional vocabulary.
• Preventative Play: Building emotional self-control through role-playing.
• Responsive Play: Expressing and releasing emotions through play.

Benefits. Play helps children learn to manage their biggest, scariest, and most difficult feelings without having an actual fight-flight-freeze stress response. In fact, play reduces stress, so they get practice being in amplified or charged emotional states while being regulated! This is foundational for resilience.

6. Dial Intensity: Sensory Regulation Through Play

Someone is going to be here for me when I’m out of control and can’t handle things very well by myself.

The Strategy. This strategy focuses on understanding kids’ sensory preferences and responding to their struggles based on what they most need in that moment. It involves attuning to your kids during their play so you can notice their level of emotional and physical intensity in a situation and, if necessary, dial it up or down depending on what’s called for in that moment.

Understanding Sensory Preferences:

• Sensory Seekers: High threshold for sensory input.
• Sensory Avoiders: Low threshold for sensory input.

Practical Steps:

• Observe and attune: Watch for signs of dysregulation.
• Chase the why: Get curious about what's causing the dysregulation.
• Dial the intensity up or down: Provide sensory inputs that help move them back toward regulation.

Benefits. This strategy helps children develop the ability to regulate their emotions and actions when they’re upset and struggling. It also communicates that someone is going to be there for them when they’re out of control and can’t handle things very well by themselves.

7. Scaffold and Stretch: Building Resilience Through Supported Struggle

Someone is going to show up for me when things get hard, and I can handle more than I think I can.

The Strategy. This strategy focuses on injecting safe and fun challenges into your play with your child. It involves providing the support (scaffolding) they need, while challenging (stretching) them to deal with more difficult moments.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD):

• Comfort Zone: Activities children can do independently.
• Overwhelm Zone: Tasks that are too difficult, even with help.
• Zone of Proximal Development: Tasks children can complete with assistance.

Practical Steps:

• Observe your child, watching for signs they might benefit from a bit of support.
• When necessary, offer scaffolding and stretching.

Benefits. This strategy helps develop focus and resilience, stretching inner and outer skills that will produce mental strength that can be a resource for a lifetime. It also communicates that someone is going to show up for me when things get hard, and I can handle more than I think I can.

8. Narrate to Integrate: Healing and Understanding Through Storytelling

I can use stories to better understand what’s going on around me, then make choices that are good for me and that help me take charge of a situation.

The Strategy. This strategy focuses on an activity—storytelling—with the power to change a mood, an interaction, an expectation, or a seemingly unsolvable situation. It involves using narrative in play to help kids learn to resolve problems, handle conflict, and deal with difficult emotions.

Benefits of Storytelling:

• Helps kids solve problems faster and with more resilience.
• Helps kids develop empathy.
• Helps kids share their inner life.

Practical Steps:

• Observe and attune: Watch for emotional cues.
• Oscillate: Emphasize both right-brain and left-brain processing.
• Integrate and elevate: Bring in important life lessons.

Benefits. This strategy helps children use stories to better understand what’s going on around them, then make choices that are good for them and that help them take charge of a situation.

9. Set Playtime Parameters: Balancing Freedom and Structure

Someone is going to keep me safe and help me learn to do that for myself.

The Strategy. This strategy addresses a question we get all the time when we teach this material to parents: What do I do when play gets out of hand? It involves lovingly and respectfully setting appropriate and well-defined boundaries that clearly communicate our expectations, thus giving our kids opportunities to discover new flexibility and adaptable skills they can use to respect the rules of a situation and make positive decisions.

The Rules of Play:

• Take care of yourself.
• Take care of others.
• Take care of the space.

Practical Steps:

• Observe and attune.
• Acknowledge the desire.
• Set the limit.
• Offer alternatives.

Benefits. This strategy communicates that someone is going to keep me safe and help me learn to do that for myself.

10. Be Playful Beyond the Playroom: Infusing Daily Life with Joy

Play is kids’ primary language, and it’s key to helping them build emotional, cognitive, and relational skills.

The Strategy. This strategy involves taking the concepts and ideas from all the earlier strategies and employing them in ways that don’t relate specifically to playtime. It makes the argument that you take the concepts and ideas from all the earlier strategies and employ them in ways that don’t relate specifically to playtime.

Benefits of Playfulness:

• Changes a mood.
• Gains compliance.
• Injects fun into a boring moment.

The Playful Pivot. Turning toward fun and laughter can make all the difference, whether you’re trying to encourage cooperation, help with a transition, or move through and beyond conflict.

The Playful Point. The point is that we can use playfulness not just during set-aside playtimes but all throughout the day. In fact, everything we’ve discussed throughout the book has been focused less on specific strategies or approaches and more on an overall mindset, a way of being with our kids.

Last updated: April 23, 2025